A New Steward at
Antioch
By Rachel Moulton ’97
Antioch is thrilled to be able to welcome Mark
Swanholm ’92 back to the College as Antioch’s new
Director of Major Gifts and Annual Giving. Mark joined
the Office of Development and Alumni relations in June
of 2004 and hopes that he can act as a point of connection
for alumni and friends of the College. “I want to translate
for others what is going on here and what the College’s
needs truly are,” Mark said. “We’ve got a lot of alums
who are really interested in being connected with the
College. It’s my job to help them figure out how they can
have the greatest impact with whatever means they have
to give back to the College.”
Mark first came to Antioch in 1988 as a student with
his wife Susan Kamins ’92. Both entered Antioch after
having attended other colleges for short periods of time.
They met while working for Greenpeace and drove
around the country, touring colleges where they might
make a new home for themselves. “We walked around
campus and met a bunch of interesting people, and
somewhere in the course of two or three days we decided
that this was the place.”
Mark’s experience was evenly distributed between
co-op, classroom and community. Mark focused on
communications, combining interests in journalism and
film. Bob Devine ’67, College Professor, was Mark’s
advisor. He worked with Anne Bohlen, Associate Professor
of Film & Communications, on his senior project,
an ambitious project that he jokes about returning to one
day. He served on AdCil, edited the Record and worked
for Community Government. His co-ops, he says, were
all influential, but when asked which were most memorable
he quickly recounts his first co-op in New York
City: “I had never been in New York prior to co-op so I
had to show up there and find housing. I was working at
a school in East Harlem, doing PR for one of our
MacArthur winners, Deborah Meier ’54.” Mark helped
to publicize Meier’s school, and while the job itself
certainly had an impact on Mark, the smaller things also
left an impression. “I lived on the upper west side and
I walked through Central Park everyday to work. I went
to the 92nd street Y. I met Kurt Vonnegut. New York
opened up a whole new world to me.”
In the intervening years, between graduation from
Antioch and this new position, Mark kept in touch with
his faculty advisors. “I didn’t go on to do film but did get
in to the Internet. I used a lot of the information from
communications classes here to inform how I did work
in the field.” Mark started several companies. One of the
first big ones was very values led. “Our company did
Internet consulting but we also did benefit concerts and
promoted community groups. We gave 10% of the
profits to nonprofit groups and did non-profit web work
for free. The spirit of social entreprenuership we talked
about at Antioch really influenced me,” Mark explained.
Directly after graduation Mark and Susan considered
graduate school but quickly moved to Boulder,
Colorado, where they would stay for several years.
Mark’s jobs in Boulder ranged from working in a deli to
continuing to work with Greenpeace to working in a
copy shop. The copy shop job turned out to be quite a
good thing. “It was an independent place and the couple
who ran it were entrepreneurs. They dabbled in this and
that. It was, for example, the first copy shop to offer
printing services over the internet. From there we formed
a joint company to promote online auctions.” After that,
Mark says he became something of a serial entrepreneur.
Mark points out that Antioch has a lot of alums who
are really interested in being connected with the College.
It is establishing and renewing these connections
that Mark sees as his number one priority, but, as a
technologist, he is also interested in seeing Antioch
upgrade its technology. “As we look at the Renewal
initiatives, technology is going to be a key part of
making that work. There is a lot that can be done to help
us connect with our alums and other friends out there in
the world. We can start to broaden that sense of community.”
Mark will help make sure that the funds you give to
the College go to the things you think are the most
important: “We are absolutely going to make sure that
the stewardship of these gifts is appropriate and we need
to make sure we maximize every dollar given. We are
looking to the future.” Through trips, emails and publications,
Mark has already begun to reach out to the
world-wide Antioch community. “Sitting down to talk
to people about what they found valuable about their
Antioch experience and what they think they could do
today to enhance that greater community is a great
opportunity.” Antioch, a school that is always trying to
reach its full potential, Mark said, is still as innovative
as it ever was and as vital to the students as it should be.
Visit www.antioch-college.edu/giving to make an
online donation to Antioch College. 
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