Community Governance

Community Governance (CG) has played a vital social and educational role at Antioch College since the early 1930’s. As a “laboratory for democracy,” Community Governance acts as a pedagogical tool by giving those who partake in it the skills necessary to effect change in the world. This pedagogy is a core part of Antioch’s historical curriculum. Community Council, College Council, and Community Meeting are three keys to CG at Antioch.

More about CG at Antioch College

Community Government is designed to provide an operating structure of genuine self-government, based upon the widest achievable participation, for these inseparable purposes:

• Practically, to further the interests and meet the needs of the Community and its members as judiciously as possible; and
• Educationally, to aid in the development of the individual as a citizen in a democratic society.

Community Government, then, helps to maintain a context within which individuals learn both to make responsible use of those opportunities for self-expression and self-development that the community provides and to honor their consequent obligation to the community and its members. So educated, they may be better motivated and equipped for effective membership in any other community of their subsequent choice. For these purposes to be best satisfied, any governmental structure should pursue the following guiding principles:

• Accessibility, to allow every capable and willing person to participate, no matter one’s institutional connection. position, or social outlook.
• Transparency, which requires those with the capacity to create policy, or to prevent the policy from being enacted, explain their methods and reasons for doing so.
• Sustainability, which provides for adherence to ideas present at the structure’s inception, while allowing adjustment to changing circumstances.