For more than a century, Sweet Briar College has offered women a liberal arts education in a pastoral setting near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Equestrian programs, a tight-knit residential community and, lately, an engineering science degree have been its hallmarks.
On Tuesday, the colleges leadership abruptly announced its closure to stunned and tearful audiences of faculty and students. Officials cited insurmountable financial challenges, saying the 700-student college, founded in 1901, would shut down permanently in August.
The school had been in the midst of a planning initiative to look for new ideas to keep the college viable. Instead, college leaders concluded there were no options that would allow the school to overcome financial challenges. The vote to close the school came Feb. 28.
Sweet Briar College is located on a 3,250-acre campus in Amherst County. Just last semester, the school completed an $8.8 million school library renovation project begun in 2012.
As of fall 2014, the womens college had about 560 degree-seeking undergraduate students enrolled on campus, not including those studying abroad, and nine graduate students in the schools Master of Arts in Teaching and Master of Education programs. The college has 328 employees.
This is not unlike a family thats grieving, President James Jones said. This is this site of transformation, as it has been since the school started. You dont think about your school in a temporal sense. You think about your school as being eternal. Its always going to be there for the students that come after you. Sadly, that cannot be our reality.
According to Jones, fewer students today choose to attend small, private, liberal-arts schools in rural areas, and fewer women are considering womens colleges. Meanwhile, the college had to offer greater and greater tuition discounts in order to enroll new classes of students.
If somebody could find the Harry Potter wand for under-endowed liberal arts colleges in rural America, someone would have found it, he said.
Where historically the college had a high rate of commitment among accepted students, that dropped off dramatically, with fewer students taking the college up on its offer.
Jones explained the college pulled roughly $10 million from the endowment because it lacked enough students to pay operating costs with tuition.
The school went from having $94 million in its endowment at the end of last school year to $84 million today. About $56 million is restricted by original covenant, which means there are strict rules and conditions on how it can be used, based on agreements with donors.
The college plans to begin immediately to help current and admitted students find other colleges and universities.
In the months ahead, college leaders will begin winding down the schools academic operations. The last graduation in the history of the school is set for May 16, followed by a final on-campus reunion May 29 to 31. The closing date of Aug. 25 was chosen to allow students to complete summer credit hours.
School leaders hope to provide severance and other assistance to faculty and staff. Academic records will eventually be transferred to an accredited higher-education institution, but Sweet Briars Office of the Registrar will continue to operate until that time.
This is a sad day for the entire Sweet Briar College community, Sweet Briar College Board Chairman Paul Rice said in a news release. The board closely examined the Colleges financial situation and weighed it against our obligations to current and prospective students, parents, faculty and staff, alumnae, donors and friends. We voted to act now to cease academic operations responsibly, allowing us to place students at other academic institutions, to assist faculty and staff with the transition and to conduct a more orderly winding down of academic operations.
Sweet Briars impending demise was a pretty well-kept secret until recently, said Nancy Gray, president of Hollins University in Roanoke County.
Gray said she and her faculty and staff were saddened to hear about Sweet Briars demise. The school was both a rival and a sister, she said.
While both are small, womens liberal arts colleges, Gray was quick to point out distinctions and dispel any notion that Hollins is in similar trouble. The college is on firm financial footing, she said, following a capital campaign in 2010 that raised $162 million. The schools endowment is at a record $180 million, she said, and the school is currently operating with no debt.
With eight coed graduate programs on top of traditional undergrad degrees, Hollins is academically more diverse that Sweet Briar, too, Gray said. This year Hollins enjoyed its largest applicant pool in 12 years.
Hollins is among several colleges working with Sweet Briar on receiving some of its students as transfers through a teach out agreement, Gray said. Hollins may take over some study abroad programs, too. And Hollins will become the repository for Sweet Briars academic records once the school closes.
Were going to do all we can to help, especially to help their students, she said.
Gray cautioned observers against reading Sweet Briars troubles as any indication about the future of womens colleges. To jump to the end of womens education seems too big of a reach, she said. The womens college option remains critical, she said. We help young women find their voice they develop the confidence so they can push back against the challenges that women face in the workplace.
Roanoke College President Michael Maxey said in a statement that Sweet Briar is a venerable institution and the community of his small liberal arts college grieves its loss. Sweet Briar has long been an admired keeper of public trust. The world is richer because of its existence and the accomplishments of its alumnae. Roanoke College, too, has a strong endowment, of $137 million.
The news shocked the campus at midday Tuesday. Jones and Rice said faculty were told first, then students. That was, as one would expect, very emotional, Jones said.
There was an immediate outpouring on social media, of shock and dismay and love for the school.
There are few things in my life that have caught me more off-guard or been more devastating, one alumna tweeted, and I cant stop crying.
Roanoke Times
staff writers Matt Chittum
and Tiffany Holland
contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/sweet-briar-college-to-close-in-august/article_6d44d193-79a6-54b3-a3a0-b36c4b35c685.html
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