After a court reprieve, can Sweet Briar College play to its single-sex strengths?
Sweet Briar administrators have squared off against a coalition of alumnae, faculty, and students. At the heart of the issue: How relevant are women's colleges in 2015?
Sweet Briar College graduates sing their school's song during commencement exercises May 16, 2015 near Amherst, Va. The school announced plans to close, potentially making the class of 2015 the school's last.
Max Oden/The News & Advance/AP
The Supreme Court of Virginia has given hope to supporters of same-sex education, halting the planned closure of 114-year-old聽.
Some proponents of聽single-sex聽education argue that the declining enrollment facing Sweet Briar and other women's colleges is the result of playing down their strengths as a same-sex institution, instead of embracing the advantages of their old-school but still effective approach.
On Feb. 28, the college's governing board, Sweet Briar Institute, voted to shut the school's doors in the face of a shrinking student body and a restricted-use endowment. A group of alumnae, faculty, and students went to court to challenge the decision.聽
Tuesday's Virginia Supreme Court ruling returned the case to the circuit court, saying the lower court had erred in concluding that Sweet Briar Institute could unilaterally decide to close the school. Justices ruled that 鈥淭he law of trusts [i.e., estates] can apply to a corporation."
According to the聽聽website, opponents of the closing want the college to honor the 1901 will of Indiana Fletcher Williams, who left her entire estate to establish a women's college in perpetuity, in memory of her daughter who died at age 16.
Saving Sweet Briar Inc., a nonprofit, has raised $16 million in pledges to help keep the college open.
Alumnae Sally Mott Freeman, who helped organize the group聽Saving Sweet Briar, told the Monitor that聽鈥淚n the past seven or eight years the college has not played to its strength.鈥澛犅�
"Going to a women鈥檚 college has lifelong benefits," says Ms. Mott Freeman. "They eliminated those words, or comments, from their narrative, and I don鈥檛 think that was wise."
Mott Freeman cites the number of聽聽who graduated from women's colleges, including Madeleine Albright,聽Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Gloria Steinem. Sweet Briar's distinguished alumnae include Mary Lee Settles, National Book Award winner; Leah Busque, founder of TaskRabbit; and Colleen Bell, US ambassador to Hungary.聽
鈥淟ook at the statistics: 20 percent of the women in Congress went to women鈥檚 colleges, 30 percent on the Fortune 1,000 list went to all-women colleges 鈥撀燼nd the reason that statistic is remarkable is that only two percent of the women in this country went to women鈥檚 colleges,鈥� Mott Freeman says.
Despite the fierce advocacy of their graduates, single-sex institutions are on the decline nationwide. Only three men's colleges remain open (聽in Virginia,聽聽in Georgia, and聽聽in Indiana) and the ranks of women鈥檚 colleges are rapidly dwindling. Some, like Harvard University's聽, have merged completely into their sibling institutions.
鈥淲omen鈥檚 colleges are dwindling because many college student perceive the co-ed college setting as being more fun,鈥� says聽, founder of the聽聽(NASSPE) in an interview. 鈥淎 corollary to that is that many of these women鈥檚 colleges have run away from their identity. They hire consultants who say, 鈥楲ook, kids want to do a bunch of things at college, one of which is have a good time and they don鈥檛 think they鈥檒l have a good time at a single-sex school.' So they tell them 鈥楧on鈥檛 broadcast that part of your identity.' And we have found empirically that鈥檚 bad advice, as Sweet Briar demonstrates.鈥�
Of聽Tuesday鈥檚聽court decision Ms. Mott Freeman says, 鈥淚 see tremendous hope in this move. I don鈥檛 think money could have bought a public relations campaign that could have proved the point better. This is a groundswell of 8,000 graduates that from day one showed their leadership, executive and fundraising and general savvy in fighting something they saw as (A) a false narrative and (B) a sucker-punch on its face. The public has seen why schools like this have value.鈥�
罢丑别听聽estimates that approximately 400 public schools now offer some form of single-sex education. 聽
鈥淲e have never argued that single-sex education is always better than co-education,鈥� Dr. Sax says. 鈥淲hat we have argued is that people differ and what is best for one is not necessarily best for all. Some people do better in a single-sex environment and the benefits of women鈥檚 colleges can be pretty dramatic, because we live in a sexist society."