YELLOW SPRINGS Ohio
Hanging by a chain from the ceiling in the main hallway of Antioch Hall is a black sign: “Office of Transition.”
The placard points Antioch College students to the place that can help them transfer away from the private, 155-year-old liberal-arts school nationally known for nontraditional approaches and social activism, now on the brink of shutting its doors.
But the administration’s plan to temporarily close the school has rallied its former students to the kind of buck-the-establishment cause they were steeped in here.
In e-mail campaigns and gatherings across the country, Antioch alumni have raised about $15 million in cash and pledges.
At a meeting Friday they are ready to press their plan to keep the school operating, including fundraising, retaining a solid core of faculty members and renovating dorms as finances allow.
“This is the only chance we’ll ever have because if we blow this, it’s gone,” said Rick Daily, executive director and treasurer of the Antioch alumni association.
