Lessons learned from a phoenix and a vixen: Examining the attempted closure of Wilson College and Sweet Briar College

I am currently in graduate school pursuing a Masters in Business with Nonprofit Management concentration. This semester, I am taking Organizational Theory and Nonprofit Management. Each course required me to prepare an annotated bibliography and an individual paper. With my instructor’s permission, I chose Sweet Briar College, my alma mater, as my focus (normally, you cannot pursue the same research subject in different courses).

My first assignment came in the Organizational Theory course. We were to take a case study covered in an academic journal and use it as a basis for our individual paper. This seemed daunting at first. However, as I began my research, I found many case studies with similarities to Sweet Briar College. The attempted closure of Wilson College has startling similarities to the attempted closure of Sweet Briar College. The annotated bibliography provides a “deep dive” in issues facing higher education and the lessons available to learn from Wilson College. You may find a link below.

Annotated Bibliography: Phoenix rose emerges from the briar fire (annotated bibliography comparing Wilson College’s attempted closure to Sweet Briar College).

Research Paper: Lessons learned from a phoenix and a vixen.

As the paper came together, the title changed and some sources fell away in favor of others. The lessons learned from the attempted closure of Wilson College are relevant for many colleges. The abstract follows:

Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, whose mascot is the phoenix, survived a closure attempt in the 1980s. Sweet Briar College, in Amherst, Virginia, whose mascot is a vixen (fox), faced attempted closure in 2015 and was saved by its stakeholders six months later. This paper explores case studies and articles reporting on Wilson College and Sweet Briar College. Other articles elaborate on trends faced by the Colleges and the broader sector of higher education. Reviewing these colleges provides valuable lessons on challenges facing higher education, particularly for private, single-sex institutions. The case for this research is Wilson College with comparisons to Sweet Briar College. Both colleges are small women’s colleges with enrollment under 1,000.

Keywords: Sweet Briar College, Wilson College, stakeholders, shared governance, students, faculty, staff, exempt staff, non-exempt staff, alumni, alumnae, minority, president, board.