Everything about Brown University totally explained
Brown University is a
private university located in
Providence,
Rhode Island. Founded in 1764 as the College of Rhode Island, it's the third-oldest institution of higher education in
New England and
seventh oldest in the United States. It is a member of the
Ivy League. Pembroke College, Brown University's all women's college, merged with the College in 1971.
Brown was the first college in the nation to accept students regardless of religious affiliations. The school also has the oldest undergraduate engineering program in the Ivy League (1847).
The Brown "New Curriculum," instituted in 1969, eliminates distribution requirements and mandatory A/B/C grades (allowing any course to be taken on a "satisfactory/no credit" basis). Moreover, there are no pluses (+), minuses (-), or grades of D in the grading system.
Since 2001, Brown's current and 18th president has been
Ruth J. Simmons, the first
African American president and second female president of an Ivy League institution, as well as the first permanent female president of Brown.
The school colors are
seal brown,
cardinal red, and white. Brown's
mascot is the
bear and the varsity sports teams are called the
Brown Bears. The costumed bear mascot named "Bruno" makes appearances at athletic games. The use of a bear as the University's mascot dates back to 1904. People associated with the University are known as
Brunonians.
Profile
Admission to Brown is extremely competitive, with an overall admissions rate of 13.8% for the class of 2010. The class of 2011 had an admittance rate of 13.5%. The regular decision acceptance rate for the Class of 2010 was 12.6%, and the regular decision acceptance rate of the Class of 2011 was 12.3%. The admission rate for the class of 2012 was 13.3%. Brown doesn't accept the
Common Application.
More than one-third of the members of the Class of 2010 scored above 750 on the verbal or math sections of the SAT I: Reasoning Test. Approximately 15 percent of the students in the Class of 2010 graduated number one or number two in their high school classes. Students come from all 50 states, as well as 62 countries. The program allocates approximately $70 million towards financial aid.
In the 2008
U.S. News & World Report college rankings, Brown ranked fourteenth in the nation among "National Universities" (tied with
Johns Hopkins University and
Northwestern University). The 2008 U.S. News Rankings rate Brown as the seventh most selective college in the country. In 1995,
US News & World Report ranked Brown second in the country in excellence in undergraduate teaching.
According to a study entitled "Revealed Preference Ranking," published in December 2005 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Brown ranks seventh in the country when students are choosing which of the schools to which they're admitted to attend. Brown ranks fifth when the Revealed Preference Ranking method focuses on students interested in humanities and social studies and seventh for students interested in the sciences and mathematics. A notable fact is that Brown ranks ahead of all the Ivy League schools other than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
According to a 2007 Princeton Review survey of colleges, Brown is the fourth most selective college in America, and Brown's students are the happiest.
92 to 95% of Brown students are admitted to one of their top three law school choices. For business schools the figure is nearly 100%. Finally, Brown consistently ranks in the top 5 colleges in the country in terms of the percentage of students accepted into medical school. The charter's language has long been interpreted by the university as discouraging the founding of a
business school or
law school. Brown continues to be one of only two Ivy League colleges with neither a business school nor a law school (the other being
Princeton).
The charter required that the makeup of the board of thirty-six trustees include twenty-two
Baptists, five
Friends, four
Congregationalists, and five
Episcopalians, and by twelve Fellows, of whom eight, including the President, should be
Baptists "and the rest indifferently of any or all denominations." It specified that "into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted any religious tests, but on the contrary, all the members hereof shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty of conscience." One of the Baptist founders, John Gano, had also been the founding minister of the
First Baptist Church in the City of New York. The
Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition remarks that "At the time it was framed the charter was considered extraordinarily
liberal" and that "the government has always been largely non-sectarian in spirit."
James Manning, the minister sent to Rhode Island by the Baptists, was sworn in as the College's first president in 1765. The College of Rhode Island moved to its present location on
College Hill, in the East Side of Providence, in 1770 and construction of the first building, The College Edifice, began. This building was renamed
University Hall in 1823. The Brown family — Nicholas,
John, Joseph and
Moses — were instrumental in the move to Providence, funding and organizing much of the construction of the new buildings. The family's connection with the college was strong:
Joseph Brown became a professor of Physics at the University, and
John Brown served as treasurer from 1775 to 1796. In 1804, a year after John Brown's death, the University was renamed Brown University in honor of John's nephew,
Nicholas Brown, Jr., who was a member of the class of 1786 and contributed $5,000 (which, adjusted for
inflation, is approximately $61,000 in 2005, though it was 1,000 times the roughly $5 tuition) toward an endowed professorship. In 1904, the
John Carter Brown Library was opened as an independent historical and cultural research center based around the libraries of
John Carter Brown and
John Nicholas Brown.
The Brown family was involved in various business ventures in Rhode Island, including the
slave trade; the family itself was divided on the issue. John Brown had unapologetically defended slavery, while
Moses Brown and Nicholas Brown Jr. were fervent
abolitionists. In recognition of this history, the University established the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice in 2003.
Brown began to admit women when it established a Women's College in 1891, which was later named
Pembroke College. "The College" (the undergraduate school) merged with Pembroke College in 1971 and became co-educational.
American Revolution
Stephen Hopkins, Chief Justice and Governor of colonial Rhode Island, was later a Delegate to the
Colonial Congress in Albany in 1754 and to the
Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776. He was a signatory to the
United States Declaration of Independence on behalf of the state of Rhode Island. He also served as the first chancellor of Brown (at the time called the College of Rhode Island) from 1764 to 1785. His house is a minor historical site, located just off the main quadrangle at Brown.
James Manning was also a delegate for Rhode Island to the Continental Congress in 1786.
In 1781, allied American and French armies under the command of General
George Washington and the
Comte de Rochambeau, who led troops sent by King
Louis XVI of France, embarked on a march from Rhode Island to
Virginia, where they fought and defeated British forces sent by King
George III of the United Kingdom on the
Yorktown, Virginia peninsula. The victory ended the major battles of the
American Revolutionary War. Prior to the march, Brown University served as an encampment site for French troops, and the College Edifice, now
University Hall, was turned into a military hospital.
New Curriculum
In 1850, Brown President
Francis Wayland wrote: "The various courses should be so arranged that, insofar as practicable, every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose." The adoption of the New Curriculum in 1969, marking a major change in University's institutional history, was a significant step towards realizing President Wayland's vision. The
curriculum was the result of a paper written by
Ira Magaziner and
Elliot Maxwell entitled "Draft of a Working Paper for Education at Brown University." The paper came out of a year-long Group Independent Study Project (GISP) involving 80 students and 15 professors. The group was inspired by student-initiated experimental schools, especially
San Francisco State College, and sought ways to improve education for students at Brown. The philosophy they formed sought to "put students at the center of their education" and to "teach students how to think rather than just teaching facts."
The paper made a number of suggestions for improving education at Brown, including a new kind of
interdisciplinary freshman course that would introduce new modes of inquiry and bring faculty from different fields together. Their goal was to transform the survey course, which traditionally sought to cover a large amount of basic material, into specialized courses that would introduce the important modes of inquiry used in different disciplines.
Following a student rally in support of reform, President Ray Heffner appointed the Special Committee on Curricular Philosophy with the task of developing specific reforms. These reforms, known as the Maeder Report (after the chair of the committee), were then brought to the faculty for a vote. On
May 7,
1969, following a marathon meeting with 260 professors present, the New Curriculum was passed. Its key features included the following: A joint degree program has been announced which would allow students to pursue an A.B. degree at Brown and a B.F.A. degree at RISD simultaneously, taking five years to complete this course of study.
As recently as 2006, there has been some debate on reintroducing plus/minus grading to the curriculum. Advocates argue that adding pluses and minuses would reduce grade inflation and allow professors to give more specific grades, while critics say that this plan would have no effect on grade inflation while increasing unnecessary competition among students and violating the principle of the New Curriculum. Ultimately, the addition of pluses and minuses to the grading system was voted down by the College Curriculum Council.
The University is currently in the process of broadening and expanding its curricular offerings as part of the "Plan for Academic Enrichment." The number of faculty has been greatly expanded. Seminars aimed at freshmen have begun to be offered widely by most departments.
As a part of the re-accreditation process, Brown University is undergoing an expansive reevaluation of its undergraduate education offerings through the newly appointed Task Force on Undergraduate Education. This Task Force is charged with assessing the areas of general education, concentrations, advising, and pedagogy and assessment.
Brown, the Ivy League and slavery
In 2003, 18th Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons appointed the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, which included Brown faculty members, undergraduate and graduate students and University administrators. This Brown Steering Committee produced the first ever internally produced Ivy League report regarding the commercial ties between the origins of one of the
Ivy League institutions and the
Triangular Trade in slaves taken from various regions in Africa. The Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice is a historic first for the
Ivy League which comprises several member universities whose currently unexamined initial financial endowments were financed in some measure by wealth accumulated through the Triangular Trade. The carefully researched report offers several recommendations for Brown which are addressed in the official University response.
The Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice also offers a wealth of historical records and teaching materials available to the public worldwide regarding an important period in the history of the Ivy League, pre-Revolutionary
New England and Triangular Trade contributions to the ascendance of Great Britain's leading universities, including the
University of Oxford and the
University of Cambridge, prior to the 1807 Act of Parliament which outlawed the use of British ships in any aspect of the slave trade.
St. John's College, Cambridge has received funding to conduct inquiries similar to those led by the Brown Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice but naturally focused on the benefits flowing from the Triangular Trade which accrued to the
British Empire and the
United Kingdom's most prestigious institutions of learning, including those of
Oxbridge. As part of the commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Act of 1807 at
Cambridge, President Simmons gave a public lecture at St. John's College entitled "Hidden in Plain Sight: Slavery and Justice in Rhode Island."
The records are maintained by the Center for Digital Initiatives at Brown.
As one feature of the official February 2007 Response of Brown University to the Report of the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, President Simmons announced Brown's decision to create a U.S.$10 Million Endowment (£5,043,100.00; €7,400,000.00; ¥1,192,950,000.00) intended to benefit public schools in Providence, Rhode Island in part by funding graduate fellowships in urban education. This initiative echoes recommendations of former Brown University president
Vartan Gregorian who suggested in several public addresses that the best remedy for the United States in its efforts to address the legacies of slavery and racial discrimination was to redouble commitments to K-12 education nationally. In that spirit, Dr. Simmons noted: "Lack of access to a good education, particularly for urban schoolchildren, is one of the most pervasive and pernicious social problems of our time. Colleges and universities are uniquely able to improve the quality of urban schools. Brown is committed to undertaking that work."
Brown's response to the Report of the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice was published in the year marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by the British Empire following a lengthy campaign by the
Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the successor Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, as reported by the Oxford Today magazine and presented at
Rhodes House in
Oxford.
Organization
College and Graduate School
The
College and the Graduate School are by far the largest parts of the school, spanning 100 undergraduate concentrations (majors), over 50 graduate school programs, and offering around 2,000 courses each year. The most popular undergraduate concentrations are Biology, History, and International Relations. Brown is one of the few schools in the United States with a major in
Egyptology available and the only school in the world with a
History of Math major. Undergraduates can also design an independent concentration if the existing standard programs don't fit their interests.
Watson Institute for International Studies
The
Watson Institute for International Studies, usually referred to as the Watson Institute, is a center for the analysis of international issues at Brown University. Its original benefactor was
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., former
Ambassador to the Soviet Union and president of
IBM. The Watson Institute is currently led by Dr.
Barbara Stallings.
Warren Alpert Medical School
The University's medical program started in 1811, but the school was suspended by President Wayland in 1827 after the program's faculty declined to live on campus (a new requirement under Wayland). In 1975, the first M.D. degrees from the new Program in Medicine were awarded to a graduating class of 58 students. In 1984, Brown endorsed an eight-year medical program called the
Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME). The majority of openings for the first-year medical school class are reserved for PLME students. Each year, approximately 60 students matriculate into the PLME out of an applicant pool of about 1,600. In 1991, the school was officially renamed the Brown University School of Medicine, then renamed once more as simply "Brown Medical School" in October 2000. It is currently ranked 34th among U.S. medical schools according to
US News and World Report.
(External Link
)
In addition, Brown offered a joint program with
Dartmouth Medical School called the Brown-Dartmouth Medical Program. Approximately 15 students at Dartmouth Medical School enrolled in the program annually, spending the first two basic medical science years at
Dartmouth and the next two years in clinical education at Brown, where they received their M.D. degree. The Brown-Dartmouth program accepted its final class in the fall of 2006, their respective deans stating that the institutions desired to move in their own directions.
Several other admission pathways exist. The Early Identification Program (EIP) encourages Rhode Island residents to pursue careers in medicine by recruiting sophomores from
Providence College,
Rhode Island College, the
University of Rhode Island, and
Tougaloo College to BMS. In 2004, the school once again began to accept applications via the "standard route", from pre-medical students at any college or university. For the Class of 2009, nine students were accepted via this route.
Combined degree programs leading to the M.D./
Ph.D., M.D./
M.P.H. and M.D./
M.P.P. degrees are also offered.
In January 2007, self-made entrepreneur
Warren Alpert, having made previous contributions to
Harvard Medical School and the
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, donated the sum of $100 million to Brown Medical School on behalf of the Warren Alpert Foundation, tying
Sidney Frank for the largest single monetary contribution ever made to the University. In recognition of the gift, the faculty of Brown University approved changing the name of the Brown Medical School to
The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. The funds are expected to contribute to the construction of a new, exclusive medical school building, medical student scholarships (through the Warren Alpert Scholars Program), support for biomedical research and faculty recruitment, and new endowed professorships.
The current dean of the Brown Medical School is
Eli Y. Adashi, M.D.
University Library System
The
John Hay Library is the second oldest library on campus. It was named for
John Hay (Class of 1858), the private secretary and assistant to
Abraham Lincoln, at the request of
Andrew Carnegie, who contributed half of the
$300,000 cost of the building. Constructed with
Vermont white
marble in an
English Renaissance style, the library was dedicated on
November 10,
1910 and had an estimated collection of 300,000 volumes. Amongst other things, the library contains three books bound in human skin.
Presidents of Brown University
The current president of the University is
Ruth J. Simmons. She is the 18th president of Brown University and first black president of an Ivy League institution. According to a November 2007 poll by the
Brown Daily Herald, Simmons enjoys a more than 80% approval rating among Brown undergraduates.
Campus
Brown is the largest institutional landowner in Providence, with properties in the East Side and the Jewelry District. Unlike some other schools, there are also no clear physical landmarks to determine where Brown's campus begins or ends.
Some ongoing projects:
(External Link)
The Sidney E. Frank Life Sciences Hall (completed Fall 2006)
The Warren Alpert Medical School (in planning stages)
The relocation and renovation of the Peter Green House (ongoing)
Construction of the new Walk to connect Lincoln Field with the Pembroke Campus (ongoing; completion by 2009)
A new Campus Center by renovating Wilson Lab (construction scheduled for Fall 2007)
Renovation of Faunce House (construction scheduled for Fall 2008)
Renovation of Rhode Island Hall to house the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
The Nelson Fitness Center (will be completed by 2010)
Student life
Atmosphere
Princeton Review ranks Brown second among all American colleges for "happiest students," losing its previous spot at number one to Whitman College. Brown was recently named "the most fashionable school in the Ivy League" by the fashion trade journal Women's Wear Daily on the basis that students on campus seem to have the strongest sense of personal style.
Nightlife
Brown is home to an active on-campus nightlife. A wide array of parties take place on the weekends, most of them in dorms and off-campus houses. Some parties, such as SexPowerGod and Starf*ck, are annual occurrences. Both parties were massively scaled back, however, after Bill O'Reilly sent a clothed cameraman into SexPowerGod in Fall 2005 and aired footage of the party on his show, The O'Reilly Factor.
Athletics
Brown is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Ivy League athletic conference. It sponsors 37 varsity intercollegiate teams. Its athletics program has been featured in the College Sports Honor Roll as one of the top 20 athletic programs in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. Brown Women's Rowing Team has won 5 national titles in the last 11 years and Brown Football won the 2005 Ivy League Championships and shared the 1999 Ivy League title with Yale. Brown's Men's Soccer program is consistently ranked in the top 25, has won 18 Ivy League titles overall, and 8 of the last 12 - recent graduates play professionally in Major League Soccer and overseas. Brown's Varsity Equestrian team won the Ivy League Championships for the past two years in a row, and has consistently performed extremely well within the team's zone and region. Brown also features several competitive intercollegiate club sports, including its nationally ranked sailing, Taekwondo, Ultimate, and Rugby union teams. In 2005, the men's ultimate team, Brownian Motion, won the national championship, and the football team won its first-ever outright Ivy League title. Brown's table tennis team finished in first place and were undefeated in the New England division of National College Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) in the 2006-2007 season and earned a spot in the National competition. In 2007, Brown won its first Ivy League baseball championship in school history. In the 2006-2007 season, the Brown Women's Rugby team won the Ivy League championship and currently ranked in the top ten of college teams.
Student groups
There are over 300 registered student organizations on campus with diverse interests. The Student Activities Fair, during the orientation program, is an opportunity for first-years to become acquainted with the wide range of clubs.
Residential / Greek
12.7% of Brown students are in fraternities or sororities. There are eleven residential Greek houses: six all-male fraternities (Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Tau, Delta Phi, Theta Delta Chi, Sigma Chi, and Phi Kappa Psi), two sororities (Alpha Chi Omega and Kappa Alpha Theta), one co-ed literary fraternity (St. Anthony Hall), one co-ed fraternity (Zeta Delta Xi), and one co-ed literary society (Alpha Delta Phi). All recognized Greek letter organizations live on-campus in University-owned dorm housing. Ten of the houses are overseen by the Greek Council and are located on Wriston Quadrangle. St. Anthony Hall, a co-ed fraternity that doesn't participate in Greek Council, is located in King House.
An alternative to fraternity life at Brown are the program houses, which are organized around various themes. As with Greek houses, the existing residents of each house take applications from students, usually at the start of the Spring semester. Examples of program houses include: Buxton International House, the Machado French/Spanish House, Art House, Technology House, Harambee House, Culinary Arts (Cooking) House, West House and Interfaith House.
Currently, there are three student cooperative houses at Brown. Two of the houses, Watermyn and Finlandia on Waterman Street, are owned by the Brown Association for Cooperative Housing (BACH), an independent non-profit corporation owned and operated by house members. Founded by students in 1970, BACH is the only student owned and managed co-op in the nation and is famous for its annual naked party.
The third co-op, West House, is located in a Brown-owned house on Brown Street. All three houses also run a vegetarian food co-op for residents and non-residents.
Secret societies
As at most other Ivies, secret societies have existed at Brown since the mid-18th century. They originated as literary clubs and organized disputes among their members, a forensic tradition that continues today in the Brown Debating Union. One early literary society was Athenian at Queen's, which was founded in 1776 and later disbanded. The Philermenian Society (founded as the Misokosmian Society) arose in 1794. In reaction to the Federalist Philermenians, a Democratic-Republican society called the United Brothers Society was formed in 1806. In 1824 a third society, the Franklin Society, was formally recognized by the university president, and counted as honorary members Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay. All of these societies had libraries and meeting rooms on the top floor of Hope College, and few written documents were preserved in order to protect against inter-society espionage. However, by the mid-19th century, these organizations had diminished on account of the growth in the number of Greek letter fraternities.
Traditions
Though the early history of Brown as a men's school includes a number of unusual hazing traditions, the University's present-day traditions tend to be non-violent while maintaining the spirit of zaniness.
Van Wickle Gates
The Van Wickle Gates, dedicated on June 18, 1901, have a pair of center gates and a smaller gate on each side. The side gates remain open throughout the year, while the center gates remain closed except for two occasions each year. At the beginning of the academic year, the center gates open inward to admit students during Convocation. At the end of the second semester, the gates open outward for the Commencement Day procession. A traditional superstition is that students who pass through the gates for a second time before graduation don't graduate.
Josiah S. Carberry
One of Brown's most notable traditions is keeping alive the spirit and accomplishments of Josiah S. Carberry, the fictional Professor of Psychoceramics (the equally fictional study of cracked pots), who was born on a University Hall billboard in 1929. He is the namesake of "Josiah's", a University-run snackbar. "Josiah" is also the name of the University's electronic library catalog.
According to Encyclopedia Brunoniana, "on Friday, May 13, 1955, an anonymous gift of $101.01 was received by the University from Professor Carberry to establish the Josiah S. Carberry Fund in memory of his 'future late wife.' A condition of the gift was that, henceforth, every Friday the 13th would be designated 'Carberry Day,' and on that day friends of the University would deposit their loose change in brown jugs to augment the fund, which is used to purchase 'such books as Professor Carberry might or might not approve of.'" Students have followed this tradition ever since, and the fund currently has over $10,000 in it.
"Professor Carberry has been the subject of articles in a number of periodicals, including the New York Times, which proclaimed him 'The World’s Greatest Traveler' on the front page of its Sunday travel section in 1974, and in Yankee magazine, where he was 'The Absent-Bodied Professor' in 1975. A recent honor which came to Professor Carberry was the award to him of an Ig Nobel Prize at the First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony in 1991. At this event sponsored by M.I.T. and the Journal of Irreproducible Results, Carberry, the 1991 Ig Nobel Interdisciplinary Research Prize laureate, was cited as 'bold explorer and eclectic seeker of knowledge, for his pioneering work in the field of psychoceramics, the study of cracked pots.'"
Spring Weekend
Starting in 1950, Brown replaced the traditional Junior Week and Junior Prom, which were discontinued during World War II, with Spring Weekend, which featured athletic contests and dances. Concerts featuring invited performers began in 1960, including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and James Brown. Spring Weekend 2008 featured Lupe Fiasco, M.I.A., Girl Talk, Vampire Weekend, and Umphrey's McGee.
Alma Mater
The "Alma Mater" was written by James Andrews DeWolf (Class of 1861) in 1860, who named it "Old Brown" and set it to the tune of "Araby's Daughter" (which was later known as "The Old Oaken Bucket"). The song was renamed "Alma Mater", after the incipit, in 1869. It is sung and played after varsity athletic victories and at formal events such as Convocation and Commencement.
Computing projects
Several projects of note involving hypertext and other forms of electronic text have been developed at Brown, including:
FRESS
Brown University Interactive Language (BRUIN)
Hypertext Editing System
Women Writers Project
In addition, the Computer Science department at Brown is home to The CAVE, part of the Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Center for Information Technology. This project is a complete virtual reality room, one of few in the world, and is used for everything from three-dimensional drawing classes to tours of the circulatory system for medical students.
In 2000, a group of students from the university's Technology House converted the south side of the Sciences Library into a giant video display which allowed bystanders to play Tetris, the largest of its kind ever in the Western Hemisphere. Constructed from eleven custom-built circuit boards, a twelve-story data network, a personal computer running Linux, a radio-frequency video game controller, and over 10,000 Christmas lights, the project was named La Bastille and could be seen for several miles.
Notable alumni, faculty and honoris causa laureates
Further Information
Get more info on 'Brown University'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://brown_university.totallyexplained.com">Brown University Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
