Sweet Briar College Magazine - Fall 2016

More documents

Info

“ Outstanding The alumnae were highly creative, highly motivated and put it together so fast. It was amazing to watch. I think that’s the best proof of what we do here. Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Pam DeWeese, who serves as dean and vice president of academic affairs, recalls how the remaining faculty members met in the library through the summer of 2015, brainstorming how to fill gaps in staffing and how to ensure the College could continue offering a great education. What emerged was a deeper emphasis on interdisciplinary studies and collaboration among departments. Dance, music and theater professors now function as an arts division. Computer science, physics and engineering staffs are adopting a similar approach. This interdisciplinary emphasis has always been a critical part of the Sweet Briar experience, and it shows in what alumnae did to save the College, DeWeese says. “The alumnae were highly creative, highly motivated and put it together so fast,” she says. “It was amazing to watch. I think that’s the best proof of what we do here.” Engaging Alumnae ” Stone agrees that the alumnae base represents Sweet Briar’s best asset. As many as 600 alumnae signed up to attend college fairs or connected with prospective students last year, helping Sweet Briar achieve a record number of applications. Dozens turned up this summer to help weed, paint and clean the campus before the students arrived. A few returned to campus to fill critical gaps for professors and coaches. Sweet Briar clubs and alumnae across the country organized 28 events featuring Stone and his team, raising an average $100,000 from people at each event. Class officers reached out to classmates to dig deep for Sweet Briar with remarkable results. Participation doubled to about 55 percent of alumnae in the 2016 fiscal year. A quarter of them were new donors. Giving totals increased, too. The class of 1966, for instance, raised just $47,000 for its last reunion, but gave more than $1 million for its 50th in June. It’s not all about money, of course. The Alumnae Alliance is developing a mentoring network to help connect students to graduates in their field. It’s creating a series of Lifelong Learning webinars where alumnae can learn new skills or study new subjects. And at the 2016 Reunion, the Alliance organized and ran an engagement fair complete with carnival games for adults (think ring toss over wine bottles), prizes and lots of pink-and-green cupcakes. “We’re really changing the paradigm of how alumnae are interacting with the College,” says Debra Elkins, a ’93 graduate who is co-chair of the Alumnae Alliance Council. “It’s nice to see us heading in the right direction.” 6 SBC.EDU | SWEET BRIAR MAGAZINE
Securing the Future In some essential ways, Sweet Briar’s survival depends on simply doing a better job with the basics. Student recruitment, for instance, had slumped in recent years after the College lost its full-time admissions director. Similarly, fundraising was sluggish without a full-time development director. With those positions now filled, Sweet Briar has seen an upsurge. The recruitment efforts extend beyond the increased emphasis on college fairs. Sweet Briar is bringing high school girls onto campus for day-long programs in engineering and environmental science. And Stone asks tour guides to bring every prospective student by his office so he can greet them personally. Likewise, the development team, led by Vice President for Alumnae Relations and Development Mary Pope M. Hutson ’83, has expanded its outreach to foundations and corporations as it deepens its efforts among alumnae. That led to the success of last spring’s $10 million Next is Now initiative. With money from the Saving Sweet Briar effort and restricted funds, the grand total for the past fiscal year was $18.8 million. In the next phase, Sweet Briar Now and Forever, the College plans to raise $20 million by the end of June 2017. Stone and others point out that the attempted closure put the College in a financial ditch. By the time alumnae stopped the closing, most prospective students had settled on another college, and many existing students had transferred. The 230 students on campus last year didn’t provide enough tuition dollars to sustain operations. This year the number on campus is up to 329, but Stone projects Sweet Briar needs about 800 to break even. Ultimately he’d like to see Sweet Briar grow to 1,500 to 1,800 students. The faculty is still far smaller than it was, and will need to grow as enrollment rebounds. Thus for the next few years, fundraising is critically important. At the same time, Stone and his team are stressing better fiscal stewardship: Last year, they cut department budgets and pension contributions across the board, progams that have since seen increases. The college came in $2 million under budget. While past administrations spent millions from the College’s endowment, the funds went untouched last year. Negotiations are underway with banks to bring down debt costs. And the recent bond ratings upgrade takes some pressure off the College. Faculty members and alumnae have begun to feel more secure about the College’s resilience. “I absolutely believe that what happened before will never happen again, that kind of trauma, that kind of abrupt decision,” says John Gregory Brown, who returned In some essential ways, Sweet Briar’s survival depends on simply doing a better job with the basics. A Living Environmental Lab It was a classic Sweet Briar scene with sunlight glinting off the Boathouse roof and the lake beyond it. Except for the drone hovering overhead. Katie Ferguson ’17 was using the drone to measure the growth of the invasive weed hydrilla in the Lower Lake and to determine whether carp were eating their way through the problem. Environmental science is a natural at Sweet Briar, with its 3,250-acre living laboratory. Students run a feeding station for monarch butterflies on the long journey from Mexico to Canada. They experiment on the acres of switchgrass being sold for biofuel. And they measure air quality at a land-atmosphere research station. As Sweet Briar reimagines its future, environmental studies stands to play a big role. The nationwide push for sustainability and alternative energy has made the science and policy of the environment popular among students. And the sprawling rural campus affords many opportunities for demonstrating solutions. Recognizing this, a Sweet Briar family gave the College $500,000 in February and promised another $500,000 if the College can raise matching funds. So far, the development team has raised $156,000 toward that goal. The initiative, funded by the Judith Haskell Brewer Fund of The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia, will allow the College to expand environmental learning by supporting faculty members, internships and on-campus learning. It will also encourage environmental stewardship of the land; the grant includes $50,000 toward the community garden. Students worked in the garden during orientation this fall as part of their community service projects. For her summer honors research project, Ferguson, of Hampstead, N.C., chose to examine the hydrilla problem in the Lower Lake. The administration introduced sterile carp to the waters to deal with the invasive weed that is clogging the lake. Ferguson paddled out in a canoe to check the extent of hydrilla’s growth. Working with the Engineering department, she programmed a drone to take aerial shots that would show the weed’s footprint. SWEET BRIAR MAGAZINE | SBC.EDU 7
Page 1 and 2: volume 86 no. 2
Page 3 and 4: SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE MAGAZINE POLICY
Page 5 and 6: Photo by Perry Tourtellotte Archaeo
Page 7: ance Embracing Assets Stone came to
Page 11 and 12: SWEET BRIAR MAGAZINE | SBC.EDU 9
Page 13 and 14: Marina Biel ’18 is an engineering
Page 15 and 16: Academic Awards Honor Sweet Briar S
Page 17 and 18: Revenues 2015-2016 Category Budget
Page 19 and 20: You Make the Difference that S&P Gl
Page 21 and 22: How YOU Can Make the Difference The
Page 23 and 24: Working group areas in the Alumnae
Page 25 and 26: Alumnae Relations & Development Sta
Page 27 and 28: Start Planning Your Legacy Now to C
Page 29 and 30: John Gregory Brown Director of Crea
Page 31 and 32: Mattie Nicholson Government major f
Page 33 and 34: Steve Wassell Director of Computer
Page 35 and 36: I wanted to finish, because someone
Page 37 and 38: Sweet Briar College, which came bac
Page 39 and 40: Monarch butterflies at Sweet Briar.
Page 41 and 42: 1945 Alumna who Endowed Wyllie Engi
Page 43 and 44: Shopping Sweet: Alumnae, Students a
Page 45 and 46: 1953 Florence Pye Apy 40 Riverside
Page 47 and 48: Class Notes I, Emily Hunter Slinglu
Page 49 and 50: in the fall for another visit, this
Page 51 and 52: Peggy Aurand celebrating finishing
Page 53 and 54: after 3 failed attempts. Evie has s
Page 55 and 56: Class Notes hoping.] Lanny’s four
Page 57 and 58: currently living in Grand Junction
Page 59 and 60:
Netherlands, and Austria, and a fab
Page 61 and 62:
Holly Smith with panda friend in Ch
Page 63 and 64:
1975 Anne Cogswell Burris 1437 Head
Page 65 and 66:
Class Notes fondly remember Mary an
Page 67 and 68:
her ultimate trajectory. Peggy Weim
Page 69 and 70:
Class Notes Beach with Terry. “Co
Page 71 and 72:
DC. interviewing in NY for internat
Page 73 and 74:
Class Notes Leap Day Wedding Kearsl
Page 75 and 76:
Class Notes Anne Bain at the top of
Page 77 and 78:
husband, Andrew, and son, Alexander
Page 79 and 80:
Class Notes started the Sweet Teach
Page 81 and 82:
Dianne Hayes Doss and crew The Carr
Page 83 and 84:
Amanda Acuff ’97 and Scooter work
Page 85 and 86:
Louise Jones Geddes ’84, Alicia K
Page 87 and 88:
1999 Lindsey Neef Kelly 15012 Ashby
Page 89 and 90:
Class Notes her husband Joseph, two
Page 91 and 92:
TV appearances weekly on the Dallas
Page 93 and 94:
with my husband, Justin where I wor
Page 95 and 96:
sive deep-submergence chief scienti
Page 97 and 98:
Class Notes Caroline and Clayton Ha
Page 99 and 100:
SWEET BRIAR MAGAZINE | SBC.EDU 97
show all

Sweet Briar College Magazine - Fall 2016

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?