The Context for Sweet Briar’s College’s Strategic Plan
Sweet Briar College has been educating and empowering women since its founding in 1901, preparing its graduates to thrive and make their place in a global community. In 2017, just two years after being threatened with closure, Sweet Briar launched a bold and visionary reset of its academic curriculum and business model—moves that refined and strengthened its mission to educate women of consequence and prepare them for the challenges of the twenty-first century. The College replaced its general education program with an innovative, interdisciplinary Leadership Core that gives students a foundation in the values, knowledge, and perspectives essential for women’s leadership, and it restructured its calendar to include intensive three-week terms that begin and end each academic year to enable immersive learning and facilitate courses taking place abroad. The College’s new business model featured a tuition reset to ensure that a Sweet Briar education is affordable and accessible to all qualified women, as well as a reactivation of its agricultural heritage. Sweet Briar has invested in capital projects to drive recruitment and enhance student life and to renew, preserve, and steward its historic lands and structures. These innovations have resonated with students and families and have spearheaded enrollment growth.
In implementing change while supporting its people and its place, Sweet Briar has not discarded its strengths or its core values; it has built upon and buttressed them. It remains a women’s college. It retains its rural character. It has renewed its commitment to educating students in small classes featuring engaged, personalized learning. In the words of its Mission Statement, “Sweet Briar College challenges and inspires women, forging ethical leaders with the skill, compassion, and vision to create a more just and sustainable world.”
To guide its forward momentum, the College launched a series of strategic planning sessions with its administration, senior staff, and faculty in 2021. The result of this work was the document, Our Sustainable Future: A Five-Year Strategic Plan for Sweet Briar College, which identified priorities for fiscal years 2022/23 through 2026/27 and was approved by the College’s Board of Directors in February 2022. The plan centered on enhancing five distinctive areas that would help make Sweet Briar a destination college for young women today (its Leadership Core, its sustainability programming, its engineering program, its equestrian program, and its position as a cultural anchor within Central Virginia), along with the co-curricular steps and infrastructure requirements necessary to strengthen these areas. The plan also discussed enrollment growth, budget modeling, deferred maintenance, capital financing and a fundraising campaign.
Our Sustainable Future was always intended to be a living document—not a definitive statement, but a roadmap to guide the College’s progress over the next five years. When Mary Pope M. Hutson ’83 was named the fourteenth president of Sweet Briar College in November 2023, she soon convened groups of stakeholders to assess what had been accomplished in the first two years of the strategic plan—to determine which goals were completed, which might no longer be relevant, and what new priorities and urgencies had arisen—to change or correct our course as necessary. In the winter and spring of 2024, we therefore held a series of strategic planning sessions with administration, faculty, and senior staff, as well as some alumnae and friends of the College with expertise in fundraising, marketing, and recruiting. Throughout the summer and early fall, we used the information, ideas, and recommendations generated from these sessions to develop a revised roadmap that refines and focuses on the goals of the original five-year plan. Our revised strategic plan is concise. It focuses on the priorities—encapsulated in three strategic objectives—to be accomplished during the three-year period of July 2024 through June 2027.
This refreshed strategic plan, Securing the Future, will guide Sweet Briar’s continued progress, as we plan for the College’s 125 th anniversary in 2026, launch a campaign, and position the College for success in the future—for the next one hundred years and beyond.
Securing the Future
The strategic goals that will enable Sweet Briar to secure its future are:
- Advance Academic and Organizational Excellence and Enhance the Student Experience
- Increase Financial Prosperity
- Steward the Natural and Built Environment
The Sweet Briar College Board of Directors approved the refreshed strategic plan, Securing the Future, on September 26, 2024.
Securing the Future
Goal #1: Advance Academic and Organizational Excellence and Enhance the Student Experience
Academics at Sweet Briar are anchored by its Women’s Leadership Core, 25 majors and/or minors, and four certificate programs. Most courses take place on our 2,840-acre campus, which offers unparalleled opportunities for learning across the curriculum, from the arts to sustainability. Our engineering program is one of only two ABET-accredited programs at a women’s college in the country. Our equestrian program is nationally renowned. In three of the last six years, Sweet Briar was named by U.S News and World Report as one of the nation’s most innovative liberal arts colleges. We are proud of these achievements and accolades, but we don’t intend to rest on our laurels. We seek to strengthen academic excellence by investing in the curriculum and in our faculty, renovating academic buildings, growing the Honors Program, and broadening opportunities for our students through expanded partnerships with other academic and non-profit institutions.
In order to enhance the student experience at Sweet Briar, we will continue to make improvements and upgrades to our residence halls, other student life spaces, and to our athletic and riding facilities. We will expand co-curricular opportunities for leadership, experiential learning, and community service experiences, and increase the numbers of campus events. We will also invest in our human capital, so that the faculty and staff who teach and mentor our students have competitive salaries and benefits, and opportunities for professional development and advancement. We are committed to fostering a campus environment where all students, faculty, and staff feel that they are valued members of a supportive, vibrant community.
Strategies
A. Strengthen Sweet Briar’s Academic Excellence
1) The Women’s Leadership Core Curriculum
a) Over the next three years, show yearly advancement of increasing growth and competency in students’ leadership capacity
b) Submit QEP report documenting students’ growth in leadership capacity to SACS in March 2027
2) Grow the Honors Program
a) Increase the number of students conducting Honors Summer Research
b) Increase the number of seniors graduating with an Honors Degree, through the enhanced Honors degree pathways approved by the faculty in 2023 and allowing admission to the Honors Program up to the middle of the spring semester of the student’s sophomore year
3) Enhance the liberal arts through partnerships and collaborations, as well as by strategic additions to the academic program
a) Develop additional partnerships, along the model of the 4+1 agreements with UVA and Virginia Tech, in the college’s three areas of distinction (engineering, sustainability, the arts) and in the humanities/social sciences
b) Boost study abroad opportunities and return to in-house language instruction
c) Name a director for the Fitzpatrick Center for Creativity, Design and the Arts and resume Arts Center programming
B. Build Organizational Excellence
1) Human capital
a) Increase retention of employees and grow their sense of positivity about the College by reviewing and enhancing compensation and benefits
b) Create a campus environment where all employees feel valued and part of a supportive, cohesive community
c) Offer programming that helps employees increase their well-being in the areas of physical, occupational, spiritual, emotional, and financial wellness
d) Build camaraderie by developing a location where all members of the campus community can gather to socialize together
2) Find work efficiencies through strategic use of AI, as spearheaded by an AI Task Force
C. Enhance the Student Experience
1) Increase the emphasis on co-curricular learning’s contributions to building students’ leadership capacity through the ROSE program, leadership speakers, conference attendance, partnerships with area colleges and non-profits, and participation in student organizations/clubs and athletic/riding teams
a) Increase ROSE program participation and completion rates by March 2027 (due date of QEP report)
b) Increase student participation in conferences and other experiential learning opportunities
2) Develop partnerships with other higher education institutions and with non-profits in the area, the region, and across the state to increase student experiential learning and community service opportunities
3) Create a campus environment where all students feel valued and part of a supportive, cohesive community, and offer programming that helps students increase their well-being in the areas of physical, spiritual, and emotional wellness
4) Hold more on-campus events, ranging from cultural events (including visits by leading performing arts organizations such as the Richmond Symphony Orchestra) to community events (such as Amherst County Day)
Goal #2: Increase Financial Prosperity
Sweet Briar’s financial health has steadily increased over the last ten years. In May 2024, S&P Global raised the institution’s bond rating from BB to BB+, with a stable outlook. In the last four years, Sweet Briar has had clean audits, with no material weaknesses. It has raised $160 million in ten years, including $53.4 million in the quiet phase of its current campaign. But Sweet Briar needs to take additional steps to secure its financial prosperity. The College must grow its enrollment and increase its net revenue per student, while ensuring that it is able to recruit and retain students of the highest caliber and support their academic, financial, social, physical, and mental health needs. This is imperative, for Sweet Briar’s students are its future. At the same time, the College must also make additional revisions to its business model by gradually increasing tuition, decreasing expenditures, diversifying its funding sources, growing the revenue from its auxiliary enterprises, and launching a comprehensive capital campaign. All of these goals will be strengthened by our plans to raise national, and even international, awareness of Sweet Briar as a leading liberal arts and sciences college, a destination school for women who want to become leaders.
Strategies
A. Increase Student Revenue through Tuition and Fees
1) Develop a model to grow student enrollment to a goal of 525 by fall 2026
2) Increase net tuition to a level commensurate with that of peer institutions (raise tuition and decrease discount rate)
3) Increase fall-to-fall retention of first-time, full-time, first-year students to more than 70%, with a target of 75%
B. Maintain an Operating Reserve Fund
C. Revise the Business Model to Address Levers of Vulnerability
1) Decrease annual expenditures per student
2) Diversify funding sources to decrease dependence on alumnae giving and increase giving from foundations, corporations, state and federal funders, and non-alumnae individuals
3) Increase auxiliary revenue (Inn & Conference Center, agriculture, wine, summer programs)
4) Find additional savings in annual expenditures and ensure outside service contracts are cost effective
D. Build the Sweet Briar Brand for External and Internal Audiences
1) Use upcoming landmark events and the campaign launch to showcase women’s leadership and the importance of education for women’s empowerment to a national audience
2) Increase attendance and presence at industry/peer conferences
3) Promote Sweet Briar as a place to host events/gatherings of women leaders
4) Leverage the expertise of our alumnae community
5) Develop on-campus brand awareness for employees and students to highlight Sweet Briar as a great place to learn, work, live
Goal #3: Steward the Natural and Built Environment
Sweet Briar College is the steward of a remarkable natural and built environment. Its 2,840-acre campus, with its meadows, ponds, lakes, forests, archaeological sites, newly re-established agricultural fields, state-of-the-art greenhouse, apiary, and vineyards, provides a living laboratory for its academic programs. Many of Sweet Briar’s buildings are of national architectural significance. Since 1995, twenty-one of these structures have been listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and on the National Register of Historic Places. Known collectively as the Sweet Briar College Historic District, they include the Georgian Revival academic, administrative, and residential buildings designed by famous American architect Ralph Adams Cram. Just outside the boundaries of the Historic District are two antebellum buildings, the Enslaved Community Cabin and Sweet Briar House (home of the College’s president), which has been individually listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972, and the Burial Grounds for Enslaved People.
It is the College’s responsibility to steward and preserve for future generations of students and community members the historical, architectural, and natural treasures contained within its campus. The continuous work of upkeep and renewal this requires is not easy, and our efforts are further complicated by the need to address years of deferred maintenance. Our infrastructure challenges are considerable, but are not insurmountable. One of our greatest priorities is to bring Sweet Briar’s aging electrical and HVAC systems up to date; they are inadequate for current needs, are not sustainable, and face considerable risk of failure. We will first implement the Campus Electrical Distribution Upgrade (CEDU), as other capital projects, such as the rehabilitation of academic buildings and residence halls, will depend upon these vital electrical upgrades. We have decided to employ a geothermal system to heat and cool the structures within the Historic District (geothermal systems are already in use for Sweet Briar House and the Fitness and Athletic Center), so that our campus energy systems will be efficient and sustainable into the future.
Strategies
A. Address Deferred Maintenance
1) Prioritize the list of deferred maintenance projects (subject to budgetary constraints and unexpected critical system breakdowns requiring immediate attention)
2) Create a deferred maintenance fund
B. Initiate Implementation of Energy Infrastructure Upgrades
1) Complete fundraising for the campus electrical system upgrade
2) Secure fundraising commitments for the geothermal conversion
C. Prioritize Order of Capital Improvements/Rehabilitations
1) Prioritize the rehabilitation of buildings in the Historic District (Benedict, Gray, Harley, House 2, House 4, Pannell, and Williams Gymnasium) and outside it (Babcock, Guion)
2) Reinitiate the Campus Space Planning committee
D. Complete the Cultural Landscape Study
E. Complete Additions to the Riding Center Complex
F. Develop a Preservation Crafts Training Program
1) Identify partnerships and funding to support a Preservation Crafts Training Program
2) Tie the program to our academic plan
3) Promote regional workforce development through the program