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Otterbein University and Antioch University announced Tuesday the official launch of their first-of-its-kind higher education system connecting private universities nationwide.
The Coalition for the Common Good, as the system will be known, was announced by the two private universities last July and received its required approvals from the Higher Learning Commission and the Ohio Department of Higher Education earlier this summer.
More higher ed:Otterbein partners with Antioch University to create a national private university system
Otterbein and Antioch — a private university founded in Yellow Springs with multiple campuses across the country — are the first schools in what their leaders hope will be a network of nonprofit, independent universities who have “a shared mission of educating students not only to advance their careers, but to promote our pluralistic democracy, social, racial, economic, and environmental justice, and the common good,” according to a news release.
“Higher education owes our nation more than career preparation,” said William R. Groves, chancellor of Antioch University and vice president of the coalition. “It requires that we educate students to be engaged global citizens and critical thinkers who are seekers of facts and truth, respectful of history, scholarly research, and science, and who are advocates for democracy, civil rights, human rights, and the rule of law.”
Currently governed by a nine-member board of directors, the Coalition for the Common Good has four directors appointed by each of the institutions and a ninth member, not affiliated with either university, appointed by the board.
The coalition will eventually expand to include other independent colleges and universities that share Otterbein and Antioch’s shared commitments to social, racial, economic, and environmental justice as well as providing access to higher education students wanting to advance their lives and communities. (Antioch University was affiliated with Antioch College in Yellow Springs until 2009, but no longer.)
“The histories of our institutions are deeply rooted in providing equal access to all learners,” said John Comerford, president of Otterbein University and president of the Coalition for the Common Good. “Otterbein and Antioch were among the first colleges in pre-Civil War America to enroll Black students and women to learn side-by-side with white, male students and today Antioch and Otterbein continue that same focus of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging.”
Comerford added that the universities are shifting gears from being competitors to collaborators for their students’ benefit. Universities have long fought over the traditional 18-to-22-year-old undergraduate student, he said. But that competition often breeds elitism and conceit within universities, he said.
The future of higher education, the two university leaders said, is with graduate and adult education programs, continuing education and degree-completion programs. Affiliated universities in the coalition will focus on shared graduate and adult-learner programs, while maintaining their own distinct undergraduate programs and brand identities.
“The Coalition for the Common Good offers an exciting, innovative model of excellence for revolutionizing and reimagining higher education in ways that position all students for success in work, citizenship, and life in the 21st century,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
The first program as part of the coalition is a clinical mental health program, offered through an already established program at Antioch to help meet Ohio’s needs for mental health counselors.
Together, the universities are building an undergraduate clinical mental health early admission pathway that will allow Otterbein undergraduates to take three graduate-level courses while earning their undergraduate degree, and then move directly into the clinical mental health graduate program.
Planning is also underway for a new Graduate School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Antioch that will expand Otterbein’s nursing, allied health, and athletic training programs to Antioch’s other markets as early as fall 2024. A new Master of Science in nutrition and dietetics degree is also being designed for launch by the coalition, as well as a joint MBA program.
Groves said the new system is more than just a solution to workforce development needs. It is about education for a more just society.
“This mission-driven system could not come at a more important inflection point in our nation’s history,” he said. “Democracy cannot survive without social justice, and social justice cannot be achieved without a strong democracy. These are American values, and they are our values.”
Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.
shendrix@dispatch.com
@sheridan120
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