Antioch College
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Antioch College supports the work and mission of Community Solutions in multiple ways. Community Solutions is a non-profit with the mission to educate people about ways to make their communities more self-reliant and resilient. They also operate Agraria, a 130-acre institute for regenerative agriculture. In our multi-year partnership, Antioch students work as Miller Fellows during a quarter-long co-operative education program to fill pressing organizational needs, such as soil testing, web development, invasive plant removal, and grant writing. Miller Fellows have worked on a wide variety of projects at Community Solutions, such as coordinating a Community Organizing Conference, winterizing homes in Springfield, and operating a community garden and farm stand in a food desert. Antioch College has benefitted from the partnership in numerous ways. An AmeriCorps VISTA fellow employed at Community Solutions helped teach a class called Dialog Across Difference. This class culminated in several sustainability-focused projects such as bipartisan effort to stop fracking in Wayne National Forest. In 2016, the College held a Roundtable Forum on Displacement, Migration, and Refugees in collaboration with Community Solutions. Ecological health is covered through initiatives on Agraria, Community Solutions' institute for regenerative agriculture. Economic prosperity was covered during the Community Solutions Economics of Happiness Conference which Antioch College was a cosponsor. Finally, social equity and wellbeing is a central part of the work Antioch students have done in Springfield operating a farm stand in a food desert and working in an after school program. Groups including Dayton CANN, Springfield Promise, and others are deeply involved in these projects at all levels.

Antioch College supports the work and mission of the Tecumseh Land Trust in multiple ways. TLT is a Land Trust that saves farm and natural land in a two-county area that includes Antioch College. In our multi-year partnership, Antioch students work as Miller Fellows during a quarter-long co-operative education program, doing office, analytical and programmatic work for TLT. TLT has assisted Antioch in preserving our Glen Helen Nature Preserve with a conservation easement. TLT and Antioch staff and faculty are in collaboration on a recent federal grant for the Jacoby Creek Watershed. In our collaborative work on Farmland Preservation, Natural Areas and Watershed protection, TLT and Antioch College are addressing economic, well-being, and ecological sustainability in Clark and Greene Counties in Ohio.