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Dear Members of the Sarah Lawrence Community,
Those who know me are familiar with my predilection to suggest that situations are often better viewed not as “either/or” but as “both/and”. From my perspective, the College is very much experiencing a “both/and” moment that calls us to attend carefully to two important, though palpably dissimilar, things: the vibrant and familiar rhythm of the spring semester and the extraordinary challenges and existential complexities confronting higher education and so many aspects of our world. I find it impossible to write to you at this moment about one without the other.
Spring Break has come and gone and signs abound that we are entering the final weeks of the academic year: early blooms are starting to color campus, students are deep in their studies, and our event calendar is filling rapidly with performances, readings, presentations, and exhibits. Over these next few weeks, Westlands Lawn will beckon our community to enjoy the unmatched beauty that is spring on campus, culminating in the blooming of the wisteria as we celebrate the Class of 2025 at Commencement.
Earlier this week, we kicked off the senior art exhibitions that will run weekly until Open Studios at the end of April, and, beginning March 24, the Gallery at Heimbold will present Selections by Japanese-American wood-block printmaker and former faculty member Ansei Uchima. Our Polarization series recently hosted international human rights lawyer Oliver Windridge in conversation with history faculty member Philipp Nielsen and will conclude with the annual Adda Bozeman Lecture on April 2, featuring Ambassador Brooke Anderson '86. Our Admission team has sent acceptances to the Class of 2029, and our student tour guides are busily shepherding prospective students and their families around campus. Our student-athletes have been outdoing themselves this semester! The men’s basketball team had a program-best season, making it to the Skyline Conference Championship semifinals, and coach Chris Ehmer hit the 100-win milestone this season, while the women’s swim team also finished with a program-best season. And next week, I will head to Wadham College to join alumni and faculty for a special reunion celebrating the Sarah Lawrence College at Oxford program's 40th anniversary.
In other words, it’s all happening! There are many typical and memorable moments that mark the progress of the spring semester and point to the end of the academic year and the extraordinary accomplishments on campus. Yet, as we are all too aware, these events are taking place against a backdrop that is anything but typical. As I shared in my February letter to you, the College is working in multiple ways to anticipate, understand, and respond to the rapidly changing national landscape and its attendant threats to higher education broadly, Sarah Lawrence specifically, and our students most importantly. Dean Dave Stanfield and his team have been holding regular meetings with students to discuss concerns, share resources, and answer questions. I’ve met with faculty and staff on multiple occasions, joined by our general counsel, Joanna Silver, to share information, answer questions, and field concerns. And I continue to work closely with other college and university presidents and to rely on the College’s membership in a number of organizations at the state and national levels that provide guidance on navigating the changes and issues developing daily.In these last few weeks, I have found myself unable to avoid using adjectives I vowed to purge from my vocabulary after the height of the pandemic, but indeed feel compelled to acknowledge that we are living in unprecedented and uncertain times. So let me yet again assert the principles by which we live and the principles that we will continue to vigorously uphold and defend. We are committed to:
- Ensuring that every student at Sarah Lawrence has full and unimpeded access to our transformative education, regardless of race, gender identity, ethnicity, nationality or national origin, disability, socio-economic status, or religion.
- Nurturing a global community that is diverse in every sense of the word, recognizing that a diversity of perspectives enriches learning, deepens empathy, and broadens our understanding of the world.
- Fostering a community that values and upholds free expression and does so in a context of mutual respect.
- Not merely respecting but defending academic freedom and free inquiry as cornerstones of higher education.
What does that mean at this moment? From the post-World War II period until quite recently, in broad terms, public and private U.S. higher education was seen as a common good, as a means of social and economic mobility, as a driver of research, discovery, and the knowledge economy, as an extraordinary American achievement not just admired, but aspired to, around the world. From the G.I. Bill and bi-partisan initiatives like Pell Grants, federal support for higher education focused on increasing access. The creation of federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, among many others, recognized the necessity of partnership with research universities. And it was not coincidental that the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities were added shortly after the Civil Rights Act, enshrining the values of the arts and humanities in the fabric of American life.
That ever-greater entwinement of federal government funding for private nonprofit higher education has always come with requirements of accreditation and compliance with federal law as a condition of accepting the funding. While such compliance and reporting are quite stringent, on the whole, the policies and procedures were clear, the goals of supporting students, reporting outcomes, and advancing research were shared, and within broad constraints appropriate deference was given to the critical role of academic freedom in advancing knowledge and broad institutional autonomy for private institutions with respect to academic and curricular decision-making.
This is no longer so. In ways and at a pace never before seen, the current administration appears to be choosing not just to remake but to attempt to dismantle that compact, using federal funding as a means of exerting influence and challenging a long-standing commitment to institutional independence. This shift threatens not only the financial stability of colleges and universities and the students and families they serve but also the broader role that higher education plays in a functioning democracy. And while the potential withholding of federal funding may be the most immediate and visible of a number of challenges facing higher education — challenges to which Sarah Lawrence will not be immune — other pressing issues, such as the specter of travel bans and the erosion of due process, will not only make it harder for undocumented, refugee, and international students to pursue an education in the U.S., but actively discourage it.
I would not be surprised if you experience this as a highly bifurcated letter — “Here are all the amazing things happening on campus” / ”Higher education is facing serious and targeted threats” — but I believe that we can’t lose sight of one for the other. The “and” that connects this “both” is, and must continue to be, the ways we live out our collective commitment to the purpose and mission of this college: daily in the work of our students, faculty, and staff and in the larger context of a moment when higher education is in the crosshairs. While I have grudgingly invoked the “unprecedented uncertainty” cliche of my COVID communications, in doing so I am also reminded of our community’s perseverance and commitment to our values during those darkest days of the pandemic. Of how we “navigated the now” while simultaneously planning for a future beyond the chaos. This is another of those moments for Sarah Lawrence, sooner than we could ever have envisioned and in forms that we could scarcely have imagined. As we meet our promise to prepare our students to solve the problems of and thrive in a complex and rapidly evolving world, we as a college must rise once more to the challenge of providing the transformative education at the heart of all that we do. We do so by staying true to our mission and principles. And by remembering that the very essence of a liberal arts education — its dedication to critical thinking, creativity, and the pursuit of knowledge across disciplines — is precisely what is most needed, and most under threat, at this moment. In a world increasingly marked by polarization, the ability to engage across difference, to think deeply and critically, and to uphold the dignity and worth of all people is not optional, it is essential. This is the education we provide, and this is the education we must continue to defend.
Yours,
Cristle Collins Judd
President
president@sarahlawrence.edu
Instagram: @slcprez