Scenes From the Death of a College
March 26, 2015 10:00 AM Subscribe
"Alumnae like to describe Sweet Briar College as a magical place ... That sense of magic evaporated in early March, after the board of directors decided that Sweet Briar’s failure to increase its revenue in recent decades had driven it to the brink of financial collapse. The board had voted unanimously on February 28 to close the 700-student college at the end of the current academic year."
One of the articles I read about this mentioned that with this closing, the number of women's colleges will be down to 44, from a high in the hundreds. It's clearly increasingly difficult to operate a successful women-only school today than it was not long ago, which underlies this specific issue.
But at the same time, there is a lot that is troubling about the decision to close Sweet Briar and it really feels like potential pathways weren't seriously considered. It almost seems like someone tried to use the "we'll have to close!" as a bluff to create urgency and somehow that became the actual plan. I can understand why the students and faculty are outraged.
There are a lot of underfunded colleges in the US. Places like Amherst with enormous endowments are fine, but there are a lot of places that don't have the depth of wealthy alumni to draw on and just don't have the funds to compete on that playing field. When Antioch had its crises, people were able to dismiss it because of all the uniquely bad decisions that had been made, but Sweet Briar is a place that (mostly) has been doing the right things and playing by the accepted rulebook. Its closing is a huge warning signal for a lot of schools, and I would not be surprised to see others take the same step in the coming years.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:27 AM on March 26, 2015 [5 favorites]
But at the same time, there is a lot that is troubling about the decision to close Sweet Briar and it really feels like potential pathways weren't seriously considered. It almost seems like someone tried to use the "we'll have to close!" as a bluff to create urgency and somehow that became the actual plan. I can understand why the students and faculty are outraged.
There are a lot of underfunded colleges in the US. Places like Amherst with enormous endowments are fine, but there are a lot of places that don't have the depth of wealthy alumni to draw on and just don't have the funds to compete on that playing field. When Antioch had its crises, people were able to dismiss it because of all the uniquely bad decisions that had been made, but Sweet Briar is a place that (mostly) has been doing the right things and playing by the accepted rulebook. Its closing is a huge warning signal for a lot of schools, and I would not be surprised to see others take the same step in the coming years.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:27 AM on March 26, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's the exact same issue that the HBCUs are dealing with as well - when you're an institution originally built to provide opportunities to a population that cannot find them elsewhere, those doors getting opened is going to impact you.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:33 AM on March 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:33 AM on March 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
Sweet Briar was on my daughter's short list for a while, because of the equestrian program. However, she wanted to study horses, not just ride them, and they didn't have an animal science program. That campus is gorgeous though, best acres per student ratio of any college in the country. I have to think there was a market to merge or be acquired by a larger school in VA.
posted by COD at 10:36 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by COD at 10:36 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
I work at a university, and it's scary sometimes how pressing the need is to bring in tuition dollars and retain or increase student numbers. It can feel very dire. The big solution that most every school that is not floundering is embracing is increasing online educational options. For a small liberal arts school that that is designed more for the traditional campus experience, the world is changing quickly and many people are more often looking for convenience (via online or other non-traditional formats) versus having the "college experience" that used to be a rite of passage.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:37 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:37 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
I work at a small-ish .edu with an equestrian program about 15 minutes drive from our downtown campus.
I have recently learned that these programs aren't terribly common. I wonder if a nearby school could "buy" Sweet Briar College and add the facilities -- and this subject -- to their course offerings? Shrinking cohorts of incoming students mean that colleges are having to work harder and harder to attract prospects, and offering a rare speciality might be a good draw for one of the larger area schools.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:49 AM on March 26, 2015
I have recently learned that these programs aren't terribly common. I wonder if a nearby school could "buy" Sweet Briar College and add the facilities -- and this subject -- to their course offerings? Shrinking cohorts of incoming students mean that colleges are having to work harder and harder to attract prospects, and offering a rare speciality might be a good draw for one of the larger area schools.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:49 AM on March 26, 2015
A friend of mine is an SBC graduate and her facebook the past couple weeks has been so sad, all these alumnae mourning together online.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:52 AM on March 26, 2015
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:52 AM on March 26, 2015
The Roanoke Times published an editorial calling for resignation of Sweet Briar's board of trustees, and lays out why its finances don't seem to be as impossible as the board says.
It does seem very odd to me that they would announce the closure so abruptly.
posted by rtha at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
It does seem very odd to me that they would announce the closure so abruptly.
posted by rtha at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
I know a couple of Sweet Briar alums and to say they were surprised and disappointed would be an understatement.
One common thing they noted was that the administration didn't seem to try very hard, or at least didn't do a great job, recruiting foreign students. Other womens colleges have much higher percentages (e.g. Smith's website says 20%), and on the whole international students tend to pay the rack rate to a larger extent than US students do. So a better strategy there might have gone a long way towards plugging the financial gap.
Probably too late now; I wonder what they'll do with the campus and with the remaining endowment funds?
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
One common thing they noted was that the administration didn't seem to try very hard, or at least didn't do a great job, recruiting foreign students. Other womens colleges have much higher percentages (e.g. Smith's website says 20%), and on the whole international students tend to pay the rack rate to a larger extent than US students do. So a better strategy there might have gone a long way towards plugging the financial gap.
Probably too late now; I wonder what they'll do with the campus and with the remaining endowment funds?
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
I did read that the board decided to cut bait now so that there would be funds available to do a transition that would take good care of staff, faculty, and students. I do hope that's the case.
posted by lunasol at 10:59 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by lunasol at 10:59 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
When I see a story like this these days, I immediately wonder about recent changes to the board and presidency, and how valuable the campus real estate is.
The article partially answered my first question:
posted by jamjam at 11:10 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
The article partially answered my first question:
Mr. Jones, whose wife and sister-in-law graduated from Sweet Briar, came to the institution from Trinity College, in Connecticut, which he led for 10 years. He had been president of Sweet Briar for only six months when the board voted to close the college, a fact his critics now regard with suspicion. (Some have insisted he was brought in specifically to preside over the closure, a theory he strongly denies.)and COD addressed the second right here in this thread:
Sweet Briar was on my daughter's short list for a while, because of the equestrian program. However, she wanted to study horses, not just ride them, and they didn't have an animal science program. That campus is gorgeous though, best acres per student ratio of any college in the country. I have to think there was a market to merge or be acquired by a larger school in VA ...But I haven't found out anything relevant about the board yet.
posted by jamjam at 11:10 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sweet Briar, of course, is outside Lynchburg, which is sort of where I grew up. (Indeed, apropos of nothing, the first girl I ever kissed was the daughter of a Sweet Briar professor. Very sexy, and quite mad.) The area has always had an air of the old-southern planter class still lingering around it. First Families of Virginia and all that. It may have been overshadowed by the younger and more vulgar obvious Falwellite Republican-Evangelist thing, but it's still a thing nonetheless.
A big part of that has been kind of upscale (yet with a slight genteel shabbiness) private education, which has tended very much toward single sex institutions. In the past couple decades, most of these have given up the ghost or gone coed or some combination of the two. I went to a private boys high school in Lynchburg (and man did I not fit in there), which was right down the street from a private girls high school - any graduate of which would have fit perfectly at Sweet Briar. The girls school ended up closing almost immediately after my boys school went coed.
There was also Randolph-Macon Woman's College in town, which was established by a couple of trusts back in the day. It went coed more recently and they had to change the name because the Macon part of the founding wills and what not were apparently iron-clad that the school had to enroll only women. So now it's just Randolph College.
Not surprising to hear Sweet Briar is struggling. It comes from a time when the best path to success, wealth, and influence for women of the southern elite was to become cultured and sophisticated and marry an up and coming young man of the southern elite. Someone who might end up Governor of Virginia someday. That's simply no longer the case. Now if you're an ambitious, well-educated daughter of the southern elite, you just go straight to an Ivy and achieve success yourself. Sweet Briar is fondly regarded as a core institution of a well-remembered way of life, but the role it was designed to fill doesn't really exist any more.
For some time they'd been offering massive financial aid to get qualified students outside the traditional elite to go there - which is fine on the face of it for diversity and all that, but it also means a different crop of alumnae. They might love the school as much as the old alumnae did, but they aren't married to the Governor of Virginia or in similar positions to use their influence and wealth to aid their old alma mater. I think Sweet Briar did its best to adjust to the new world, but in the end it just wasn't possible.
posted by Naberius at 11:13 AM on March 26, 2015 [16 favorites]
A big part of that has been kind of upscale (yet with a slight genteel shabbiness) private education, which has tended very much toward single sex institutions. In the past couple decades, most of these have given up the ghost or gone coed or some combination of the two. I went to a private boys high school in Lynchburg (and man did I not fit in there), which was right down the street from a private girls high school - any graduate of which would have fit perfectly at Sweet Briar. The girls school ended up closing almost immediately after my boys school went coed.
There was also Randolph-Macon Woman's College in town, which was established by a couple of trusts back in the day. It went coed more recently and they had to change the name because the Macon part of the founding wills and what not were apparently iron-clad that the school had to enroll only women. So now it's just Randolph College.
Not surprising to hear Sweet Briar is struggling. It comes from a time when the best path to success, wealth, and influence for women of the southern elite was to become cultured and sophisticated and marry an up and coming young man of the southern elite. Someone who might end up Governor of Virginia someday. That's simply no longer the case. Now if you're an ambitious, well-educated daughter of the southern elite, you just go straight to an Ivy and achieve success yourself. Sweet Briar is fondly regarded as a core institution of a well-remembered way of life, but the role it was designed to fill doesn't really exist any more.
For some time they'd been offering massive financial aid to get qualified students outside the traditional elite to go there - which is fine on the face of it for diversity and all that, but it also means a different crop of alumnae. They might love the school as much as the old alumnae did, but they aren't married to the Governor of Virginia or in similar positions to use their influence and wealth to aid their old alma mater. I think Sweet Briar did its best to adjust to the new world, but in the end it just wasn't possible.
posted by Naberius at 11:13 AM on March 26, 2015 [16 favorites]
I think the fact that alums, professors, and students are shocked is an interesting part of this story. I attended a small private liberal arts college with vastly different challenges than this one, and the board of that college is often accused of a lack of transparency, but this certainly takes the cake. I'd be interested to know what cost-cutting measures the board considered and discarded (apparently without consulting at all with members of the community)? It appears they considered fundraising campaigns but decided it was too expensive, but the goal shouldn't be just to raise more money from current alums, but to produce alums that are increasingly inclined and capable of donating.
Honest speculation - I wonder if the board decided their only course of action was to go co-ed, and then discovered that wasn't possible based on the terms of their original endowment. That could explain the secrecy and the seeming lack of a Plan A.
posted by muddgirl at 11:20 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Honest speculation - I wonder if the board decided their only course of action was to go co-ed, and then discovered that wasn't possible based on the terms of their original endowment. That could explain the secrecy and the seeming lack of a Plan A.
posted by muddgirl at 11:20 AM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's interesting to compare Sweet Briar's evolution to that of Mary Baldwin, which is about 100 miles away. Mary Baldwin - which has a smaller endowment - has worked on modernizing in ways that I don't think Sweet Briar has. In addition to creating and publicizing a program to enroll and support women of non-traditional college age and situation, they've created programs in health sciences, ROTC, exceptionally gifted teens, Shakespeare, music, and education that lead to advanced degrees, take advantage of local resources, and they work to appeal to folks. They've positioned themselves as a place you can go and emerge with a great education and practical skills - and people know it in this part of Virginia.
Sweet Briar - at least when I was looking at women's colleges in the 80s/90s - really felt like it was resting on their laurels. If I hadn't known a bunch of older Sweet Briar alums (whom - to a woman - can really get things done), I might have been left with a permanent and unfair impression of an over-refined, horsey, insular, super-traditional women's college that hadn't really changed since way before UVa went co-ed in the 1970s.
From what I've read and heard, it really does not seem like there was much of a concerted effort to head this off or try to avoid it; the alumnae were certainly blindsided - they went from being asked to pony up money to underwrite building costs to being told their beloved alma mater was going to close. These are women with skills: whether it was the ones who fell into the traditional wife and helpmeet roles who were also the ones running large volunteer organizations and events, developing all sorts of skills and connections in supporting their husbands' careers, etc, or the ones who went into the business world, developing skills in everything from education to business, real estate to finances, and so much more.
Not involving the alumnae, and not seriously talking about the issues in advance are the two things that made (and continue to make) my eyebrows rise high.
posted by julen at 11:23 AM on March 26, 2015 [10 favorites]
Sweet Briar - at least when I was looking at women's colleges in the 80s/90s - really felt like it was resting on their laurels. If I hadn't known a bunch of older Sweet Briar alums (whom - to a woman - can really get things done), I might have been left with a permanent and unfair impression of an over-refined, horsey, insular, super-traditional women's college that hadn't really changed since way before UVa went co-ed in the 1970s.
From what I've read and heard, it really does not seem like there was much of a concerted effort to head this off or try to avoid it; the alumnae were certainly blindsided - they went from being asked to pony up money to underwrite building costs to being told their beloved alma mater was going to close. These are women with skills: whether it was the ones who fell into the traditional wife and helpmeet roles who were also the ones running large volunteer organizations and events, developing all sorts of skills and connections in supporting their husbands' careers, etc, or the ones who went into the business world, developing skills in everything from education to business, real estate to finances, and so much more.
Not involving the alumnae, and not seriously talking about the issues in advance are the two things that made (and continue to make) my eyebrows rise high.
posted by julen at 11:23 AM on March 26, 2015 [10 favorites]
These articles have frequently pulled up very odd features of Sweet Briar's finances -- like the fact that the school somehow managed to lose $4M off an $84M endowment in a year where the S&P was up 30%, or that the college's apparently insurmountable deficit shortfall appears to be less than the amount it has unnecessarily paid to banks in ill-advised debts and early payment penalties. I wish some journalist would dive deep into the financials and figure out just what was going on before the board decided the college had to be closed now at any cost. I also hope newspapers keep a close eye on how the money and land of Sweet Briar is dispersed following its close, or if indeed the college is *really* going to close at all or if this is just a way to fired tenure faculty before reopening with the same administration on the same site with cheaper labor.
posted by gerryblog at 11:49 AM on March 26, 2015 [20 favorites]
posted by gerryblog at 11:49 AM on March 26, 2015 [20 favorites]
Also will be interesting to see if the closure of the college really does run afoul of Virginia's charitable giving laws.
posted by gerryblog at 11:50 AM on March 26, 2015
posted by gerryblog at 11:50 AM on March 26, 2015
I'm an alumna of another women's college, and Sweet Briar's closing is being met by the close-knit women's college community with great dismay. I'm proud that several women's colleges, including my alma mater, are offering "sisterhood" scholarships to and fast-tracking transfer requests from current Sweet Briar students.
I can't fathom how different my life would be if I hadn't gone to a women's college. It was a unique and perception-altering experience.
posted by nicebookrack at 12:05 PM on March 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
I can't fathom how different my life would be if I hadn't gone to a women's college. It was a unique and perception-altering experience.
posted by nicebookrack at 12:05 PM on March 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
It does seem very odd to me that they would announce the closure so abruptly.
The way that they did this at the last minute and in way that shocked people, with little time for transition, is pretty inexcusable. Where I work, transparency is the key, and if we are having financial difficulties, everyone will see it coming from miles away. It's part of the ethos here, and it includes regular yearly updates regarding how we are doing for our investment projections, which include annual discussions and school-wide reports about student numbers and what this means for department budgets.
Transparency is a good virtue in general for those who invest their lives into a place; but there are more pragmatic reasons. The thing that sustains schools isn't simply fundraising efforts or endowments that happen outside of campus life. Getting and retaining students is often a school-wide responsibility: from the board, to the admissions office, to the staff who work with students in the registrar's office and student employment, to the people who clean the dorms at night. The way that a student feels when she comes on to campus is vital to whether she stays or comes in the first place. Creative problem solving can happen all over the place in order to make a place somewhere where people will continue to want to come, and to have cut everyone out of some sort of input or further personal investment on such short notice in favor of a nebulous financial salvation is not only unconscionable, but lacks serious imagination regarding what solutions can look like.
There are some places that simply have to shut down because they aren't sustainable any more, no matter what you do, and this might have been one of those times. In those cases though shutting out most of the people who live and work there so they can consider possible solutions for their own future, as if they couldn't have anything helpful to say about it, is pretty much a slap in the face as the ship is going down.
posted by SpacemanStix at 12:14 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
The way that they did this at the last minute and in way that shocked people, with little time for transition, is pretty inexcusable. Where I work, transparency is the key, and if we are having financial difficulties, everyone will see it coming from miles away. It's part of the ethos here, and it includes regular yearly updates regarding how we are doing for our investment projections, which include annual discussions and school-wide reports about student numbers and what this means for department budgets.
Transparency is a good virtue in general for those who invest their lives into a place; but there are more pragmatic reasons. The thing that sustains schools isn't simply fundraising efforts or endowments that happen outside of campus life. Getting and retaining students is often a school-wide responsibility: from the board, to the admissions office, to the staff who work with students in the registrar's office and student employment, to the people who clean the dorms at night. The way that a student feels when she comes on to campus is vital to whether she stays or comes in the first place. Creative problem solving can happen all over the place in order to make a place somewhere where people will continue to want to come, and to have cut everyone out of some sort of input or further personal investment on such short notice in favor of a nebulous financial salvation is not only unconscionable, but lacks serious imagination regarding what solutions can look like.
There are some places that simply have to shut down because they aren't sustainable any more, no matter what you do, and this might have been one of those times. In those cases though shutting out most of the people who live and work there so they can consider possible solutions for their own future, as if they couldn't have anything helpful to say about it, is pretty much a slap in the face as the ship is going down.
posted by SpacemanStix at 12:14 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Most other women's colleges and Virginia Colleges and Universities have extended/opened their transfer application period to SBC students. The original transfer application deadline for most of these places was the day/day after Sweet Briar made the announcement, thereby potentially screwing their students one last time.
The money being raised (mostly by alums) to save Sweet Briar is earmarked for scholarships for (former) SBC students and transfer assistance if they aren't successful in saving it.
posted by julen at 12:15 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
The money being raised (mostly by alums) to save Sweet Briar is earmarked for scholarships for (former) SBC students and transfer assistance if they aren't successful in saving it.
posted by julen at 12:15 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is a big deal in higher ed circles, as you can imagine. All the faculty working their networks to try to get work for next year (this was announced after the hiring season for most disciplines), the speculation among small liberal arts college people about what it portends, questions about what they'll do with the campus, the library, etc. I haven't been following it too closely, been waiting for postmortems, but I very much wonder what answers will shake out, about the board's decisionmaking process, whether there's some ulterior thing at work or what they could have done differently.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:42 PM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:42 PM on March 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
I remember hearing, some years ago now, that there was a plan to make Sweet Briar the arts campus for the University of Virginia - what happened to that idea? It must have been an early indication that there were problems afoot, so it's odd that this would come as such a surprise. This would allow them to keep a minimal equestrian program, but it would be a wonderful setting for focusing on the arts.
posted by mmiddle at 2:07 PM on March 26, 2015
posted by mmiddle at 2:07 PM on March 26, 2015
I wish some journalist would dive deep into the financials and figure out just what was going on before the board decided the college had to be closed now at any cost.
But as noted earlier, they've been pretty plain about this -- closing now allows them to close with enough resources to hopefully give reasonable severance and otherwise wind things down in an orderly, but rapid, fashion instead of actually going through with the death spiral and closing in a few years anyway after a few months of not making payroll.
Where I work, transparency is the key, and if we are having financial difficulties, everyone will see it coming from miles away. It's part of the ethos here, and it includes regular yearly updates regarding how we are doing for our investment projections, which include annual discussions and school-wide reports about student numbers and what this means for department budgets.
I've seen posts that at least claim to be from Sweet Briar faculty noting that they've known for years that things have been dire, and that it's the suddenness of the closing that was surprising, not that Sweet Briar was in a precarious position.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:30 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
But as noted earlier, they've been pretty plain about this -- closing now allows them to close with enough resources to hopefully give reasonable severance and otherwise wind things down in an orderly, but rapid, fashion instead of actually going through with the death spiral and closing in a few years anyway after a few months of not making payroll.
Where I work, transparency is the key, and if we are having financial difficulties, everyone will see it coming from miles away. It's part of the ethos here, and it includes regular yearly updates regarding how we are doing for our investment projections, which include annual discussions and school-wide reports about student numbers and what this means for department budgets.
I've seen posts that at least claim to be from Sweet Briar faculty noting that they've known for years that things have been dire, and that it's the suddenness of the closing that was surprising, not that Sweet Briar was in a precarious position.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:30 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
I can't fathom how different my life would be if I hadn't gone to a women's college. It was a unique and perception-altering experience.
So true. I'm a Seven Sisters alumna, and I'm so happy I went there. I love my school and friends from there even more now, even more than 10 yrs after graduating. They've been there for me through major ups and downs.
And honestly, the closest friendships I ended up making after graduation, in the big coed world, is always with graduates of other women's colleges. I don't know how we just end up gravitating towards each other, but they really are the ones I've found who help and support you when the chips are down.
I have been fabulously fortunate to have attended a women's college. The rewards even after leaving campus have been incredible.
posted by discopolo at 2:35 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
So true. I'm a Seven Sisters alumna, and I'm so happy I went there. I love my school and friends from there even more now, even more than 10 yrs after graduating. They've been there for me through major ups and downs.
And honestly, the closest friendships I ended up making after graduation, in the big coed world, is always with graduates of other women's colleges. I don't know how we just end up gravitating towards each other, but they really are the ones I've found who help and support you when the chips are down.
I have been fabulously fortunate to have attended a women's college. The rewards even after leaving campus have been incredible.
posted by discopolo at 2:35 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also, I'm sad the students in SBC's engineering program have the option of attending a university in Flint, MI, and having their credits accepted there.
To leave that gorgeous campus and have to go to Flint? I hope they have another option out there. I sent an email to my college's adcom---they only said they could extend the transfer deadline for SBC students.
Yeah, so that's another awful thing SBC board has done---left students with very few transfer choices and very little time to research their options for Fall 2015.
posted by discopolo at 2:41 PM on March 26, 2015
To leave that gorgeous campus and have to go to Flint? I hope they have another option out there. I sent an email to my college's adcom---they only said they could extend the transfer deadline for SBC students.
Yeah, so that's another awful thing SBC board has done---left students with very few transfer choices and very little time to research their options for Fall 2015.
posted by discopolo at 2:41 PM on March 26, 2015
> I wish some journalist would dive deep into the financials and figure out just what was going on before the board decided the college had to be closed now at any cost. I also hope newspapers keep a close eye on how the money and land of Sweet Briar is dispersed following its close
That was my thought too, Follow...The...Money. Who is going to directly or indirectly benefit from the college closing?
They're not the first college to go through a financial crisis, for pete's sake. In the short term, you institute a hiring and salary freeze, a travel freeze, you cut services and programs, lay off staff, reduce employee benefits, and raise tuition. You sell off art collections, real estate holdings, or other assets. You combine departments and cut underutilized majors. And of course you fundraise.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not glibly suggesting that it's a simple process to just say "oh, just cut all the expenses." Austerity measures are rough and cause complications of their own. I work in administration for a large public university, so the scale is very different, but we went through this when our state allocation was rather shockingly slashed.
posted by desuetude at 3:19 PM on March 26, 2015
That was my thought too, Follow...The...Money. Who is going to directly or indirectly benefit from the college closing?
They're not the first college to go through a financial crisis, for pete's sake. In the short term, you institute a hiring and salary freeze, a travel freeze, you cut services and programs, lay off staff, reduce employee benefits, and raise tuition. You sell off art collections, real estate holdings, or other assets. You combine departments and cut underutilized majors. And of course you fundraise.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not glibly suggesting that it's a simple process to just say "oh, just cut all the expenses." Austerity measures are rough and cause complications of their own. I work in administration for a large public university, so the scale is very different, but we went through this when our state allocation was rather shockingly slashed.
posted by desuetude at 3:19 PM on March 26, 2015
Also, I'm sad the students in SBC's engineering program have the option of attending a university in Flint, MI, and having their credits accepted there.
To leave that gorgeous campus and have to go to Flint?
Well, I don't think that they have to go there; it's just a fast-tracked option. Kettering University is one of the few places that offers a small, liberal-arts type atmosphere for intensive engineering education. I think the biggest culture shock would be the fact that Kettering's student body is 80%+ male.
And as a Michigan native, I always appreciate "LOL Michigan hellscape" comments. They never get old!
posted by dhens at 4:33 PM on March 26, 2015 [7 favorites]
To leave that gorgeous campus and have to go to Flint?
Well, I don't think that they have to go there; it's just a fast-tracked option. Kettering University is one of the few places that offers a small, liberal-arts type atmosphere for intensive engineering education. I think the biggest culture shock would be the fact that Kettering's student body is 80%+ male.
And as a Michigan native, I always appreciate "LOL Michigan hellscape" comments. They never get old!
posted by dhens at 4:33 PM on March 26, 2015 [7 favorites]
But as noted earlier, they've been pretty plain about this -- closing now allows them to close with enough resources to hopefully give reasonable severance and otherwise wind things down in an orderly, but rapid, fashion instead of actually going through with the death spiral and closing in a few years anyway after a few months of not making payroll.
I just can't square the administration claiming that that's the purpose of closing it now with the fact that they're announcing the closure after the academic hiring and transfer deadlines for the year have already passed, particularly given that it doesn't sound like they're in such a liquidity crisis that they couldn't operate for another year.
I don't know, I mean I fully believe that Sweet Briar's original purpose as a sort of finishing school for ladies from the FFV planter aristocracy who liked horses is no longer desirable or workable, and that they really couldn't find a way to modernize while staying financially viable, but between this and the stories of financial mismanagement that gerryblog linked, this whole thing seems highly suspicious to me, and I think there needs at minimum to be a thorough investigation around the circumstances of this closing and who stands to benefit.
Honestly, you can't get that much Virginia old money in one place for very long without some kind of crooked land deal happening - they've only had about 400 years of practice at it.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:57 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
I just can't square the administration claiming that that's the purpose of closing it now with the fact that they're announcing the closure after the academic hiring and transfer deadlines for the year have already passed, particularly given that it doesn't sound like they're in such a liquidity crisis that they couldn't operate for another year.
I don't know, I mean I fully believe that Sweet Briar's original purpose as a sort of finishing school for ladies from the FFV planter aristocracy who liked horses is no longer desirable or workable, and that they really couldn't find a way to modernize while staying financially viable, but between this and the stories of financial mismanagement that gerryblog linked, this whole thing seems highly suspicious to me, and I think there needs at minimum to be a thorough investigation around the circumstances of this closing and who stands to benefit.
Honestly, you can't get that much Virginia old money in one place for very long without some kind of crooked land deal happening - they've only had about 400 years of practice at it.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:57 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think there needs at minimum to be a thorough investigation around the circumstances of this closing
Right, I'm not saying there's definitely a crime here, just saying that their story about why and how they're doing this (and why and how it needs to be now) isn't something we should take at face value without poking at the financials. It may be right that colleges like this can't survive, it may be the good and noble thing to pull the plug now than later, or it might be that this group torpedoed the college through either incompetence or malice or both.
posted by gerryblog at 5:24 PM on March 26, 2015
Right, I'm not saying there's definitely a crime here, just saying that their story about why and how they're doing this (and why and how it needs to be now) isn't something we should take at face value without poking at the financials. It may be right that colleges like this can't survive, it may be the good and noble thing to pull the plug now than later, or it might be that this group torpedoed the college through either incompetence or malice or both.
posted by gerryblog at 5:24 PM on March 26, 2015
and have to go to Flint?
That reads as really elitist, especially immediately after saying you're a SS alum.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:10 AM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
That reads as really elitist, especially immediately after saying you're a SS alum.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:10 AM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wells College in Aurora, New York has a picture-perfect campus on a hillside overlooking a Finger Lake, lots of history and tradition, but struggles to reinvent itself since converting from women-only to co-ed less than a decade ago. There was plenty of hand-wringing over admitting men, but the place was spiraling in and it was co-ed or close. When last seen, the once-gorgeous campus bore evidence of financial strain. It's unclear what its future holds.
Like many institutions created to serve those less privileged, women-only schools are seen by some as anachronistic, even in an area with a strong suffragette history (this is, after all, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage country).
Interestingly, Aurora is also the town Pleasant Rowland attempted to remake; the extreme resistance from local folks ultimately caused her to give up and leave.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:40 AM on March 27, 2015
Like many institutions created to serve those less privileged, women-only schools are seen by some as anachronistic, even in an area with a strong suffragette history (this is, after all, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage country).
Interestingly, Aurora is also the town Pleasant Rowland attempted to remake; the extreme resistance from local folks ultimately caused her to give up and leave.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:40 AM on March 27, 2015
And as a Michigan native, I always appreciate "LOL Michigan hellscape" comments. They never get old!
Flint has a violent crime rate that is 6 x higher than the national average. If you want to pretend it's a quaint and lovely town, you go ahead.
Michigan isn't a hellscape. MTI in the UP would be nicer than Flint. Northwestern College ear Traverse City. Sure, I'm mainly about Northern Michigan, and I'm not going to force myself to pretend Flint is some hidden treasure when that part exists.
If loving beautiful places is elitist and feeling like beautiful scenary facilitates a pretty great college experience is just snobby, then you go ahead and congratulate yourself about how "real" you are compared to me as much as you like.
posted by discopolo at 5:33 AM on March 27, 2015
Flint has a violent crime rate that is 6 x higher than the national average. If you want to pretend it's a quaint and lovely town, you go ahead.
Michigan isn't a hellscape. MTI in the UP would be nicer than Flint. Northwestern College ear Traverse City. Sure, I'm mainly about Northern Michigan, and I'm not going to force myself to pretend Flint is some hidden treasure when that part exists.
If loving beautiful places is elitist and feeling like beautiful scenary facilitates a pretty great college experience is just snobby, then you go ahead and congratulate yourself about how "real" you are compared to me as much as you like.
posted by discopolo at 5:33 AM on March 27, 2015
I just can't square the administration claiming that that's the purpose of closing it now with the fact that they're announcing the closure after the academic hiring and transfer deadlines for the year have already passed, particularly given that it doesn't sound like they're in such a liquidity crisis that they couldn't operate for another year.
Maybe, but I can see a lot of problems with announcing you're going to close at the end of next year. Most obviously, they can't ethically take in an incoming class that they know will never graduate, knocking income down by a quarter or so. And lots of students will transfer this summer, knocking income down further. And, expecting a smaller student body, they're going to have to fire a bunch of faculty and staff at the end of this year no matter what. And their costs per student will still go up, so they're going to burn through a lot of whatever resources they have left.
I see your point, really, but it just seems to me that staying open another year is exactly the death spiral they're claiming they want to avoid. Of course, they might actually announce that nobody's actually getting any severance, etc, in which case I'll agree with you that something else must be up (or they really are a pack of ninnies).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:48 AM on March 27, 2015
Maybe, but I can see a lot of problems with announcing you're going to close at the end of next year. Most obviously, they can't ethically take in an incoming class that they know will never graduate, knocking income down by a quarter or so. And lots of students will transfer this summer, knocking income down further. And, expecting a smaller student body, they're going to have to fire a bunch of faculty and staff at the end of this year no matter what. And their costs per student will still go up, so they're going to burn through a lot of whatever resources they have left.
I see your point, really, but it just seems to me that staying open another year is exactly the death spiral they're claiming they want to avoid. Of course, they might actually announce that nobody's actually getting any severance, etc, in which case I'll agree with you that something else must be up (or they really are a pack of ninnies).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:48 AM on March 27, 2015
MTI in the UP would be nicer than Flint. Northwestern College ear [sic] Traverse City. Sure, I'm mainly about Northern Michigan, and I'm not going to force myself to pretend Flint is some hidden treasure when that part exists.
Well, in terms of education experience, the student body at Michigan Tech is 7 times as large as at Kettering and would not produce the same kind of close interaction with faculty, and Northwestern College is 2-year community college.
I don't think Flint is a hidden treasure. But Kettering is a great institution. And who knows, maybe these scions of the Virginia elite will broaden their worldview in a majority-minority, poverty-stricken city. There's even horse farms nearby if they get homesick.
posted by dhens at 9:48 AM on March 27, 2015
Well, in terms of education experience, the student body at Michigan Tech is 7 times as large as at Kettering and would not produce the same kind of close interaction with faculty, and Northwestern College is 2-year community college.
I don't think Flint is a hidden treasure. But Kettering is a great institution. And who knows, maybe these scions of the Virginia elite will broaden their worldview in a majority-minority, poverty-stricken city. There's even horse farms nearby if they get homesick.
posted by dhens at 9:48 AM on March 27, 2015
Another Seven Sister alumnae here... I loved my college experience in the 90s but recently the news from my alma mater hasn't been upbeat. Somebody up thread mentioned catering to international students who can pay their own way, but that brings its own problems. Many of these students are using the college as a spring board to transfer to better-ranked colleges in their second year, and that leads to our college's own ranking to slip even further, making it even harder to attract strong applicants.
(One would ask why can't the school work to keep the enrolled students, but when the students and their parents are ponying up 70k for tuition, one has to expect their calculations to be more mercenary.)
posted by of strange foe at 1:15 PM on March 27, 2015
(One would ask why can't the school work to keep the enrolled students, but when the students and their parents are ponying up 70k for tuition, one has to expect their calculations to be more mercenary.)
posted by of strange foe at 1:15 PM on March 27, 2015
One of the articles I read about this mentioned that with this closing, the number of women's colleges will be down to 44, from a high in the hundreds. It's clearly increasingly difficult to operate a successful women-only school today than it was not long ago, which underlies this specific issue.
A few of the Seven Sisters are doing great, with billion dollar plus endowments. On that same list, you can see that they're doing better than quite a number of comparable coed liberal arts schools.
posted by discopolo at 3:54 PM on March 27, 2015
A few of the Seven Sisters are doing great, with billion dollar plus endowments. On that same list, you can see that they're doing better than quite a number of comparable coed liberal arts schools.
posted by discopolo at 3:54 PM on March 27, 2015
But Kettering is a great institution. And who knows, maybe these scions of the Virginia elite will broaden their worldview in a majority-minority, poverty-stricken city. There's even horse farms nearby if they get homesick.
It has not been the college for women from fancy families in a long, long time. Tuition at lower tier schools is generally heavily discounted to attract students, something the board cited in their financial work up. So your condescending tone is unnecessary.
posted by discopolo at 3:59 PM on March 27, 2015
It has not been the college for women from fancy families in a long, long time. Tuition at lower tier schools is generally heavily discounted to attract students, something the board cited in their financial work up. So your condescending tone is unnecessary.
posted by discopolo at 3:59 PM on March 27, 2015
On Monday, however, a county attorney in Virginia gave defenders of the college new hope that they could stop the ticking clock and save the institution. The county attorney filed suit in Virginia court charging that the president and board of the college have violated several state laws and failed in their duties to keep the college running. And the suit seeks an injunction to stop activity to close the college and to replace the president and the board.
posted by gerryblog at 11:12 AM on March 31, 2015
posted by gerryblog at 11:12 AM on March 31, 2015
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