Antioch College:
President who led revival is leaving. College graduated first class of students since reopening.
the school must work fast to find its next president; the current one’s contract expires soon,
— Antioch YELLOW SPRINGS College has survived four years after reopening and graduated its first class of students, and now the institution must work quickly to replace its current president, Mark Roosevelt, who leaves when his contract expires at the end of the year.
The college will start interviewing candidates for the president position in September and plans to interview finalists the following month, according to staff.
The college hopes to make a final selection by November and have that person work with Roosevelt, whose contract expires December 31.
Roosevelt, the great-grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, announced in May he would not renew his five-year contract. He has accepted a similar leadership role at St. John’s College in Sante Fe, N.M., where he will also serve as president.
The college is working with an executive search firm,
Isaacson, Miller, and has formed a 21-member search committee, made up of students, staff and faculty, to facilitate the search for Roosevelt’s replacement. A college trustee, Malte von Matthiessen, a member of the Antioch College Class of 1966 and a Yellow Springs resident, will chair the search committee.
Antioch College Board of Trustees Chairwoman Francis Dean Horowitz does not anticipate Roosevelt’s leaving will have a negative impact on the institution.
“We’ve all felt very appreciative for Mark taking on this challenge,” she said. “.... His decision to take this on was very fortuitous. He’s done a marvelous job and he’s leaving with a lot of accomplishments.”
Stabilizing the institution, which is essentially a 162-year-old startup, after it reopened in 2011 is one of Roosevelt’s biggest accomplishments, Horowitz said.
The college closed in 2008 because the upkeep and maintenance of the school’s deteriorating buildings were too costly and contributed to the institution’s financial struggles.
When the campus reopened, it had more boarded up buildings than useable buildings. There was no music program or gym, campus and administrative policies had to be recreated and the course catalog was thin, according to Antioch sources.
“He’s kept the institution on a steady course,” Horowitz said. “He did with a vision and that vision is turning out to be a workable vision and it is attracting very good students.”
Under Roosevelt’s tenure, the college’s student population has steadily grown each year. The college started with 35 students in 2011. About 238 students were enrolled for the 2014-2015 academic year.
According to Roosevelt, one of the biggest challenges that came with the job were financial. The institution has a $19 million philanthropic-driven annual budget. The college, which has not charged tuition since it reopened, derives little revenue from student fees.
“Antioch is not a community blessed with a large number of people who are very, very wealthy,” Roosevelt said. “So if you look at our giving pyramid, versus others raising the same kind of money, where we have problems is at the big very big gift level. That’s hard to compensate for.”
The college has raised more than $80 million in gifts and commitments since the institution’s revival effort began, according to staff.
During the 2015-2016 academic year, Antioch College will charge $33,236 for tuition, but will help offset the cost for some students with a halftuition scholarship.
In addition to fundraising, the campus needs over $100 million in campus infrastructure upgrades.
“I dealt with it as best I could for as long as I could,” Roosevelt said.
Roosevelt said he is leaving with some regrets. He wishes there were more money in the bank and he wishes the profile of the college would have been elevated higher in certain places. He wishes more people could see the “beauty” of the colleges distinctive pedagogical insight — that work and academics should be connected.
“Antioch has something incredibly valuable to offer,” he said. “I wish I had been successful in bringing that to a higher level of attention.”