11.20.09
Today a newspaper story appeared in the Lynchburg News and Advance about the budgetary issues I’ve written about in previous posts.
All in all I think the story does a good job of balancing two equally true and equally important points: Sweet Briar is, relatively speaking, in quite good shape and at the same time Sweet Briar is not (and could not expect to be) immune from the larger economic forces that are challenging colleges and universities across the country. Making the sacrifices we need to now, in order to live within our means in the present, is the surest course to continued strength and future growth.
Comments and questions about this year’s budget and the college’s plans are welcome.
Categories: Uncategorized
11.16.09
Lisa Johnston of Sweet Briar’s Cochran library has been recognized by ACRL (the Association of College and Research Libraries) as “Member of the Week.” Check out the profile here. To give you a sense of who Lisa is, here’s one sample quote: “It is energizing and endlessly interesting working with intellectually engaged people, particularly during this time of great technological change.”
It’s great to see Sweet Briar featured on the website of the nation’s leading organization for academic libraries.
Categories: Uncategorized
11.15.09
Yesterday Sweet Briar students teamed up with students from neighboring colleges to help package 20,000 meals for people and families suffering from hunger. This news article describes the project. Unfortunately, Rick and I were unable to join them as we had hoped to do — perhaps next year we can lend our hands as well as our encouragement.
As Thanksgiving approaches (unbelievable how quickly it has arrrived!) and Americans as a nation celebrate abundance, these students not only thought of others who are in need but also acted to address that need. Go Sweet!
Categories: Campus Life, Local Interest, Philanthropy
Tags: Campus Life, Philanthropy, students
11.12.09
Just landed in New York after a quite rainy and bumpy trip. (Believe me, it wasn’t nearly as bright and perky as the image might suggest!) But I’m looking forward, once the airsickness has passed, to meeting several alums on this visit. In addition to seeing 
individuals I’ll be attending a Friends of Art meeting this weekend.
Friends groups are a terrific asset to the College. People with expertise and interest join forces to help the College advance in specific areas. Friends of Art works on building a collection of visual art that supports teaching and learning on campus and making sure that Sweet Briar is enriched, both as a college and a community, by an active and vital engagement with the arts. The Friends of Art have been supporting Sweet Briar since 1937 and in that time have purchased 88 works for our galleries. As importantly, they have provided essential perspective and advice on facilities and program.
As a special treat, member of the Board of Directors and winner of the 2004 Distinguished Alumna Award Anne Poulet, Director of the Frick Collection, is hosting a special tour of the collection tomorrow evening. Anne is just one example of the leadership Sweet Briar women have given in the arts, and I am honored to have the opportunity to visit the collection in her company.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Alumnae
11.11.09
Diversity has turned out to be a theme of my day today. Earlier I met with the faculty diversity committee for an excellent discussion of priorities and commitments. And shortly I’m headed out to have dinner with Unity — that’s the student organization for women of color formerly called Onyx.
I don’t know the history of the name change, but I have to say I love it. Student unity is a wonderful thing and the source of the caring and respectful community that is Sweet Briar.
And here’s where diversity comes in. Unity does not require uniformity. In fact, unity in the face of difference is the hallmark of a strong community. What we strive for, here on campus, is unity of purpose and mutual respect, not uniformity of identity, opinion, taste, or perspective. I deeply appreciate the members of the campus community who express their differences — differences of opinion, differences of identity, differences of belief. (Yes, even when they differ with me!) They make us stronger.
Respect across differences, unity in our diversity, true community.
Categories: Campus Life, Diversity
Tags: Campus Life, Diversity, students
11.10.09
Recently I posted news about the College’s budget for the current year. Today, the college’s plans for reducing expenditures in the current budget were announced to the community. Earlier this afternoon I held an open convocation to discuss the plan with faculty and staff and this evening I’ll be meeting with students.
For institutions across the country, the current economic situation requires tough choices. For just one recent example, see this message about Dartmouth’s situation: most readers have probably received or seen similar communications from other colleges and universities.
Here at Sweet Briar, our challenge — to trim approximately 2.25% from this year’s budget — is tough but not nearly as tough as the challenges many other institutions face. As I said in my remarks today, prudent and decisive action now will make the College we love stronger and more resilient than ever and will help ensure that we emerge from the current downturn with momentum.
Questions or comments can be directed to me or to any member of Senior Staff.
Categories: Economics of Higher Education
11.7.09
Professor Linda Fink just sent me this note and the pictures below: “I don’t know how long the 4 and 20,000 blackbirds will be night roosting on campus, but they’re worth watching. Between 5 & 5:20pm, they arrive in small flocks from a day of foraging across Amherst County, and coalesce and swirl above the open field between the college entrance and the Carry Sanctuary woods. By 5:30 they are settled for the night into the large bamboo patch beyond the ginkgos.” I thought you’d like to see them.
Photo courtesy Linda Fink
Photo courtesy Linda Fink
Categories: Campus Life, Local Interest
Tags: Campus Life, environmental, green
11.4.09
Tomorrow evening, Friday, and Saturday morning will be my first full Board meeting at Sweet Briar. I’m delighted to say that the weather promises to be clear and bright through the weekend and that the campus is looking autumnally glorious. (And, no, the Vixen won’t REALLY be out to welcome them.)
While I’ve already had the chance to work closely with several Directors and have met many more, I’m looking forward to meeting a few people for the first time this weekend and getting to know others better. Sweet Briar is fortunate in having the leadership and support of a strong and talented group of Directors.
With this meeting, I will be launching a practice which I intend to make regular. After each Board meeting I will write a brief summary letter to the campus community, outlining the key issues and major decisions of the meeting. These letters will be circulated electronically and posted on the President’s Office web site — and of course blogged here! I will also be holding open sessions post each Board meeting to respond to questions or comments from faculty, staff, and students about the meeting.
Please be patient if I don’t post here again until the meeting is over, and please do look for my summary letter early next week.
Categories: Uncategorized
11.3.09
This evening I (and a great many other people!) attended a lecture by Olivia Judson. She’s an evolutionary biologist, blogger for the New York Times, and author of the common reading on campus this year, Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation. I’ll admit that I haven’t read the book; in my defense, it was assigned before I got here, but I do follow her blog in the Times. (And I promise I’ll read next year’s common reading text!)
Here’s the most interesting thing I learned from tonight’s lecture. Apparently research is increasingly showing that the presence of bacteria in rocks and clouds actually affects the chemistry and composition of the “host.” Even something like magnetism is in some cases affected by the interaction between bacteria and the minerals in which they live. How fascinating to think of the physical properties of the environment as both shaping and being shaped by the life it supports.
That, and the fact that humans typically have about 150 species of bacteria living on their hands. . . .
Categories: Campus Life
Tags: science
11.2.09
On a recent trip to the West Coast I had a few minutes to pop into Powell’s Books in Portland, pure reader heaven. I picked up a number of things to add to what Rick refers to as the “stalagmite” of books in the den.
This weekend I plucked Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason by Russell Shorto from the pile. So far I’m enjoying it immensely. (Perhaps I was attracted to it because it was, after all, Halloween this weekend and it IS a story about a skeleton, or at least part of one.) Shorto uses the bizarre history of Descartes’ skull, fought over as a philosophical relic by passionate partisans, to illustrate the various and conflicting interpretations and implications of Cartesianism in the years following Descartes’ death.
A good and odd story, well told, and a powerful reminder of how much ideas really do matter and the odd extremes to which people seized by intellectual passions are sometimes driven. I recommend it!
Categories: Uncategorized
