Before the Coalition for the Common Good (CCG) was born, it was conceived. The Antioch University faculty were extremely clear about what would be acceptable parameters of such an affiliation. I served on the University Academic Counsel at the time and, collectively, the Antioch faculty communicated explicit expectations to the then-Chancellor and Antioch University Board of Governors. Faculty would only accept affiliation if partners were mission-aligned, there would be genuinely shared governance, Antioch retained control of its academic programs and their delivery, and there would be continuity of Antioch as a unified whole, not merely in name or in part. The CCG Affiliation Steering Committee, on which faculty had representatives, was charged with applying these requirements.
As a donor and faculty member with 30+ years of experience in higher education including but beyond Antioch, I have paid fairly close attention to the creation and implementation of the CCG endeavor. As a faculty leader at Antioch, including a Faculty Senate co-chair and member of both the Antioch Faculty Union Leadership Council and Bargaining Committee, I had a ringside seat to much of the roll out of the CCG. As reflected in the statements of the leaders of the universities involved and their board, the affiliation was to be mutually beneficial and individual control would remain with each partner, while shared services and costs for developing robust pathways for learners from undergraduate to graduate programs would be negotiated as they were implemented. Plain and simple, Antioch did not sell itself to Otterbein for $5m, nor did we cede control to another institution.
We are deeply committed to our mission, to our legacy of social progress since 1852, and to equity, transparency, and being a leader in innovative higher education, especially for the population of underserved adult learners. The CCG Board was never meant to be headed by only one of the two partners and have not followed their own bylaws to ensure transparent, shared governance. It's to be expected that an experiment like the CCG would hit bumps, and an analysis of the first three year reflects that. Leadership requires problem solving and collaborating, and it's deeply disappointing that the CCG, intended to provide hope and be a beacon as a way forward in these times, has been so quickly extinguished. What is happening now is not the intention, not the leadership, and certainly not the outcome we believed we all sought together in forging this endeavor.
Beth Mabry, PhD
Professor of Leadership, Change, and Sociology
Antioch University Graduate School of Leadership & Change