October 24, 2007 [LINK / comment]

"Beauty and Brains" at SBC

That's how today's Washington Post (Style section) characterized Sweet Briar College, and I couldn't agree more. The writer noted that the Princeton Review recently ranked the SBC campus as the most beautiful in the United States, both for the landscape and the architecture. The article calls attention to the equestrian program, for which the women's college is best known, and describes what it's like to enter the campus:

Driving up the long, heavily forested road that led us finally to the back of the quad, it was hard to avoid the sense that we'd glided into another world. Because we had.

Welcome to the Pink Bubble.

That refers to the school colors, pink and green, and to the sense of isolation from the outside world. That is a mixed blessing, to be sure, and one problem I have encountered is that many students don't have a clue about what is happening in Washington or in other countries. The same thing could be said of students at just about any college or university these days, however, and all in all I think the SBC "sanctuary" is a very positive atmosphere for learning and reflecting. It is also a perfect setting for appreciating the natural world, and for a bird watcher like me, it's a bit of a shame that their biology department lacks an ornithologist.

That Washington Post article is great publicity for a fine institution.