After 114 years, Sweet Briar College, the venerable women-only college in rural Virginia, announced Tuesday that this will be its final year despite strong alumnae support and more than $90 million left in its endowment, even after several years of running a deficit.
Paul G. Rice, board chair, said that he realized some would ask, “Why don’t you keep going until the lights go out?” but that doing so would be wrong. “We have moral and legal obligations to our students and faculties and to our staff and to our alumnae. If you take up this decision too late, you won’t be able to meet those obligations,” he said. “People will carve up what’s left — it will not be orderly, nor fair.”
Well, at least the board is taking this lying down.
Rice’s excuse is nonsense, and the board’s action is an abdication of a difficult duty, not an acceptance of one. Non profits have missions, and their boards are obligated to keep pursuing that mission until it becomes hopeless, not until it becomes tough. Yes, small colleges face challenges, and single-sex education has been out of favor since the Sixties. On the other hand, feminists are making the case that co-ed universities are little better than hunting grounds where women are the helpless prey of serial rapists. Surely Sweet Briar’s niche might become an asset with some vision and leadership.
The college announced its closing without even attempting a last ditch fundraising campaign. If there was ever a setting where Rahm Emanuel’s famous motto”Never let a good crisis go to waste” holds true, it is in the realm of non-profit organizations. Asked by shocked alumnae what it would cost to keep the school open, the board answered “$250 million.” The next question was, “Why didn’t you tell us before?”
Good question. In my experience, a competent non-profit board facing an existential crisis immediately announces a do-or-die challenge to its most passionate and dedicated supporters to address it, and such efforts have an impressive record of succeeding, sometimes beyond all expectations. Any non-profit organization has an ethical duty not to surrender to adversity until every avenue of survival has been explored, and at least the best of them has been tried.
Some alums are even suggesting that something sinister is going on.
One of the more than 4,000 grads who are committed to save Sweet Briar, Alexandra Mebane, told the Washington Post, “We strongly believe something has occurred there that doesn’t add up. There’s no reason for this to come out of thin air.” Added 1993 graduate Kelly Gardner Headd:“Many of us are suspicious about the motivations behind the decision…Who benefits? Did the board and/or president have an as yet unacknowledged incentive to make this decision and with such suddenness? And to keep alums in the dark until it was too late for alternatives to closing to be considered?”
Could be, though Occam’s Razor probably applies. Most doomed non-profits go under because of weak, timid, lazy or incompetent boards, when some dynamic leadership, innovation and courage from the top could save them, as so many have been saved. 94 million dollars isn’t a lot when it comes to running an institution of higher learning, but the school only lost about 3 million dollars last year. It could keep going for quite a while even if nothing improved, fulfilling its mission and enriching the lives of many young girls by training them to be independent, courageous, bold and industrious, unlike, for example, its current board of directors. A better course than running out the string would be to use the endowment to chart a rescue strategy, employing innovations and new approaches to achieve the school’s mission.
In Forbes, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry outlines just such a course for the school, including such measures as branding, reducing extraneous course offerings, reducing tenured positions, rejecting Federal and state subsidies that increase overhead, providing equity-based loans to students rather than traditional student loans, adding online courses, or using the crisis as an opportunity to “start from scratch”:
I would not have teacher tenure. I would be a teaching school, and I would hire young instructors (read: cheap, yes, but also enthusiastic) and reward them on the basis of teaching skills, not publications or other academic standards.
Our focus would be at the intersection of the liberal arts and the social (and harder) sciences. The degree granted would be a bachelor of philosophy (BPhil) not a BA or BS. The first two years would mostly be a core curriculum of humanities (literature, philosophy, classics, perhaps with an immersion Latin course) and social sciences, including the hard stuff like statistics, modeling, financial analysis and the like. During the last two years, students would enroll in two fields of study instead of a major/minor.
The college would publish its own online magazine, written by both professors and students. Writing 5,000 words that actual people are going to want to read but is nonetheless rigorous and fact-based and profound on, say, why Cicero is relevant today, or on the impact of Evangelicalism on Latin American politics, or IBM’s business turnaround strategy, would be a tremendous college assignment for a student. It would be both a great way to promote the college and a great educational experience for the students and also a good resume builder (and a good preparation for a career).
I have another suggestion: find a new board. Put Gobry on it, and challenge him to make his theories work. Rahm Emanuel might need a job soon: he’d be a good addition. What about Hillary Clinton? She’s a feminist (cough!), cares about young women, and leads a major foundation, is rich enough to give a significant donation (as non-profit board members are obligated to do), and at her going rate for speeches, could put a big dent in that 250 million without even getting a sore throat. Let’s see, at $250,000 an hour, that’s four hours a million. At just two hours a week, 4o weeks a year, Hillary could add 20 million to Sweet Briar’s coffers in a single year; in five, she could add $100, 000, 000 in five years, all by herself!
OK, we know that’s not likely to happen, but if I were on the board, I’d still ask. You never know: Clinton might be shamed into contributing some spare change from her purse, which might be enough to fund a faculty position for a year or so. There is, in management, an ethical duty to try; you have an obligation to the mission and the institution. “This looks like a lot of trouble and work, and we’re probably going to fail anyway. The hell with it: let’s quit now” isn’t fair to the institution, isn’t consistent with the duty of a board, constitutes an abandonment of the mission, and is an embarrassment to the institution. How stereotypically girly. This broads version of leadership and fortitude would have smothered the United States of America in its crib; it would have led Lincoln to allow the Confederacy to seceded, and slavery to continue; Edison to pronounce the incandescent light bulb hopeless, FDR to surrender to Japan, NASA to proclaim the moon mission a hopeless dream, and Reagan to say nothing more audacious than, “Mr. Gorbachev, give this wall a new paint job!”
The current Sweet Briar College board’s premature surrender to adversity is lazy and unethical. It is a betrayal of the college, the mission, and its students past, present and future. It should hand over the job to bolder, more committed people who are willing to use the resources at hand to save an institution worth saving.
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Sources: Washington Post, Forbes, Tax Prof Blog
Ethics Alarms 
My apologies: there were 18 comments from new commenters awaiting my review, and I have been in cabs, an airplane, and teaching legal ethics in Boston until just now. They are all up and approved, and I am impressed and inspired by the comments and passion exhibited by the Sweet Briar alumnae and supporters. We’re honored to have you here, and I hope you all visit regularly. Now I have to read and answer come of those comments…
I did not attend Sweet Briar, but did attend Mount Mary College (now University) in Milwaukee, another small, single-sex, liberal arts college. For as much time as I spent with friends down at Marquette, I cherished my time at MMU, and really wouldn’t have changed my experience at MMU for anything. I am sharing this with my fellow MMU alums – we are standing with Sweet Briar College and sending our thoughts and prayers from the north!
From a complete outsider who hadn’t heard of Sweet Briar a week ago, something is definitely missing from the explanations being offered. As one who currently works for a community college, and spends a heck of a lot of time volunteering and fundraising for nonprofits, Ms. Richter’s comments above ring resoundingly with the crystal tones of truth and clarity.
“The Gates Foundation gets 200 funding requests a day suggesting it was a waste of time.” Then the board’s and president’s attitude should be “Well, we’d better write one amazing proposal to make sure the 201st is the one that gets noticed!!” I am stunned daily by what people will do when they are simply ASKED — from a simple introduction to amazing donations and funding!! Witness $2.3 million raised in FOUR DAYS – remarkable.
Good luck to Sweet Briar – the world is definitely watching.
Thank you. We welcome pledges from any and all persons interested in keeping Sweet Briar open. Go to savingsweetbriar.com to pledge.
Mr Marshall you are on the mark to say that there is a tremendous difference between an annual campaign and an institution saving capital campaign. It is the difference between consistent annual support with high class participation vs best largest gift in a capital campaign. Again none of this is new.
As a proud and successful alumna of SBC, I too, feel we have not been given a true story of events. I have contributed for 36 years and have not heard of dire financial prognosis. I agree a new board needs to re-evaluate. The benefits of a same-sex college is not an anachronism. Women still earn less than men, we are still taught to be less than equal. SBC at least has the opportunity to lead in that direction
Sweet Briar was on my daughter’s short list of potential colleges. The campus is gorgeous, and the admissions department is encouraging, but they did not sell themselves the way other liberal arts colleges did. I think that it’s a shame to throw in the towel before giving a hard look at the process and competing for the student. They also need to update their science facility. That’s a shame.
For the sake of transparency, I am posting this comment here having already made basically the same comment to Marshall’s second article on Sweet Briar.
Years ago, I was a fund raising consultant to build an endowment for a Catholic girls’ high school. I met often with the nun who ran the school, and in a moment of candor, she told me this (paraphrasing): “Confidentially, to me this is more than a private Catholic school — it is a training ground for girls to become LEADERS. There is no chance here for a girl to be vice president of the class because a boy will usually be chosen in a co-ed school, or for a girl to be second at anything. I want these girls to take the world on, to become leaders, despite current norms, and my job is to get them ready to move in that direction.”
Sweet Briar (and Vassar and Radcliffe et.al. before them, both of whom knuckled under) was/is a last bastion of this idea. What we want are women who know how to lead – NOT on the coat-tails of the men they marry, e.g. (I will not name names) — but on their own. How the Sweet Brian board could just give up is beyond me. Who are these people? Have they no commitment at all? Why are they on the Board? I am encouraged that the SB alumni (I will NOT use the feminine Latin term) are horrified at this blase announcement by the Board, and are determined to dump them all and save the school. Sweet Briar alumni — and anyone else interested enough to help — have much to save, and much to give — to the college and to our society.
I am a member of the Board of Trustees of Shimer College, a small liberal arts college in Illinois. In 1973, the Board of Trustees voted to close the college. Faculty and students refused to accept that decision. They took over operating the college, raised needed funds, wrested control from the bankruptcy trustee whom the Board had hired…and 42 years later, Shimer College is still providing students with a first rate education, as they have since opening as a rural women’s college in 1853. Don’t give up! Sweet Briar has a storied past, and deserves to have a great future!
Yes SBC Board please help us explore the alternatives and give your constituency some peace of mind. Its such a reasonable and ethical action.
Here’s an interesting link, from Sweet Briar’s own website:
http://sbc.edu/news/uncategorized/board-chair-takes-office/
Looks like the previous Board Chair Dr. Virginia Upchurch Collier (SBC ’72) did a good job; $110 million were raised in a capital campaign during her time. Paul Rice joined the board in 2007 and became chair in 2011. Curious as to why no capital campaign to raise funds has occurred under his leadership when Jo Ellen Parker wss president. and now current president Jones.
Lets see…Sweet Briar College is PRIME land.. board member is connected to wealthy land developers….you connect the dots. The time to donate to #savingsweetbriar is now.
I wonder about this as well. Additionally, President Jones has been massaging the VA Attorney General for weeks to try to get the endowment released to help get the college closed. And then today the AG comes out supporting the board and Jones. Unreal.
Yes, I have suspected a connection. Mr. Rice is a UVA alum; a campus building bears his name thanks to his foundation’s donation. His board term is due to expire 2016.
According to the Wall Street Journal in the article “New Unrest on Campus as Donors Rebel” by John Hechinger on April 23 2009, President Jones has misused scholarship funds before as well as using threat tactics to cow those who object to his methods. The fall-out over his tampering with the Shelby Collum Davis endowment in his previous position at Trinity College peaked in late 2013–right before he left to come to Sweet Briar. Admittedly UVA is a large school, but Jones and Mark Herring, the Va Attorney General, both managed to graduate from it–another small connection in a deal that seems more rotten at each turn.
You were right of you make enough noise sometimes you get lucky and the right person listens. Check out Everett Sterns Twitter and read this report
http://tacticalrabbit.com/intelligence-operation-sweetbriar-college/
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