Carbon Leaf is lamenting the news - and lending support - to the students, alumnae and staff of Sweet Briar College in the wake of the abrupt announcement by the Board of Directors that the historic Liberal Arts School will be closing it’s doors at semester’s end after 114 years of women’s education.
I was told the news Wednesday, while in Providence Forge, doing Carbon Leaf's annual state filings with Alyssa Salomon, our accountant/advisor/artist/teacher/birdwatcher, at her bucolic home/office/log cabin/artist retreat on the Chickahominy River. After a break to watch about a thousand ducks in the fog, we sat back down in the kitchen to continue, and she asked if I’d heard the breaking news about Sweet Briar’s bolt-from-the-blue announcement. As she explained, we sat bemused at how the announcement was handled by the board of directors, leaving their community in shock, and more pointedly, leaving them helpless, AS a community, with no voice as ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS in fighting for their own future and legacy.
Is it truly as complicated an answer as ‘women don’t want to go to rural colleges’?
Or is it merely a leadership problem.
What do I know. Certainly not enough, so I can't say. But there surely has to be more to the story.
Virginia has a rich Liberal Arts heritage, and if my math is correct, the Old Dominion ranks about sixth in number of active Liberal Arts colleges by state, behind NY, PA, OH, MA and IL respectively. I would like to think it’s a unique, sustainable experience. It was during our time at a Liberal Arts college where Carbon Leaf was conceived, and the first 8 years of our sustenance came largely from these very campuses peppered through the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountain and beyond. (I am reminded often that our tune 'Blue Ridge Laughing' was written driving north on Route 29 back from a concert at one of the women's colleges that employed us often...SBC, Hollins, R-MWC...I wish I could remember which.)
Those years were a very real part of our continuing education, as we worked to cull those disparate educational foundations and resources into something solid and tangible that we could forge our own artistic desires into a Life and Business reality.
Our accountant will attest that I love Simple Math.
So here goes...4,000 SBC alumnae need to raise $62,500 a piece to raise $250,000,000 and save Sweet Briar. OK...that’s 62 private donors and businesses per alumna giving $1008 each...The 1008 CLUB. The 1008 CLUB get their donor brick engraved and mortared into a nice 36,000 square foot THINK IS FOR GIRLS academic building, or re-paved into that new long driveway up the hill from Route 29.
So gals…where do we send our check, and when is the fundraising concert? #SaveSweetBriar
Sincerely,
Barry, Terry, Carter and all of Carbon Leaf past and present.
