SWEET BRIAR, Va. ― Prominent alumnae of Sweet Briar College are rejoicing over a mediated settlement to keep the 114-year-old Virginia women’s college open, a rescue deal that caps frantic months-long efforts to stave off a planned August closure.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced the settlement Saturday, saying $12 million was raised by determined alumnae to keep the women’s college afloat this coming academic year. He said the resolution, which requires a judge’s OK, followed hundreds of hours of negotiations involving the college, a local attorney fighting closure and the money-raising nonprofit Saving Sweet Briar Inc.
Sarah Clement, chairwoman of Saving Sweet Briar, said the settlement “is an answer to the prayers for many and a powerful validation of the value of fighting for what you believe in.”
The announcement follows difficult months of campaigning by alumnae, litigation that reached the state’s highest court, and national ruminations on the future of all-female higher education touched off by financial woes at the small but prominent liberal arts college tucked away in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
In early May, leaders of the liberal arts college cited insurmountable financial challenges for the planned closure. They also said mounting debt, deferred maintenance on the historic 3,250-acre campus and declining enrollment were to blame for plans to shutter the school in late August.
The administration’s claim of a dire financial situation was challenged almost immediately by alumnae, students and faculty. They questioned whether the college’s finances were as dire as depicted. Higher education experts, while acknowledging the steady erosion in the number of women’s colleges, also were surprised Sweet Briar’s leaders had decided to close the school, given its hefty endowment.
Herring said the agreement would be presented to a judge Monday for his approval and final settlement. If approved, it would also end litigation aimed at blocking the college’s closure. “Looking back, all parties wanted to preserve the legacy of the college, one through orderly closure, and the other by keeping the college open,” Herring said in a statement.
