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.
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