Sweet Briar College’s 10th president inaugurated

Sweet Briar College’s 10th president, Jo Ellen Parker, was sworn in Saturday during an inauguration ceremony attended by about 800 students, faculty and guests in the college’s newly renovated Fitness and Athletics Center Field House.

The ceremony was steeped in tradition, with professors wearing floor-length academic robes and bagpipe music filling the room. Parker delivered an inaugural address and a host of other higher education leaders participated.

The event reflected two of Parker’s priorities as president — global diversity and environmental responsibility.

To highlight Parker’s commitment to international education, students and faculty from countries ranging from Afghanistan to Sweden welcomed Parker in their native tongues. Going green factored into the ceremony’s planning and execution, from printing the programs on recycled paper to distributing reusable water bottles to guests.

Parker is an alumna and former English professor at the all-female Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she also worked as an academic affairs and student life administrator. Most recently, she served as executive director of the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, a Michigan-based nonprofit organization with a mission of “advancing liberal education in the digital age.”

She became acting president in July, succeeding Elisabeth Showalter Muhlenfeld, who retired after 13 years of leadership.

The News & Advance recently sat down with Parker as she reflected on her first few months at Sweet Briar and her plans for the future.

What are your top three priorities for this academic year?

I think one of the top priorities for Sweet Briar is getting the word out to more students about the virtues of a private residential education in the liberal arts tradition. … It used to be far and away the most popular and most prestigious form of higher education in America, but over the last several decades the percentage of families and students who are interested in this kind of education has dropped a little bit. I think we have a big job to do in making the case for why this is really an outstanding kind of education.

I think that all colleges and Sweet Briar, too, really need to look in a disciplined way at information infrastructure: the ways we can use digital technologies to increase the resources that are available on campus; the ways we can use digital technologies to interact with perspective students, alums; the ways we can use information technology internally to do our business … I think that assessing our info infrastructure is a very high priority.

The third priority has to do with the concept of intergenerational equity. Right now, the financial pressures on higher education across the board are intense. We all need to find a way to operate fiscally responsibly in the present, while continuing to invest in the things that are going to be important in the future.

What would you say to a young woman who is on the fence about whether a women’s college is the right choice for her?

It’s not the choice for everybody. It was the right choice for me, and I loved it. And I think it’s the right choice for a lot of young women, but it’s not the right choice for everybody. One of the things that I think is really important to say to students who are thinking about that choice is that a women’s college is entirely dedicated to the success of women students. Period. If you want to be at a place that’s entirely dedicated to making sure women students are successful, women’s college is where you can find that.

You are coming into the presidency during the most turbulent economy and job market our country has seen in decades. What is Sweet Briar doing to prepare students for this post-college climate? What could it be doing better?

We have a really great career services department. … What we could do better? Get students thinking earlier in their college careers about what they want to do after college. … It’s really much better if students start working with career services early on, as freshmen or as sophomores, about what their strengths are, what’s available in the economy today.

I also think a liberal education is the best preparation for a turbulent economy. … I know very well that most of what our students are going to be doing in 10 years doesn’t even exist yet. How are we going to prepare people for jobs that don’t even exist yet is part of the question. The answer that I have to that is by preparing them for change, by giving them skills that can be applied across a wide number of fields, by giving them intellectual curiosity.

Sweet Briar raised tuition by 7 percent this year, bringing its price tag to nearly $40,000 per year. As families across the country struggle to pay for higher education, how does affordability factor into the long-range vision for Sweet Briar?

Affordability is crucial. This last year, Sweet Briar had an unusually high tuition increase and you can see part of the reason why if you look out the window and see all these new buildings. This is a year when many institutions across the country were not able to complete building projects. … Those new buildings, in part, represent our future.”

Read Jo Ellen Parker’s blog at http://blog.president.sbc.edu