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The Flashpoint: Documents Behind the Dispute

Board Book
A Turnaround, Not a Launch

Board Book

The March 12 Board Book is the most important document in understanding how the divide between Antioch University’s leaders and Coalition President John Comerford developed. Rather than rely on competing descriptions of it, Antioch leaders invite journalists to read the relevant pages. 

The report was authored and edited by members of Antioch’s leadership team. It was prepared as a direct response from the AU Board’s Finance Committee. That committee asked the new leadership team to use the available data to analyze the financial and operational position of AU, the CCG’s sole academic division. 

The posted sections of the Board Book provide the emerging analysis of the Coalition’s governance structure, the economics of programs transferred from Otterbein, leadership costs, and the proposed rollout of shared services.

A few places for journalists and researchers to review include the following. NOTE: The pages are based on the PDF viewer’s “page count.”

  • Page 4: The authors affirm that they want the Coalition to succeed. They say the data include favorable and unfavorable findings and that transparent financial analysis strengthens the partnership.
  • Pages 9–12: The report examines the transferred programs’ revenue trends, instructional costs, and use of investment funds. These are the underlying numbers behind the questions Antioch’s leaders brought to the Board.
  • Pages 17–19: The report identifies missing elements of the proposed shared-services operating model and sets out a specific alternative sequence for developing it. After noting that President Comerford chose another path, it says: “We are following that direction.”
  • Page 21: The conclusion explains both the scope and limits of the work. The authors say the newly assembled data will need refinement; they do not present it as beyond question.

Because this report became a flashpoint in the dispute, its language matters. 

Readers can see for themselves that Antioch’s leaders raised questions, showed their work, acknowledged uncertainty, and proposed a way forward. The analysis was presented as a step towards joint problem-solving. Nonetheless, it was this very report that was characterized by CCG leaders as being disloyal, biased, and manipulative. The CCG president referred to the information it contained as a ‘full attack on the CCG.'

READ THE BOARD BOOK HERE

Otterbein Pitched Growth. Its Programs Were Already Shrinking.

ANTIOCH INHERITED A TURNAROUND, NOT A LAUNCH.

Key Data that Describe Otterbein’s Transferred Programs. OU’s “Ready to Scale” narrative doesn't fit.

Cover headline above is an editorial characterization supported by the supplied Otterbein/IPEDS preannouncement degree conferrals chart and President Comerford’s June 5, 2026 letter confirming that Grant Hospital pulled out of the CRNA program in fall 2022. It does not establish the profitability of the programs, a dollar cost of rebuilding, or causation of subsequent enrollment declines.

Slide titled “OU’s ‘Ready to Scale’ Narrative Doesn’t Fit” presents five points challenging Otterbein President John Comerford’s account of the transferred programs. It states that degrees awarded declined before the July 2022 transfer announcement, Comerford’s figures show declines in Business and Allied Health, the CRNA program lost its hospital partner in fall 2022, and Antioch had to rebuild programs before it could scale. The slide concludes with a quote from Comerford acknowledging that announcing the program transfers in 2022 was premature.
For media use: The 107, 96 and 89 total consists of MBA, Allied Health, MSN, Education and CRNA master’s degree awards in 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 from the supplied IPEDS chart. John Comerford’s June 5, 2026 letter reports Business enrollment 208 to 187, Allied Health 91 to 72, and Education 213 to 272 in 2020–21 to 2021–22, and states that Grant Hospital pulled out of Otterbein’s CRNA program in fall 2022. The final point is an inference from these facts, not a quantified proof of readiness, profit, or cause of later declines. The letter describes fall 2022 after the July announcement, so partner withdrawal should not be called a preannouncement event.


Bar chart showing combined degrees awarded by five Otterbein graduate programs declining from 107 in 2019–20 to 96 in 2020–21 and 89 in 2021–22, a 17% decrease over the three-year period.
Source: user-supplied Otterbein/IPEDS degree conferrals chart. Totals are the sum of the five series (MBA, Allied Health, MSN, Education, CRNA) for each academic year. The July 2022 announcement followed AY 2021–22. Awards lag enrollment.
Bar chart showing degrees awarded by five Otterbein graduate programs from 2019–20 through 2021–22. None showed sustained growth: MSN declined from 29 to 22, Allied Health from 18 to 12, and Education from 20 to 16; MBA fluctuated from 25 to 22 to 24, while CRNA went from 15 to 13 and back to 15.
Source: user-supplied Otterbein/IPEDS degree conferrals chart, AY 2019–20 to 2021–22. Education rose in President Comerford’s separate enrollment figures; this slide shows degree awards, which are a distinct lagging measure.
Line chart showing master’s degrees awarded across five Otterbein programs from 2018–19 through 2024–25, with the July 2022 transfer announcement marked. Before the announcement, combined awards declined from 107 in 2019–20 to 89 in 2021–22.
Source: user-supplied Otterbein University Master’s Degree Conferrals chart (AY 2018–19 to AY 2024–25). Series transcribed from that chart. The announcement occurred between 2021–22 and 2022–23 in the source visual. Conferrals lag enrollment and should not be characterized as contemporaneous demand or causal evidence of the transfer.
Line chart showing Otterbein MSN and CRNA degrees awarded from 2018–19 through 2021–22. MSN awards declined from 31 to 22 before July 2022, while CRNA awards fluctuated from 14 to 15. In fall 2022, the CRNA hospital partner withdrew, requiring Antioch to rebuild the clinical partnership before the program could expand as planned.
Sources: user-supplied Otterbein University Master’s Degree Conferrals chart, AY 2018–19 through 2024–25; John Comerford, letter to Antioch Board of Governors, June 5, 2026, stating “Fall 2022 - Grant Hospital pulls out of Otterbein CRNA program.” These are distinct points: declining MSN conferrals before announcement, and a clinical-partner withdrawal for CRNA afterward. No causal claim that the withdrawal caused the MSN conferral decline or quantified financial loss is established by these sources. John’s nursing enrollment comparison has an MSN-to-DNP classification change and is deliberately omitted. Nursing programs transferred January 2026 according to the letter.

DOWNLOAD THE SLIDES → PowerPoint 

DOWNLOAD THE SLIDES → PDF