The new president’s remarks indicate that the plan is for SBC to stay single sex.
Not a surprise. Doubtful the alums would pony up just to go coed. More expensive to go coed. Also think there’s a better chance of success as a more niche branded SS college than as an extremely small rural college transitioning to coed.
I admit I was a skeptic too, but if they can really get high school students to return to Sweet Briar in decent numbers again they do have a good chance of surviving in their current form. I don’t really understand why a high school student would want to enroll in a school whose existence is contingent on the outcome of a court case, but I know that I’m not the target market for this school. It’s certainly possible that Sweet Briar has a strong following either regionally or internationally that it can draw on. They’ve proven that they can rally their alumni when things are dire. Maybe they can pull out a marketing miracle for the history books.
There was an article in one of the Chicago papers a day or two ago interviewing former students and a faculty member. It said they expect 250 students to return, but the rising junior said she wouldn’t because what would she do for senior year if they close next summer instead of this summer? I think 250 is an optimistic number.
It would not be surprising if the 250 students included many seniors but very few juniors.
It may make sense to return as a senior who can graduate even if the school closes a year later, but who finds current senior-level transfer options limited. It makes less sense to return as a junior, since transferring as a senior is more difficult.
I think Xiggi has this confused with a corporate takeover. Which “insiders”?? A new President who was already set in happy semi-retirement?
How many juniors did they have last year? They may get the juniors back so they can graduate with a Sweet Briar degree, but after that all bets are off…They don’t need all the profs, they were over proff-ed compared to other colleges and the laundry list of majors was extensive, way more than a college of less than 500 could ever sustain. I can’t imagine they’d keep a prof on payroll with no students to teach. It’s just dreaming to think that in 6-8 weeks it’s business as usual.
I haven’t heard any tallies today but yesterday Sweet Briar College had enrolled 157 upperclassmen and 20 freshman. That was Day 2 of the Admissions Office being really open. I think they worked on setting up over the weekend. The old administration didn’t pay much attention to the restraining orders not to do anything to close the school and shut down pretty much anyway. Shocker!
I think that the Admissions Office was tackling the rising Juniors and Seniors first because they have more specific scheduling needs than the incoming Freshman and rising Sophomores. The situation with staffing is kind of dire so the faculty and alumnae are pitching into process enrollment. The Senior class isn’t as large as it would have been before the Illegal March 3 Closing Attempt because a number of Juniors had enough credits to graduate early in May.
It isn’t true that the professors that are available and staying were too crappy to get jobs elsewhere. Many signed contracts with other colleges with a provision that if Sweet Briar did stay open, they could return to Sweet Briar. I believe that the faculty did have a hard time believing in us…but were amazed to find how really beloved they were to the alumnae. People have that much loyalty not just because the faculty invested heavily in each of them, but because their teaching was also excellent.
When you guys disparage the quality of Sweet Briar and huff that it doesn’t deserve to continue because it doesn’t compare to Bryn Mawr, Smith, or Wellesley…blah, blah…you forget that the majority of the women attending Sweet Briar would not be admitted to those colleges. I think Smith accepted one of Sweet Briar’s students, Scripps another, Mills about 8, Hollins about 80, Randolph College even more. All told, only half of the students made arrangements for next year. The other half hoped and/or decided that they needed time to rethink options.
I have written this before but I must say it again…while many, certainly not all, of these students are average students, they are not average or substandard PEOPLE. They are unique human beings that deserve the best education they can get and they don’t have to settle for local community colleges (which average a 67% failure rate) or a huge second tier state university (average failure rates around 55-60%). They elect to go to a small and beautiful school where the faculty will nurture them and love them. Because of that, these women made history.
I have to say this discussion has been eye opening for me. I have a daughter at home who isn’t an average student. She is an excellent student that I have often had thoughts of Smith or Scripps for her. But listening to some of you express contempt for regular students, I think going to an elite college might be a huge mistake. I want my child to respect others because a person is a person no matter how small. Can people educated in schools that don’t admit students that are not in the upper 5% of their class be normal? Will they have contempt for regular people, for average people? Average people make up 85% of our population. Only valuing the top 5% would make for a very sparse life.
"When you guys disparage the quality of Sweet Briar and huff that it doesn’t deserve to continue because it doesn’t compare to Bryn Mawr, Smith, or Wellesley…blah, blah…you forget that the majority of the women attending Sweet Briar would not be admitted to those colleges. "
No, we are not “forgetting” that. We are aware. That’s precisely the point.
And no one has said that average students are “substandard people”. It is just that there are so many alternatives for such students (and no, not just CC or big state u) that it’s harder to justify or build a business case for this particular one.
It is somewhat infantalizing (or I dare I say elitist?) to state that a “regular” student who is not the in the top 5% needs the specific hand-holding of a place like Sweet Briar to thrive. I know and have worked with hundreds of folks like this during my career. A very small proportion of them had specific learning needs which were best met by a place like Sweet Briar. The others did just fine at a wide range of colleges- co-ed, urban, suburban, large, huge, tiny, religious, secular, etc.
I think it’s offensive to claim that anyone who observes that the “niche” that SB occupies has a declining market appeal is an elitist. I think it’s elitist to claim the opposite. What’s wrong with CUNY or U Mass Dartmouth or Towson or Providence College or Wittenberg or anyone of a few hundred other colleges which enroll “regular” students but occupy a different niche in higher education???
Citing the 55% failure rate of community college is illogical. You are comparing apples to donuts. My local CC enrolls 40 year old’s with children who have a GED (never graduated from HS) who work 50 hours a week AND are taking one class at a time to get a certificate to become an LPN or to work as a radiology tech. They won’t show up as having “graduated” (i.e. a success story per your statistics) because they aren’t in community college to get an Associates degree and THEN get a bachelor’s. They are taking the classes they need, one at a time, to meet their own educational goals.
Who is the elitist here? You seem to exhibit a lot of contempt for students in community college…
Blossom is to the point. It doesn’t sway me one iota to insist SB needs to focus on “average” students. In fact, I see that as a chunk of the problem, considering the thousands of schools which do that. Not elitist, just considering the potential this school has. Any college (and this is a huge factor in most CC admissions discussions,) is about the strength of the college, the school as an institution that needs to thrive and keep moving- not simply what the individual applicant “wants.”
SB needs to re-form itself as a distinct destination.
Yes, they are competing not only with every other college or university that accepts students with those academic credentials, they are also competing for those students that want a single sex campus. I’m not entirely sure I understand what has CharmingFrock so bothered, if anything it’s the opposite of contempt for the B student, Sweet Briar needs those students…if anything the issue is going to be to find students that can afford to pay who want to attend who are college ready I would think. If they manage to stay open then they can start concerning themselves with the caliber of student that will raise the selectivity above what it is or will be in a couple years.
Right. Single sex colleges are hard enough to fill when you throw elite historical reputations and huge endowments into the mix. Believe me, I’m quite sure Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr would love to have more women beating down their doors than they have. They’re not at the Ivy or comparable selectivity levels because the pool of who will consider them is already smaller.
It’s just about putting butts in seats at a high enough average net price.
Selectivity is one way colleges do that. Highly selective schools have lots and lots of people who want to attend and who are also willing to pay a high price to do so. Everyone wants to belong to the club that will not have them as a member.
Looks like SBC thinks it will have a better chance of filling seats as one of 50 womens colleges rather than as one of 2,000 coed schools.
Yeah, and what an impressive program and faculty they are rounding up!
Is it really the only program in engineering at an all female school? Must have a couple of footnotes on that statement or a rather bizarre system of accreditation.
In the SE, xiggi. Smith, in the NE. Note the comments about aiming for generous finaid.
So three professors are going to teach an entire engineering curriculum? I don’t see how.
My daughter looked at a very small school, with 1200 students (‘looked’ is being generous; we knew within minutes it was too small). They were trying to sell her on a 3+2 engineering program. I noticed the math department only had 5 professors and just knew that was way too small. What if you don’t like one? How often are courses offered? What if you get off sequence and can’t take a course until the following spring?
this is really a lot of band-aides on the problem.
What? Engineering…generous financial…what on earth is the “new” Sweet Briar doing that the old failing Sweet Briar did not do that is going to change the dynamic? My oh my.
The 900 person liberal arts college I used to attend had more professors teaching the relatively unpopular intro to philosophy than Sweet Briar has to teach the entire engineering curriculum. For comparison, Smith College currently has 14 engineering professors, 2 engineering staff, and if it’s relevant, 8 current physics professors and 3 emeriti physics professors.
Perhaps a comparison to Smith College is unfair. After all, it is an elite women’s college, entirely unlike the moribund Sweet Briar. Maybe it’s better to compare the 1,117 student Christian Brothers University, a decidedly non elite school in Memphis with an engineering program. Oh wait, according to CBU’s [engineering faculty page](http://www.cbu.edu/sustainability) there are far more engineering professors at this tiny Memphis institution than all of Sweet Briar’s math, physics, and engineering professors combined.
“only had 5 professors and just knew that was way too small. What if you don’t like one? How often are courses offered? What if you get off sequence and can’t take a course until the following spring?”
To be fair, this is true of many departments at tiny colleges. It doesn’t work for me, but there are lots of students who think it’s worth the trade-off.