Antioch University

Antioch University, private coeducational institution of higher learning founded in 1852 as Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, U.S. It is noted for its experimental curricula and work-study programs. Public education reformer and “Father of the Common School,” Horace Mann was its first president, serving from 1853 until his death in 1859. In 1978 Antioch College adopted the name Antioch University.

Although the college from its outset was coeducational, nonsectarian, and committed to equal opportunity for Black students, its real innovations began in 1921 when its president, Arthur E. Morgan, undertook what has been called the first progressive venture of consequence in higher education, an attempt to combine “a liberal college education, vocational training, and apprenticeship for life.” Students were required to alternate their time between traditional subjects and full-time jobs, to give them experience of “actual living in actual society.” The first liberal arts college to establish a co-op curriculum, Antioch continues to conduct cooperative and work-experience programs in many U.S. states and in foreign countries.

The school has branches throughout the United States offering undergraduate liberal-arts and graduate courses of study. Campuses are located in Yellow Springs (Antioch University Graduate School of Leadership & Change); Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, California; and Seattle. The campus of Antioch University New England is in Keene, New Hampshire. In June 2008 Antioch College, the original flagship campus of the Antioch University system, closed its doors because of enrollment and financial difficulties. The following year Antioch alumni formed the Antioch College Continuation Corporation and licensed the Antioch College name from Antioch University. A newly formed Antioch College reopened in 2011 with a commitment to the same values as its predecessor.

Notable alumni include social activists Olympia Brown and Coretta Scott King, television dramatist Rod Serling, anthropologist Clifford Geertz, paleontologist and writer Stephen Jay Gould, and two Nobel Prize winners—scientist Mario R. Capecchi(Physiology or Medicine, 2007) and political activist José Ramos-Horta (Peace, 1996).