Sweet Briar College’s announcement that it will close its doors at the end of the academic year has raised the level of conversation about the future of higher education from murmurs to shouts.

Sweet Briar is a small liberal arts college for women set on 3,250 acres in rural Virginia; its enrollment is only 735 students. On the surface, the school appears to be an anachronism, a throwback to days long-gone (the women may bring their horses to campus), yet on another plane, it was working hard to bridge the old to the new by introducing women to fields traditionally filled by men.

But a perfect storm got in the way of its survival:

  • First, liberal arts colleges are suspect these days. The national education pundits excoriate the value of the liberal arts, asking, “Will an art history major ever find a job?”
  • Because women want to sit next to men in college and strut their stuff, small women’s colleges have been dying, merging, or becoming coed for decades—only the most intellectually robust and financially secure will remain.
  • The cacophony and rumble of city life trump the pastoral idyllic vistas of the countryside.

Enrollments were falling at Sweet Briar and deficits were rising. The Board of Trustees looked at the collision of the vectors and said the hemorrhaging had to stop.

Those of us on the outside don’t know enough about the deliberations that went into the closing of Sweet Briar College to truly judge. However, we can tell that the college, with over a century of service since its founding in 1901, deserved a more transparent conclusion.

The trustees in their rush to presumably do the right thing neglected one of the primary rules of collegial governance: open participatory decision-making by informed stakeholders. The trustees may have the legal right to bring the curtain down at Sweet Briar, but they had a responsibility to thousands of living alumni as well as the faculty and staff of explaining themselves to their constituents, and allowing for greater participation by all those who have contributed to creating, sustaining and loving the institution and the community it represents.

With a $90 million endowment earning income, was there not time to finesse the status quo, tweak the mission, marketing, revenue, and expenses; to give others an opportunity to manage, to perform radical surgery? The campus is comprised of faculty and staff who believe in the power of the liberal arts, of critical thinking. Were they asked to design a new model of operations?

A college community prides itself on thoughtful conversation and discussion but in this case the trustees waved the red flag indicating the game is over.