And if you visit the Saving Sweet Briar website, the claim is they’ve pledged (not collected) $10 million over 5 years. Not nearly enough, as Hanna says.
Also, @Charliesch you misspoke. The judge ruled Sweet Briar College cannot use charitable donations to wind down the college for 60 days. That is very different from not spending any money at all to close the college. His ruling is restricted to the charitable donations part of the endowment. The judge also ruled that Sweet Briar College is a corporation and as such, is governed by their Board of Directors and the decision to close is up to them. Work to close the college is proceeding.
I really feel for the current students, faculty and staff in this situation but reality, especially in light of the last days court rulings, has to be setting in. Graduation for the seniors is in 4 weeks. There will be no incoming freshman class, no class schedule or registration for fall semester because there will be no fall semester. Many students are transferring to other schools and I so hope that everyone who needs to, finds a place to continue their education.
Lowest yield in the college’s history, troubling rate of attrition, $84.8 million in the endowment, 65M restricted, would have needed to raise 10-12M per year, unrestricted, to operate through '15-16 and into the indefinite future. You can read on. It’s this last detail which makes the problem clear.
Saving Sweet Briar says on their page that they have 5M pledged, 10M pledged over 5 years. That’s going to keep the walls standing?
Judge James Updike was unconvinced. He ultimately denied the things the plaintiffs most wanted: ouster of the board, appointment of a receiver, and a permanent injunction against closing. Instead, he issued a 60-day injunction barring the College from spending donated funds on closing activities.
Those numbers are to continue as before. There are many ways to change that as I have stated. And every college can find $30M in “deferred maintenance”
You can run the numbers six ways to Sunday. With no Freshman, the school has effectively shuttered. And all the alumni pledges, and cost-cutting, and using unrestricted funds in the endowment for marketing, and re-tooling as a STEM school for solid B women who like living in a rural environment… still doesn’t get you Freshman who are depositing this week and next for Fall 2015.
Unless you are claiming gross incompetence or malfeasance on the part of the Board (and it doesn’t look like this was the case), how are a bunch of well meaning lay people going to fix an enrollment problem in two weeks before the students deposit elsewhere???
The Independent Women of Sweet Briar
In the days before coeducation at the college level became widespread, Sweet Briar, the small liberal arts women’s college set to close later this year, was more than just a finishing school for southern women before they became wives.
By the end of the meeting, we unanimously — and tearfully — determined the most responsible course of action was to close the college at the end of this academic year. This would allow current students to transfer at the beginning of a new academic year and prevent an entering first-year class from having to transfer after only one semester. It would also allow us to honor our financial obligations and would give us the best opportunity to provide severance to faculty and staff.
In our view, the Sweet Briar board was wise and courageous in recognizing their obligation to act in a timely way to close the college at the end of the current academic year. The board used both outside experts and an internal analysis to conclude that there was no sustainable business model for the present-day Sweet Briar and no viable way of moving to a new educational/financial model.
The fact that Sweet Briar needs now to close in an orderly and dignified way does not cast a shadow on all it was and all it achieved in the years of its flourishing. Nothing can change that. But neither can past successes justify spending more and more of the college’s remaining dollars on litigation rather than on positive efforts to help students and staff in making inevitable transitions.
As I walked into my university’s graduation this weekend, I thought of this being Sweet Briar’s final commencement ever, and realized that I can’t even begin to imagine how emotional that’s going to be for everyone involved.
Yep, google search had this opinion and POV listed as well. Anyone can get an opinion printed nowadays – or so it seems!
Of course, one can decide to weigh the opinions of people with a deep understanding of colleges and their finances (my links) against the Kumbaya from someone who had had no visible involvement in tertiary education and graduated from the school in an era when Sweet Briar had still a iota of relevance.
In a way, it is because of people like this Thurman that the school ended up in the dire straits it can no longer overcome. Emotional outbursts and a very poor understanding of the financial and marketing needs of a school contribute nothing. Close to forty years have passed since she graduated. Chances are that she looked at the unavoidable downfall without batting much of a realistic eye.
That’s the thing, xiggi. People are protesting that they had no warning. But the signs were there.
“Early in the fall of 2003, Elisabeth S. Muhlenfeld, president of Sweet Briar College, notified students of a meeting to discuss the future of the women’s college. She expected a small room full of participants but instead got an overflow crowd – roughly 120 people, or about a fifth of the student body.
Muhlenfeld says she shouldn’t have been surprised by the turnout: When you mention “future” and “women’s college” in the same sentence these days, the conversation is sure to land on the hot-button issue of coeducation.
And it did. Muhlenfeld explained to students that the college had formed a committee of faculty, alumnae, administrators and trustees that would recommend a course of action intended to reverse the dwindling enrollment and shrinking endowment.” https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/05/sweetbriar
There had been a commitment forever, so to say. to stay single sex as long as they could. I can’t find a link, but sometime toward the end of 2014, (probably one of the summaries in advance of the BoD meeting,) in discusssing financial issues, the killer phrase was uttered, the one no one wanted to hear: “all options are on the table.” If that didn’t portend something unpleasant, people must have been determined not to listen. A shame.
“An outside consulting group determined that an ensuing enrollment spike was no sure deal.” From the Inside Higher Ed 2007 link. Maybe they can get their money back now. Randolph College bit that bullet and is now enjoying success and growth. Yes it was painful and tough but it’s done and a fading memory.Same with the painting sales. BTW I just had a tour of the RC Prez House and they still have great art. His home is full of choice pieces from their collection. A nice perk.
See p 14 for RC comeback story
I can confirm that the place that used to empty out by Friday is now busy and full all weekends too. Hard to get into my favorite pizza joint adjacent the campus on Fri or Sat nights now.
Indeed the protesters claim to have been misled. However, the BOD was not filled with white-bearded educrats who operated in a Partagas smoke filled room. They were mostly insiders with deep connections to the school.
From the previously linked story:
The above people have the connections and the education. Should we believe that the Prez of the Alumnae Board failed to inform the same people who are now protesting?
And how about the rest of the Board?
2014-2015 Membership
Executive Committee
Paul G. Rice, B.S.
Chair of the Board
Warrenton, Virginia
Elizabeth H.S. Wyatt ’69, M.B.A.
Vice-Chair of The Board
Summit, New Jersey
Elvira McMillan Mannelly ’65, M.A.T.
Secretary of the Board
Atlanta, Georgia
David W. Breneman, Ph.D.
Chair, Educational Programs Committee
Keswick, Virginia
Diane B. Dalton ’67, M.A.
Chair, Committee on Directors
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Judith Wilson Grant ’66, B.A.
Chair, Committee on Development
Greenwood Village, Colorado
James F. Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
President of the College
Sweet Briar, Virginia
Karen Gill Meyer ’63, M.A.
Chair, Finance and Investments Committee
Scottsdale, Arizona
Julia K. Sutherland ’78, B.A.
Chair, External Affairs Committee
Alexandria, Virginia
Directors
Hilary Bowie ’12, B.A.
Young Alumna Director
Fairfax, Virginia
Elizabeth “Rushton” Haskell Callaghan ’86, B.A.
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
A. Grace Caskey ’14, B.S.
Young Alumna Director
Lynchburg, VA
Vivian Yamaguchi Cohn ’77, J.D.
Alumna Director
Winnetka, IL
Winifred Storey Davis ’61, M.B.A.
Atlanta, Georgia
Susan Sellers Ewing ’71, B.A.
Richmond, Virginia
Marsha Taylor Horton ’76, Ph.D.
Magnolia, Delaware
Nancy Hudler Keuffel '62
Bloomfield Hills, MI
Ann Stuart McKie Kling ’74, B.A.
Dallas, Texas
Frances Griffith Laserson ’70, B.A.
New York, NY
Sarah M. Lindemann ’13, B.A.
Young Alumna Director
Woodbridge, Virginia
Yolanda Davis Saunders ’96, B.A.
Woodbridge, Virginia
Susan P. Scanlan ’69, M.A.
Alexandria, Virginia
Sandra Taylor ’74, M.B.A.
President, Alumnae Association
Richmond, Virginia
As I mentioned way, way upthread, they told me upfront on an admissions tour in September that the student body was a couple of hundred bodies short of where they wanted it to be. It’s a very troubling sign. That doesn’t mean a school is about to shut down, but alumnae who claimed that they thought everything was fine were clearly not asking questions. SBC was not hiding the trouble.
I’m fascinated by the Sweet Briar Alumnae and their tenacity but don’t understand how they think they have anything worth saving at this point. Let’s say they pull down their hail mary and force an injunction for specific performance, they will have saved a college without any students. I don’t see how you’d recover from something like that.
While I don’t have a dog in this fight, it seems like they’d be better off advocating for how the endowment is distributed as the departing faculty and students will need substantial going away presents. I don’t work in academia but my presumption is that whatever faculty they have with tenure will have difficulty finding a tenure-track position elsewhere.