Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Friday, June 26, 2015
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
Sunday, June 21, 2015
John Gregory Brown - SBC
FROM: John Gregory Brown (posted 17 hours ago)·
Another note to those working so valiantly to save Sweet Briar College:
In less than two weeks, most of the college’s employees will lose their jobs. Many have found new jobs; many others have not. And many of those who have found new jobs have taken them at considerable expense, both financial and emotional. Some will earn less money; some will have to travel greater distances to and from work; some will have little job securit...y or seniority; some will be separated from their families. All will have lost the reward of working in a community that they knew well and loved and served for many years. Faculty have had to give up tenure; they have had to accept one-year positions with no future or teaching positions with no time for the research or scholarship or creative endeavors upon which they have fashioned their lives and careers. They will have to move, as Carrie and I will move, from higher education to secondary schools, from one part of the country to another. They will be forced to leave spouses and partners who have had to accept jobs elsewhere. They will be forced to leave their homes, many with no guarantee when or if they will be able to sell them.
Another note to those working so valiantly to save Sweet Briar College:
In less than two weeks, most of the college’s employees will lose their jobs. Many have found new jobs; many others have not. And many of those who have found new jobs have taken them at considerable expense, both financial and emotional. Some will earn less money; some will have to travel greater distances to and from work; some will have little job securit...y or seniority; some will be separated from their families. All will have lost the reward of working in a community that they knew well and loved and served for many years. Faculty have had to give up tenure; they have had to accept one-year positions with no future or teaching positions with no time for the research or scholarship or creative endeavors upon which they have fashioned their lives and careers. They will have to move, as Carrie and I will move, from higher education to secondary schools, from one part of the country to another. They will be forced to leave spouses and partners who have had to accept jobs elsewhere. They will be forced to leave their homes, many with no guarantee when or if they will be able to sell them.
All of us who have accepted these new jobs have done so not because we don’t want the college to be saved, not because we do not possess the fire and commitment of our colleagues fighting to save Sweet Briar, not because we wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of a revived and re-imagined college with leaders worthy of our confidence and trust. We are leaving because we had no choice, because we need jobs and we have no jobs. We have financial responsibilities: bills to pay, aging parents and children to care for, tuition to provide, health care insurance to acquire. We have lives that we must reconstruct.
I sincerely hope that Sweet Briar College will remain open and that its leaders, whoever they may be, and its supporters – all those thousands of devoted and energetic and visionary alumni – will recognize that there is a college worth saving only because of the employees who spent their careers attending to the students and the buildings and the grounds and the countless tasks that are a necessary part of a college’s operations.
The employees have left – we have left – without the promise of severance, without a single extra day’s pay to cushion the blow, without a penny’s compensation for all we have lost and with tremendous expenses ahead of us. I sincerely hope that we will all soon be able to celebrate an important victory – that the college has been saved, that current students will have the opportunity to return, that future students will be able to pursue their educations on this beautiful campus.
But the victory will be a hollow one if those who save the college care only for those who are able to stay and not for those who have had to leave.
I sincerely hope that Sweet Briar College will remain open and that its leaders, whoever they may be, and its supporters – all those thousands of devoted and energetic and visionary alumni – will recognize that there is a college worth saving only because of the employees who spent their careers attending to the students and the buildings and the grounds and the countless tasks that are a necessary part of a college’s operations.
The employees have left – we have left – without the promise of severance, without a single extra day’s pay to cushion the blow, without a penny’s compensation for all we have lost and with tremendous expenses ahead of us. I sincerely hope that we will all soon be able to celebrate an important victory – that the college has been saved, that current students will have the opportunity to return, that future students will be able to pursue their educations on this beautiful campus.
But the victory will be a hollow one if those who save the college care only for those who are able to stay and not for those who have had to leave.
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Teresa Pike Tomlinson '87 Video - Please Click on Facebook Icon in Lower Right Corner to View Video
TERESA PIKE TOMLINSON '87 VIDEO
Rise to the Challenge!On March 3, 2015, Sweet Briar College's President announced that the college would be closing, citing insurmountable financial challenges. Within hours, the alumnae base stood together, launching a plan to save the school and help propel women's education further into the 21st Century. While we believe in saving Sweet Briar College, we also believe in using this opportunity to elevate the conversation about the importance of liberal arts education and women's leadership. We are asking you to please take a moment to watch this video by our amazing Teresa Pike Tomlinson ('87) and consider making a gift TODAY to savingsweetbriar.com.
Posted by Saving Sweet Briar on Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Friday, June 5, 2015
Georgene Vairo: Perspective on VA Supreme Court Hearing
After
listening to the audio of the argument I can tell you that Bill Hurd did
a wonderful job for us, and that Woody Fowler was ineffective for the SBC board
position. I say this not because of the side I am on in this battle, but
because nothing Fowler said was persuasive.
Here
is what was so good about Hurd’s argument: He told the court very clearly
what we wanted: a preliminary injunction in the form of the appointment of a
fiduciary who would run the college. The fiduciary would report to the
court, not the president or the SBC board. And, he explained clearly why
the law allowed the Court to remand to Judge Updike to require him to do this.
One
justice asked whether he wanted the president and board removed. Hurd
said that would "be nice but not necessary.” This was careful
lawyering: We just need to stop the train-wreck and all that we need at
this point is to get someone in there who answers to Judge Updike. We can
get more later depending on what happens. Clearly, Hurd did not want to
overreach and ask the Supreme Court to do more. And, Hurd was very good
at explaining why SBC is a trust. There was a will that led to a trust.
That trust incorporated as the Sweet Briar Institute, but it remained a
trust. As a trust, it is governed by Virginia Trust law which is
particular about how a trust is supposed to do certain things. Here, how
to close SBC if the Board thinks the school needs to close. Our position
is that SBC, as a trustee, needed to get judicial permission to close and to
dispose of its assets. It was supposed to convince the court that it was
no longer able to carry out the mission Indiana Fletcher Williams mandated in
her will. And, it is our position that the financial situation would not
have supported closure.
Fowler,
on the other hand, tried to raise all sorts of procedural issues designed to
say to the Supreme Court that it essentially lacked jurisdiction to resolve the
issues we raised on appeal. He got called on this in all sorts of ways.
His procedural irregularity approach seemed to fall on very deaf ears.
As did his argument that SBC is simply a corporation, and not a trustee.
While
it is always dangerous to predict what a court will do based on the questions
asked, and the inclinations those questions may seem to suggest, it is at least
clear to me that the Court really gets the essential issues. They
understand that there was a way for SBC to proceed that they are adamant about
NOT using. (In fact, Elizabeth Wyatt said in a meeting on April 9 with the
Faculty Executive Committee that they didn’t want to go to the courts because
“they would lose control of the process.”) Instead of going to a court to seek
permission to close because they felt their mission could no longer be carried
out, SBC went about closing the college in secret. They announced the
closure, and then proceeded to start burning down the house. Then, if
they succeeded in that — no classes after the Honors program is completed this
summer — they would go to the AG and ask him to help them get the courts to
bless whatever they wanted to do with the remnants of the college’s assets
(remaining endowment; proceeds from the sale of the land, art, etc); i.e.,
create a scholarship fund for women college students. SBC says that under
the business judgment rule, as a corporation and not a trust, they had unfettered
discretion to make the decision to close. Then, to the extent that there
are assets remaining, they would dispose of such assets via the courts and the
attorney general.
Thus,
from our perspective, one of the best moments of the argument was when Fowler
said that there were only two options: "orderly wind-down or crash and
burn." In response, one of the Supreme Court justices said there was
a third option: go to the courts to use "cy pres” to keep the college
open. Rather than doing what SBC did, as a trustee, SBC should have gone to the
court and said “we are having a problem doing what we are supposed to be doing.
Help us.” Here, that could have been, for example, asking the court
to “unlock” some of the restricted funds to pay down, for example, the $9
Million bond that SBC is threatening will come due soon. The Court seems
very sympathetic to the idea that if no preliminary relief is granted now, SBC
will continue to burn down the house. And, by the time the issue of
whether SBC is a trust or not ever comes back to the Court for a final
resolution, and which means that SBC should have gone the cy pres route rather
than the route it took, it will be too late.
The
Saving Sweet Briar legal team is expecting a very quick decision. Maybe
tomorrow. Maybe Monday. I will rest well tonight believing that we
will be back to Judge Updike next week for further relief.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Anne Gary Pannell: From the Foreward of The Story of Sweet Briar College
"In my judgement, what makes Sweet Briar different from other colleges is the particular way in which a happy balance or blend is achieved here with respect to values and objectives. We believe in a spirit of free inquiry, nurtured in a climate of opinion that includes the best of our intellectual, cultural, and ethical traditions. We do have the freedom and the time to enable each student to experience the challenge of the good teacher in the best academic environment. As this history makes plain, it has not been easy to secure the needed material factors for this environment - the salaries, the buildings, and the books - but the three essential ingredients - idealism, loyalty, and freedom - Sweet Briar has had and will continue to have, if I read aright the sentiments of her family of students, teachers, and alumnae."
~Anne Gary Pannell
~Anne Gary Pannell
Taken from the Foreward of The Story of Sweet Briar College.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
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