Reunion weekend
Registration: 12 to 5 p.m., Thursday, June 17; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday; 8 a.m. to noon, Saturday.
For more information, schedule of events and to register online: antiochcollege.org/reunion_2010.html
YELLOW SPRINGS — The annual gathering of Antioch College alumni Thursday, June 17-20, will have special meaning for Carl Hyde, a 1948 graduate and longtime villager.
“It is very important to me,” said Hyde, who met his wife of nearly 60 years at the college. “I have a tremendous emotional commitment to Antioch.”
And the theme of the reunion of race and social justice also is important to Hyde, who worked to integrate the campus in the 1940s when he was an undergraduate. His and others efforts saw Edythe Scott Bagley, the college’s first black student , and Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., enroll at the college.
Bagley is one of several pioneering alumni to be recognized during the weekend celebration.
The late William David Chappelle III, a former dean and professor, and Jim Dunn, who directed the coopertive program, also will be honored.
Attitudes this time likely will be different from attitudes three years ago when Antioch University announced it was shuttering the college.
“Two hundred signed up and 600 showed up,” Hyde remembered.
“Almost any issue that comes up in Yellow Springs is controversial, but this is one thing that everyone wants. Everyone wants Antioch to prosper,” Hyde said. “A lot of alumni have contributed to the college now that we’re not going to give to the university.”
Matthew Derr, interim president of the newly independent college, said alumni have really stepped up to give Antioch a bright future. When the college reopens next fall, it will be with a small class of 25 students.
That “pioneering” first class will be funded by the college’s $25 million endowment that has been raised since the closing. In following years, Derr expects the college to slowly grow, with an emphasis on educating students who will help solve some of society’s greatest challenges.
“What we are doing is linking a core liberal arts curriculum and linking it with problem solving,” Derr said.
About the Author