Sweet Briar College — The Surprise Closure That Wasn't (2015)

On the morning of March 3, 2015, the board of directors of Sweet Briar College in rural Virginia announced unanimously that the college would close on August 25, 2015. The announcement came without warning to students, faculty, staff, or community. Staff received termination letters within days. Admissions records for the incoming class were, according to witnesses, shredded.

Five months later, the college was still open. A new board was in place. A new president had been hired. And the old board had been effectively removed by a combination of alumnae lawsuits, a Virginia attorney general's mediation, and $21 million raised in a matter of weeks by women who had apparently not received the memo that the school was finished.

What Happened

Sweet Briar had been struggling/ A small women's college with declining enrollment and an endowment that, while substantial ($84 million), had been drawn down for ongoing operating expenses. The board, working largely in executive committee, concluded that the college faced "insurmountable financial challenges" and could not be saved without changes so drastic they would destroy the institution's character. They decided to close.

What they did not do was tell anyone. The board did not consult faculty, students, alumnae, or the community of Amherst County, whose economy depended significantly on the college. Nor did they explore alternatives with any evident rigor. No merger conversations, no coeducation discussion, no enrollment strategy review presented publicly. They announced the decision as if it were a fait accompli.

Alumnae, professionally accomplished women, who happened to have organizational skills and donation pledges ready to go, organized within hours. The movement called Saving Sweet Briar filed lawsuits, launched a media campaign, appeared in court, and raised more than the $12 million required by the attorney general's mediated settlement. The board resigned. A new board took over. Sweet Briar opened for the fall 2015 semester.

"Sweet Briar's decision to close came out of the blue, without any discussion of the things that had been considered or tried... The lesson is: don't throw up your hands." — Richard Ekman, President, Council of Independent Colleges

The Governance Anatomy

Sweet Briar is a masterclass in what happens when a self-perpetuating board becomes insular. Richard Leslie, a former board member, wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post describing what he called "short-sighted" governance practices, including an executive committee structure that allowed a small group of trustees to make terminal decisions without the full board's meaningful engagement.

The Nonprofit Quarterly, in its analysis of Sweet Briar's new bylaws, identified the core dysfunction: "Self-perpetuating boards become insular and lose touch with other stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement and fundraising are not spigots that can be turned on and off at will." The board had not activated alumnae for fundraising before the crisis, and then expressed surprise that alumnae could raise $21 million in five months. The reserves of institutional loyalty were there all along. The board simply hadn't tapped them.

The new board's bylaws, rewritten after the reversal, are now a case study in stakeholder-inclusive governance. They added alumnae-elected seats, expanded transparency requirements, and required regular engagement mechanisms. The board that had tried to close the college, it turns out, had been operating as if the alumnae were shareholders to be managed rather than partners to be activated.

Governance Lessons

•  A board that considers closure without first consulting alumnae, faculty, students, and community is not exercising fiduciary judgment — it is making a unilateral bet that the community won't care enough to fight back. Sweet Briar lost that bet completely.

•  Executive committees can be useful for speed, but when a small group makes decisions of existential consequence, the full board's legitimacy is compromised.

•  Stakeholder engagement is not optional. The community of an institution — especially alumni — hold a form of power that boards often discover only after they have triggered it.

•  A decision to close must be preceded by documented exploration of alternatives, presented to all relevant constituents. Absent this, the decision will face legal and reputational challenges that may reverse it entirely.

•  Transparency is a governance asset, not a liability. A board that communicates difficult financial realities to stakeholders over time is far more likely to find viable solutions than one that announces a closure before the conversation has begun.

Sources: Inside Higher Ed, "Deal Will Save Sweet Briar College" (June 22, 2015); Inside Higher Ed, "What the Case of Sweet Briar Means for Other Colleges" (June 22, 2015); Nonprofit Quarterly, "Codifying Governance Lessons Learned the Hard Way: Sweet Briar College's New By-Laws" (March 2016); Ithaka S+R Issue Brief, "Double Trouble: Sweet Briar College & Cooper Union" (September 2015).