If they do, Hanna, the closest I can find is along the lines of “exploring our strengths.”
Eight weeks to see who’s coming, staff appropriately, calculate services required, open just the right number of dorms. We aren’t talking January. I was, in part, a crisis manager, the S rolled downhill and there I was. I cant help but see the urgency in all this, for a hard opening in September. I don’t see the triage. Maybe they surprise us, next week. We have to wait.
The Little Train that Could wouln;t be so inspiring if it fell off that mountain.
The denial/grieving family members don’t pay the bill for keeping grandma alive – Medicare does. If the family actually had to pay grandma’s tab, …well I guess grandma lived a full life…
These alums are paying to prop up grandma for a year or more. BIG difference.
From reading the settlement agreement, it looks to me like the creditors and faculty severance and other wind down costs are all provided for.
With no adverse financial consequences as compared to an immediate closure, why the haters? If some alum wants to drop two big bills on this effort, what’s it to you? The alums have bought this microphone (assuming the rest of the $12 million comes in).
Just saying, they need a lot of alums to drop a few big bills. Very big ones. Not a hater. Said early on I know the school, have friends from there, smart, ambitious, independent sorts. Oddly, none of them in a tizzy.
We seem to be split between “What the Heck, Give it a Try” and “Why Bother?”
“The denial/grieving family members don’t pay the bill for keeping grandma alive – Medicare does.”
This scenario happens all the time when the patient is an uninsured child. People absolutely drain their savings, sell the house, and go bankrupt to save a likely-unsavable child.
I’m not hating. I hope that they have all the success in the world! I just don’t think we can assume they have a viable plan just because they’re pouring money in.
I’m not a hater- and I think it’s sad anytime a library, college, museum, archive, historical society goes under. We live in a world which glorifies people like the Kardashian’s and sports figures and seriously under-value the arts, literature, music, and history.
That said, I have seen some non-profits up close (I noted earlier that I was on the board of a non-profit which was threatened with a lawsuit against the trustees) and there are some which are able to close/be absorbed/get renewed/restructure so that their mission continues- even if the cast of characters leading the charge changes. There are others which go down in flames-- the Attorney General of the state tries to figure out a reasonable disposition of assets, but typically with a mind towards, “Who has the strongest claim” and NOT “how do we fulfill the mission of the organization to the best of our ability with the remainder of the assets.”
In THOSE cases, the winners are forensic accountants and law firms.
Nothing against lawyers and CPA’s… but that is most assuredly NOT the mission of SB, nor was it the intent of the donors who contributed to the endowment.
So I’m not a hater. But I think it will be sad if next year we are wondering society has lost both a liberal arts college AND there aren’t the funds available to continue- even in some diminished way- the intent of the donors. And based on my very limited knowledge of SB’s strategic challenges and finances, there don’t seem to be enough full pay students in the pipeline to make the college viable. Enough kids who need aid? For sure. But at some point, you can’t cut your way to solvency alone- there needs to be revenue. And adding ancillary revenue (turn half the campus into a country club/theme park/yoga spa/missile silo) would seem to further alienate the full payers so it’s likely a wash revenue wise.
The alums are writing checks to keep the school open for one year under new management. So the school will be open for at least one more year.
When the new management comes up with their plan, the alums will decide if they are willing to write the additional checks needed to implement that plan. The $12 million is just the first installment; definitely not a full blown financial plan. If not, then the school closes and the creditors and faculty get the same as they would today if the school was shuttered.
From a business perspective, by far the worst thing the alums could do at this point is to pretend/believe they had a workable plan cooked up. That is, even before the new management had spent one day on the job.
Yes, not a hater either. It’s really sad when you see niche colleges that were so very strong back in my day slowly die off. and SB is in a pretty crowded market regionally. Like I said, if the new blood can get if turned around in 90 days it’s will be business school case-worthy study.
We did a real visit to Liberty and a drive-by at Hollins. Also went to VA Tech and W&L. That Western leg was a freelance addendum to an organized central VA counselor tour where we saw UVA, W&M, JMU, UMW, CNU, VCU, and U of Richmond in four days. Whew!
We didn’t make it to GMU on the way to Dulles…that will have to be another trip.
Thanks
Lynchburg College and Randolph are both very nice. LU–a work in progress but light years from just 15 years ago. It will be OK when it is done. But they run very cost-efficient operation.
Sounds like UAW limiting the growth of demanded salary increases and calling it a savings to General Motors. They claimed damages and settled for the 6 months severance package that was on the table. What a saving!
And with it appearing likely more faculty return that liability is further reduced freeing up needed short-term cash. Also I would not pay severance to those who took equal positions elsewhere unless legally obligated to do so.
What is the difference between paying severance from the entire pool of funds available if the school had closed and paying a similarly legally obligated severance from a … reduced pool after one or more years of operation. Inasmuch as the alumnae are purported to contribute millions in the future, it remains that the AG is converting at least 16 million from the endowment to shore up the leaking boat.
Should we believe that the members of the “unionized” group who sued the school for additional severance and damages will be more charitable in the future? Be it a future with an ultimate demise or a similar middling and mediocre operation?
All in all, it remains a plan to pushes liabilities in the future and the risk is that the diminishing assets will ultimately make an orderly closure more difficult. Of course, there is always the wishful thinking that above average students with above average means will flock to a school with a foot in the grave and boost the enrollment to double or triple its current enrollment. Will require a lot of well-off equestrians with few academic options.
I would not be surprised if the returning faculty did so because they had no other jobs (because the closure announcement was late enough that they missed the faculty hiring cycle) but that they will be applying for other faculty jobs this year “just in case” the school does not make it past one more year.
You can bet more than a few bucks that … the closing will happen well before they exhaust all funds and that, by then, the same group of activists will make sure to have extorted their just desserts. They might have been asleep and surprised by the prompt decision of the BOT this time, but that will not happen again. In the meantime, you can also bet that any “competitive” member of that current faculty will look at a better opportunity. If they have the option and the common sense to read the tea leaves correctly.
Insiders, as usual, will split the spoils just as well as they could have done last month. The losers will always be the former and future students and the people who jumped to rescue this sinking ship.