The school has been having trouble attracting students to a woman's college, the president explained. Revenue from the increasingly discounted tuition and a restricted endowment couldn’t cover expenses—particularly those that were arguably quite lavish. Some employees, many of whom live on campus along with students, were reported to have wept silently in the pews as they heard the news.

This story has reverberated across the higher-education community over the past week, as many worry that other small colleges may soon suffer the same fate. It's already happening in some pockets. The governing board of Tennessee Temple University, a Christian liberal-arts college, for example, recently voted to shut down the school this May and merge with another Christian campus in North Carolina. It may be too hard for the small liberal-arts college model to survive in modern times.

Last week, I spoke with several faculty members from Sweet Briar College to get their perspective on the unfolding events and learn of their plans for the future. After all, while students are certainly struggling as they transfer credits to nearby schools and figure out whether they can graduate on time, employees are facing their own challenges during this process, too.

* * *

The school will remain open for a few remaining months. When classes resume next Monday after this week's spring break, students will still need to take final exams and complete research papers. Faculty, meanwhile, will still conduct lectures and grade assignments—all while managing a major life change and supporting students as they make their next plans.

Faculty and students have these remaining months to savor Sweet Briar’s impressive 3,250-acre campus, once the site of a tobacco and corn plantation that relied heavily on slave labor. Many of the school’s present-day buildings were built by Ralph Adams Cram, the famous American collegiate architect who later designed structures at Princeton University and West Point. Among the other buildings on campus is a renovated farmhouse known as the Sweet Briar House, which was the residence of the 19th-century plantation owner and now serves as the president’s home.

Students can exercise and hang out with friends at the Fitness and Athletic Center. They can run on the three-lane elevated track or play a game of racquetball or squash on two courts. They can shoot hoops in a gym that was remodeled in 2009 and swim a few laps in the school's Prothro Natatorium. Afterward, they can grab a coffee at the bistro or do some studying at The Mary Cochran Library, which was built in 1929 by Cram and is one of four libraries housed at the campus.

Other facilities include the Babock Fine Arts Center, where students can find the Black Box Theatre; three dance studios; and the 652-seat Murchison Lane Auditorium. At the Harriet Howell Rodgers Riding Center, students can enjoy the country’s largest indoor college equestrian arena, which includes an enclosed lunging ring, seven teaching fields, and miles of trails. Its stables house 60 horses, 40 of which are owned by the college.