Sweet Briar College Closes

It's not a DL thing but maybe a sign of the times in higher ed

Sweet Briar College land cannot be sold according to founder's last will and testament - Business Insider

 

Someone mentioned this to me the other day. Apparently his daughter has to complete her senior year at GWU because of the closure.

Sad.

At the same time, I think we will see more of this. There are a lot of small colleges out there that don't attract enough students to be supported by tuition and have endowments too small to support it otherwise.

 

Time to look into tuition cost !

oooh what am i thinking

):

 

Follow up story - What happens to the Professors?

The Unfortunate Fate of Sweet Briar

 

It's unfortunate when a school's faculty is released into an already competitive job market. I hope these professors are able to find a new academic home.

Now I'm going to say something that will likely prove unpopular.

I'm kind of glad that schools like Sweet Briar are closing.

Years ago, many of these all-female colleges seemed to be more about the college "experience" than actually gaining a meaningful credential. These are the places that allowed you to study poetry and equestrian studies because they weren't preparing you for academia or the workforce. They were preparing you to meet and marry a college educated man so you could get married off as soon as possible.

Statements in the article like this:

Sorry, but places like this sound more like prep schools than colleges to me.

I'm sure that in recent years the graduates of Sweet Briar have gone on to actual careers and graduate programs and otherwise excelled. They appear to have a few pre-professional programs as well. But schools like this are built upon an outdated model.

And the fact that they were not required to "pump out cutting edge research articles" tells me that these professors are going to face an uphill battle as they enter the job market. I am going to imagine that a tenured professor at Sweet Briar doesn't have the publication history that an Assistant Professor at a public university would have. I don't want to start an argument over "publish or perish" but I think this sort of thing is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Maybe neither extreme is healthy for a learning environment.

If I worked for an employer who was listed on Forbes as being financial unstable, I would start looking for work elsewhere. At a minimum I would be doing whatever it took to position myself for a new job when the other shoe finally dropped. I'm not blaming the professors for their plight, mind you, but since the finances were an ongoing issue there I hope at least some of the faculty chose to publish and do other things not required of them to prepare for the next phase of their careers.

Sweet Briar's abrupt closure is sad for the students, faculty and staff. The students will have to complete their degrees elsewhere and won't get to earn a degree from a college they attended and likely feel connected to. The faculty and staff now need to find alternate means to support their families and themselves. But the closure of schools like Sweet Briar isn't so sad for education.

Cornell (and New York state) had to completely rebrand and relaunch their College of Home Economics into the College of Human Ecology. The shift was drastic and it involved much, much more than simply "going co-ed." It involved a complete rethinking of the school's purpose and mission. Schools like Sweet Briar just aren't prepared for that sort of overhaul. The story of Sweet Briar was so important to its many stakeholders that it outweighed the need for the school to survive.

So, will it continue to happen? Yes it will. And I don't think it will just be women's colleges. I think many small colleges and universities whose main contribution to the academic world is an idyllic campus will see a similar fate in the coming years.

 

It seems that some others agree . . .

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/college-presidents-worry-schools-wont-173715491.html

 

Sweet Briar's alumnae are fighting hard to keep the school going. Apparently something similar happened to Wilson back in the 70's and they were able to survive. I hope for Sweet Briar's sake that it does, too. Virginia has already lost a few smaller schools, like Virginia Intermont and St. Pauls, and we have other schools in financial danger as well, like Virginia State. I've known a few who have graduated from Sweet Briar, and they're all top notch individuals. I know it has to stink for them, but like I said, they're fighting, and I wish them luck!

-Matt

 

As much as I kind of hate to admit it, Virginia Intermont College deserved to close. I've visited the school and it's a dump. The buildings were crumbling and the entire college is surrounded by slum. The school was not offering programs of study that students in the surrounding area could have used for gainful employment (with a few exceptions). It had a large equine studies program nearby that was a major money pit. Basically, the school had been poorly managed for years and had failed to innovate. It had a couple of evening programs but no DL offerings.

In contrast, King University, which is just a couple of miles away, is doing quite well. The school offers a variety of innovative degree programs and it even offers several DL programs as well. A medical school is in the works, too.

Here's a little bit of totally useless trivia for you. Directly across the road from Virginia Intermont College is another all-women's college that closed down in the 1970's, Sullins College. Ironically, the Sullins College campus (it's still there) is much nicer than the Virginia Intermont campus.

 

Virginia state senator questioning legality of closing Sweet Briar College - Business Insider

 

Now, when will under-performing public HBCU's be nixed?

 

Actually, the distinction you note is not the distinction between colleges and prep schools, it is a distinction between colleges and universities. Universities (at least real universities) require their faculty to teacvh two classes per semester and publish one journal article per semester (or one book every five years), while colleges require their faculty to teach four classes per semester with no research requirement.

 

There are a bunch of schools like that where I live, Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke to name a few of the better known examples. They are all rather expensive and considered to be high quality schools. Part of the appeal is that your instructors are the real full-time faculty of the college, not teaching assistants or rent-a-profs (not my term). They focus on keeping up with research and teaching undergrads. As I understand it, they can go years without writing anything or doing research of any kind.

 

As I'm sure you know, Steve, VSU is an HBCU. It's also a land grant institution. One of the problems it's facing is a major decline in enrollments. (Possibly because students are opting to go to schools that are not HBCUs.) They have empty dorms and had to lay off people at the end of the fall semester. I believe the students were trying to oust the president as well for poor leadership.

-Matt

 

What a surprise. Well, not really. A women's LAC, that is not terribly famous or a "Seven Sister" in the middle of nowhere closing it's doors? Wow. Go figure. My daughter applied and was accepted to one women's college, Mount Holyoke. However, MHC is a member of the Five College Consortium. She can take classes at Amherst, U Mass, Smith, and Hampshire.

In order to survive, most women's colleges have had to accept men. Or join an active consortium. Simmons is in Boston. "Nuff said. Whaton in MA went co-ed as did Skidmore, Vassar, Elmra, Wells, and a host of other formerly female colleges.

Here are some that did not go co-ed - Marymount College in NY, Kirkland College (absorbed into Hamilton) Briarcliff College (NY) and many others.

My daughter is not sure about MHC. But without the consortium, she never would have applied.

 

Mary Washington used to be a college for women, but they too opened their doors to men.

University of Mary Washington | Where Great Minds Get To Work

Approved Majority Online Courses at UMW | University Faculty Council

 

When I taught high school, I had several males students tell me they did not want to go to Mary Washington because it was a girl's school. I suppose it still has that stigma. After all, 2/3 of the students are female. Then again, I did have guys tell me they wanted to go there because of the increase chances of picking up chicks. Ahh.... teenagers...

-Matt

 

Here's a follow up story from the Times about Sweet Briar and the efforts to save it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/education/sweet-briars-imminent-closing-stirs-small-uprising-in-a-college-idyll.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0