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Community Meeting - Tuesday April 1, 2008
By Horace | April 5, 2008
During which Andrzej Bloch, interim president of Antioch College, behaves in a most un-presidential manner. This is a recording of the entire meeting. Andrzej speaks later in the meeting.
Also noteworthy in this meeting is the appearance of Ellen Borgersen of the Alumni Board / CRF reading her letter to the Yellow Springs news. This is what Andrzej was responding to when he called her a liar (and then told others to shut up and stormed out of the room physically pushing aside a member of the faculty)
Special thanks to Don Wallace for recording this event.
Topics: community meeting |
April 8th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
EDIT: I wrote this statement the evening of (it has now been a week). I heard that Andrzej put out a short apology over the internet. I, as per usual, am unable to sign onto first-class at my home off campus due to a myriad of difficulties, so I have not seen the apology. However, my feelings on my actions remain the same, apology or no.
Today at community meeting, after an hour of fun, laughter, and the response from one of our community members, Ellen, on
all that has happened over the past weekend Andrzej stood up (ahead of the stack) and told everyone that he had
somewhere to be and that if we wanted to hear him talk, then he had to do it now (ahead of the stacks). I personally was happy to
see him go since he wasn’t there for much of the meeting, and on more than one occasion hasn’t respected the community’s
way of organizing these meetings. Others were also happy to see him leave as well, but out of a certain amount of fairness and
decorum, he was told to speak.
What followed were the exact quotes the community has heard over and over and over again from the constant press releases
from LaPierre - the university’s PR gal (amusing). I raised my eyebrows when he called Ellen a liar (interesting).
I found it *uproariously* funny when he got to the PR quote I had just read the night before about a “hostile takeover of the
university”. I laughed my butt off (as did the rest of the room), turned to look at him, and he looked at me and said, “shut up”. For half a second I saw my
son’s face, and looked at my flabbergasted partner.
In that moment I became OUTRAGED. My mouth opened, and I without even thinking found myself speaking out for
my own voice and what is right. As he turned to stomp out of the meeting, he pushed aside a gentleman and more angry words
followed. I looked down at my son again who was upset, and moved to calm him. I realized suddenly that I had stood
up in front of a room of people and a camera and opened my mouth letting my rights tumble out. And I was mortified.
I apologized for “loosing my temper”. I hadn’t had time to think. And I was scared crap-less of what “the University” was
going to do to me, and what repercussions that might have on my family and I, and on the college. I was hurting and wondering
if I had given fuel to some fire… I wasn’t sure if I would wind up “punished” in some way for my voice.
And now I have had time to think. And the thoughts I had immediately following Andrzej tantrum (my nearly two-year-old son likes to stomp off when he’s mad too)and my reproval of him as a pissed off woman, mother, and community member make me realize even more clearly:
I am NOT sorry for “loosing my temper”.
I said it later on in the meeting, and I’ll do it again now: ANYONE WHO IS TOLD TO “SHUT UP”, SILENCED, OR TOLD THEY
HAVE NO VOICE HAS EVERY RIGHT TO BE OUTRAGED. I AM OUTRAGED. I AM NOT SORRY FOR THAT.
What I did do is to tell him in no uncertain terms that he was not to tell me to shut up, and that he was, in fact, interrupting and should
really just wrap it up (read: today you aren’t going to monopolize all of our time while shitting on us all, then walking out as per usual) nothing
that I said was out of line except my apology.
There is a time for keeping quiet, a time for decorum. Being told to
“shut up” in front of my community, my spouse, and my child from a college “president/ceo” who continued on to nearly assault another in his way
(he pushed someone on his way out) is not the time for quiet or decorum.
Women are taught that their anger is bad. To survive I learned to blend in, and to be quiet. It was a hair-trigger reaction for
me to be mortified at my display of anger at being told to shut up, and my very appropriate reaction to it. I’m quite glad that it comes out at the appropriate times despite this.
I have grown, lived, and learned not to give my personal worth and power away by allowing another to tell me to “shut up”, and neither should anyone else.
Sincerely,
Amanda Caserta