It might be back this year, but there’s no incoming freshman class, many if not most girls transferred out, and SB has not proven that it can change to become marketable/appealing to potential students. I can’t see this working out. Plus, realistically, how many parents are comfortable sending their kids to a college that is still not financially viable/has already recently shut down.
SBC was never really shutdown. Most contracts ran thru June 30. There are many questions remaining and I think a different strategy will be needed whether going coed or changing cost and tuition structures. Or both. I dont see taking some adjunct job in NY as great either.
One year.
The school alleges they have commitments from some students to return, and I can see how rising seniors would embrace the chance to complete their studies there, but who else would come back (much less start as a freshman)? If you’ve been accepted elsewhere as a transfer, isn’t that the wise path to take? Returning students won’t know whether the critical masses for all classes, clubs and other activities will exist and surely will have lost friends, and perhaps favored instructors, to other institutions. I hope we get posts from some non-senior returnees setting out their rationales, and if anyone has the guts to enroll as a freshman, theirs would be particularly interesting post to read.
You keep missing the larger point. Who is going to want to send their daughters there?? The premier women’s colleges, located in compelling and interesting cities, with years upon years of social and academic prestige and far more secure endowments, are still facing the truth that young women today prefer co-ed colleges. What makes you think that a lower- tier women’s college, known only for its mention in the Preppy Handbook, without significant historic reputation, known professors, and a troubled financial situation, will attract sufficient women to be viable?
its nice that you are a member of the Lynchburg VA Booster club and all but you are kidding yourself that trying to prop up this skeleton is going to make it come alive.
Well, they did not sell the horses so they still have that. May underclassmen have told the local paper that if they open they will come back. I expect some at Randolph and Hollins are feeling a hit in the budget plan right now. The closing itself was rash and not justified. It will be a tough road back now but they are a pretty determined bunch of women. Most good faculty jobs at other schools were filled way before this hit so I doubt many have “great” new jobs. And fewer TT.
I’m going to be the pessimist here and say that won’t open this fall. I would bet they can’t convert pledges to cash and make the 2.5mm payment.
^ I agree. However this plan gives the professors and staff a chance to get other jobs. I also gives Juniors the option to finish their degree at SB. They really should have done it this way from the beginning. Now students have another difficult choice to make without even knowing what courses will be offered.
Hopefully all the pledges made to “Saving Sweet Briar” come through.
Personally, I would never send my daughter to a school that went through this. Maybe after many years have past and enrollment was stable. Next four years, no way.
I think that there will be plenty of fine print attached to the resolution. The release of the restrictions for the 16 million is nebulous and intimates a 20 percent payout. With the purported cash IV of the alumnae, the total should be 28 millions, which is substantially higher than the “admitted” operating losses. It would appear that part of the resolution might include negotiated amounts to be paid to the bondholders to emerge from the current and anticipated defaults.
The amateurs can celebrate the right to man the kitchen, but unless they can convince patrons with a wallet to support the “restaurant” they might come to regret what they wished for. But then this Phoenix story is entirely about wishful thinking.
Where will they find the naïve freshmen with more dollars than common sense? There is no future in shaking the discounted and mediocre tree. Compared to the abysmal Antioch, this school has a much harder plot to hoe without a clear image or identity.
Pyrrhic victory it is!
I honestly don’t think they can find the necessary money to sustain over time.
Other than seniors, who else among students would stay?
How many students will they have left? They told everyone they would be shut down completely by August. I guess there might be some students who had agreed to transfer, who will decide to come back. However, I think most people would have already decided to move on. Some staff will come back if they haven’t found another job (or only found a worse job), but many will have already made commitments to move on. If the college is only guaranteed to be open for a year, staff may be better off trying to get established elsewhere.
The time to have made this decision to stay open another year was February, when they could have provided a lower-stress transition time for students and staff, and could have held onto the students graduating next year.
Is this the same thread as the one with gazillion exclamation marks in the title?
A NJ women-only college finally is accepting men in all of their classes.
From back when:
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/05/education/a-typical-small-college-and-its-battle-to-prevail.html
And now:
http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2015/06/going_co-ed_doesnt_faze_alumnae_trustees_at_colleg.html
So what happens now that the dog has caught the car?
Do they try to go co-ed? If so, will the alums be willing to write checks to kill off the old single sex SBC? Would that even work?
My guess this turns out to be a one-year Hail Mary pass. 5% chance it works.
They still have to meet the deadline for the first payment with cash in hand to even call it a Hail Mary pass…
Well, maybe this will keep them going long enough to find somebody with deep enough pockets to really save the school, like a billionaire–or the state.
I know all those points. This gets saturation coverage locally.
What year did that Preppie Handbook come out?? (1980) Nobody even remembers that book.
My college football team lost BTB games in one season on Hail Mary passes. But they still went to the Rose Bowl–so anything can happen. On what was essentially a Hail Mary play. If you can raise over $20 Million in months you have some real leaders. I also think the focus on the 1 year issue is overblown and can be changed as funds come in and a new admin takes over with a new plan.
RMWC now Randolph College came back from similar dire circumstances and some very bad press and is now doing very well. LU’s story is even more amazing as they were very near actual total bankruptcy just a decade ago. Maybe the area has less cynicism than the rest of the US. It has bounced back stronger from numerous reverses that would kill other cities. And that goes back to the Civil War era when they outsmarted the Union troops and avoided being burned and sacked shortly before the end of the war.
Barrons- you are a wonderful booster for the school and they are lucky to have you in their camp.
The difference between rescuing a college after all the students have fled vs. making it to the Rose Bowl- well, you know the difference.
I can’t imagine any student in their right mind going back to a failing school- with the exception of some seniors.