From my post as Writing Center Director at Sweet Briar College, I have seen and experienced the overwhelming heartbreak and strangeness on campus in the wake of the announcement on March 3 that the college will close in August. When I was contacted about writing something, my first thought was how proud I am that the immediate focus has been on the students, the loss and upheaval they are experiencing, and how the faculty and staff can support them. Some are first-generation students, some are the latest in a multigenerational line, but, as one would expect, nearly all are devastated.
I certainly do not presume to speak for all faculty, but my sense is that, for the extended Sweet Briar family, the loss is felt as the death of a strong, caring matriarch — one most everyone deeply admired and assumed would be around forever.
Even so, the young women attending Sweet Briar are resilient and resourceful. While most of them are taking the painful but necessary steps to ensure that they will be able to finish their college careers elsewhere, they are also asking hard questions and getting involved in continuing attempts to save the college. Yet the question I’ve received most frequently from students is, “What will happen to the faculty? What will happen to you?” For as much as we like to think we’re nurturing and caring for them in this crisis, our students are equally and selflessly concerned for us.
Last week the faculty had a chance to ask the administration some questions at a meeting — the first since the president’s announcement of the closing. Neither the president nor any members of the board were present at the meeting, though I am informed they may attend others. Faculty members were somber; some hugged, some exchanged solemn nods, most looked utterly gutted.
Pamphlets that adorned a hastily set-up card table ranged from the practical (“How to Survive a Layoff or Downsizing”) to the inspirational (“Down, But Not Out”). In the former, Tony Jacowski wrote that I should “Define [my] network” and “scan the classifieds,” while in the latter I was encouraged to “soothe [my] soul” and “prepare for legal issues.” I sat down near the back. The overall feeling was much like that of a funeral.
The tone of that meeting ran from sad and tense to loud and angry. There have been a lot of questions thus far about why and when the decision to close Sweet Briar was made, but direct answers have proved hard to come by. We are all in the dark. Some of the questions faculty ask are about getting the information needed to support students, such as transfer credits and which partner institutions offer which majors and so on. We all want to know about end dates, health-insurance options, unemployment. We ask about severance. The answer?
We don’t know.
The questions get harder and stranger. A professor is fielding calls from colleagues at other institutions who want to buy his research equipment at considerable discounts. What should he do? There are hazardous chemicals in the chemistry lab. Who will remove and dispose of those? I start thinking of one of Sweet Briar’s beloved biologists, how he must have dozens of egg-laying catsharks in the lab. Will they be re-homed, euthanized, left swimming in the dark? I thumb through one of the pamphlets, a 2001 document produced by a place called the Ceridian Corporation. It directs me to “Pamper Myself” and “Keep a Journal.” It’s almost comical, but I think of the people who took the time to print the pamphlets out, staple them together, arrange them in little fanned-out stacks on the table. Aren’t they losing their jobs, too? Aren’t the midlevel administrators who came to stand up front at the meeting losing theirs?
A number of faculty members have bought houses on campus from the college. These are people who have essentially bonded their lives to that of the college. It’s an extreme level of commitment, and I admire them for it, for the way they’ve consistently opened their doors and lives to students over the years and, in some cases, over the decades. The idea that they might now be somehow penalized for making this commitment is particularly hard to swallow.
Will the contracts they signed with Sweet Briar when they bought their houses be honored when the college closes? Will they receive fair market value? Will they be forced out and receive nothing? The answer from the administration thus far:
We don’t know.
The difficulties and sadness of the past week have been hard to fathom, but, without hyperbole, I can say that many of the ways in which students, faculty, staff, and alumnae are responding are inspiring. In the face of heartache, they are thinking of each other, supporting one another, simultaneously mourning the loss of their college, and, in some cases, fighting for it tooth and nail.
Even with four young kids, and unemployment and an uncertain job market looming, I find myself feeling lucky. Lucky to have been a part of a beautiful small college; lucky to have shared a campus with bright students and professionals I admire.
I know that the closure will not define my experience of Sweet Briar. I know those experiences are secure, and so I find myself worrying, oddly enough, about the buildings, the grounds, the landscape. I think of the catsharks in their aquariums after everyone is gone.
Like any other college, Sweet Briar has had its share of problems. Its history is by no means perfect, but it’s also true that, more than anything else, my own experience of Sweet Briar has been one of entering a beautiful sanctuary, and that is how I will remember it.
I look again at the pamphlet. The Ceridian Corporation advises me to “Keep things in perspective” and to “Go for a walk with a friend.” I think I’ll ask the writing-center coordinator if she wants to do that. I think some of this advice might be helpful after all.