One way to save the college is to allow enrollment of transgenders. Update to this previous story.
Via NY Times
Here at bucolic Sweet Briar College, equestrians awaken at dawn and trek to the stables to ride on 18 miles of trails through wooded countryside, fields and dells. Women study on the boathouse dock at sunset, as geese squawk over a lake. Pearls are still in fashion, and men must have escorts. Students call it “the pink bubble.”
Now, all of a sudden, the bubble has burst.
The abrupt decision this month by the Sweet Briar board to close the 114-year-old women’s liberal arts school at the end of this term “as a result of insurmountable financial challenges” — with no advance warning to students, parents, alumnae or professors — has transformed this tranquil community into a hotbed of anger and activism.
A new alumnae group, Saving Sweet Briar, has raised $3 million and intends to demand this week that the school make its finances public — or face legal action. The faculty voted unanimously last week to oppose the “unilateral decision” to close the school, and demanded to meet with the board. Students, fresh from spring break, plastered their cars with a rallying cry — #SaveSweetBriar — in the school colors, pink and green.
“I now know more about nonprofit law than I feel I know about chemistry — and I’m a chemistry major,” said Leah Humenuck, a senior from New Freedom, Pa. “We’re at a liberal arts college that empowers women. Now we’re finding ways to use that education to empower ourselves.”[…]
Fifty years ago, there were 230 women’s colleges in the United States, according to the Women’s College Coalition, a nonprofit group. Last year, there were 46. But Chatham University in Pittsburgh is set to admit men this fall, dropping the number to 45. Without Sweet Briar, there will be 44.
When Sweet Briar held college fairs after announcing the closing, about 150 schools showed up, looking for new students.
“Part of what makes the Sweet Briar story so shocking to people is that we wouldn’t have necessarily thought of them as being one of the most vulnerable,” said Elizabeth Kiss, the president of Agnes Scott College, a women’s college in Decatur, Ga., one of about a dozen schools that have agreed to expedite transfers for Sweet Briar students. “We were, I think, just stunned.[…]
But the school has $28 million in deferred maintenance, and nearly $25 million in debt, Mr. Jones said, adding that financial consultants had determined Sweet Briar would need a $250 million endowment to survive. The board considered alternatives — including going coeducational or merging with another school — but ruled them out as not viable.
“You don’t just take ‘ladies’ off of every other bathroom door and put ‘men’ up,” Mr. Rice said. “You have to add programs and facilities, athletics. All of these things take significant investment and time.”
HT: The College Fix