Brown University

Brown University is a private university located in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III (1760 - 1820), Brown is the third-oldest institution of higher education in New England and seventh oldest in the United States.

www.brown.edu

Brown was the first college in the nation to accept students regardless of religious affiliations. Academically, Brown consists of The College, Graduate School, and Alpert Medical School. The New Curriculum, instituted in 1969, eliminated distribution requirements and allows any course to be taken on a satisfactory/no credit basis. In addition, there are no pluses or minuses in the letter grading system. The school has the oldest undergraduate engineering program in the Ivy League (1847). Pembroke College, Brown's women's college, merged with the university in 1971.

Brown’s main campus is located on College Hill on the East Side of Providence. The university's 37 varsity athletic teams are known as the Brown Bears. The school colors are seal brown, cardinal red, and white. Brown's mascot is the bear, which dates back to 1904.The costumed mascot named "Bruno" frequently makes appearances at athletic games. People associated with the University are known as Brunonians.

Since 2001, Brown's 18th president has been Ruth J. Simmons, the first permanent female president of the university. She is also the first African American and second female president of an Ivy League institution.

History

Brown was the Baptist answer to Congregationalist Yale and Harvard, Presbyterian Princeton, and Episcopalian Penn and Columbia. At the time, it was the only one that welcomed students of all religious persuasions (following the example of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1636 on the same principle). Brown has long since shed its Baptist affiliation, but remains dedicated to diversity and intellectual freedom.

The history of Brown tells of a university constantly undergoing change. Founded in 1764 as the College of Rhode Island in Warren, Rhode Island, the school registered its first students in 1765. It moved in 1770 to its present location on College Hill, overlooking the city of Providence. In 1804, in recognition of a gift from Nicholas Brown, the College of Rhode Island was renamed Brown University. The first women were admitted in 1891, when the establishment of the Women’s College marked the beginning of eighty years of a coordinate structure for educating women within the University. Later known as Pembroke College, the women’s college merged with Brown in 1971.

Graduate study at Brown began in 1850, but was discontinued in 1857. The more modern tradition of graduate study began in 1887, when the faculty and Fellows agreed to publish in the following year’s catalog rules for the awarding of both the master’s and the Ph.D. The first master’s degrees under the new plan were granted in 1888 and the first Ph.D.s in 1889.

In 1811, Brown first organized a medical program, which was suspended in 1827. The first M.D. degrees of the modern era were awarded in 1975 to a graduating class of 58 students. In 1984–85, the Brown Corporation approved an eight–year medical continuum called the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME). About half of the openings for the first-year medical class are reserved for students who receive their undergraduate degrees through the PLME. Today Brown awards some 90 medical degrees annually.

Conceived by undergraduates and ratified by the faculty, Brown’s distinctive undergraduate curriculum dates to 1969–70. The curriculum harks back to a philosophy shaped by Brown President Francis Wayland. In 1850, he 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.”

Currently, Brown is embarking on The Plan for Academic Enrichment. This ambitious program builds on Brown’s strengths and establishes new benchmarks of excellence in research, education, and public leadership.

Campus

Brown's main campus is located atop College Hill, in the East Side, across the Providence River from downtown Providence. This is the original site where the University was founded in the 1700s. The main campus consists of 235 buildings and covers 143 acres (0.58 km2). A salient feature of Brown's campus is that many of the academic departments reside in smaller, Victorian-era houses that the University has acquired over the years from the surrounding neighborhood.

The main campus area can be subdivided further into the inner, traditional campus greens and the outer neighborhood. The two greens, the Main Green and Lincoln Field, are large grass fields perpendicular to each other. These two areas contain many of the larger and more traditional academic and dormitory buildings, including University Hall (1770). This part of the main campus is enclosed by brick and rod iron fence, with the Van Wickle Gates serving as the prominent entrance on College Street. It is this area that is featured in most publications and photographs of Brown's campus.

Reputation

The 2008 U.S. News & World Report rankings rate Brown tied with Stanford as the seventh most selective college in the country. However, Brown remains ranked 16th overall, after Washington University in St. Louis, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins. According to a study entitled "Revealed Preference Ranking," by Harvard, Wharton, and Boston University economics professors, published in December 2005 by the NBER, Brown ranks seventh in the country (between Princeton and Columbia) in the percentage of students admitted who choose 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. 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. In the 2008 Center for College Affordability & Productivity (CCAP) college rankings in an article on Forbes.com ranked Brown University at 5th in the country among "National Universities." The college rankings at CCAP are mainly based on student evaluations, graduation rates and percentage of students winning Rhodes as well as Fulbright scholarships. For vocational success, CCAP looks at Who's Who in America.

Academics

The College: Founded in 1764, The College is the oldest school of Brown University. Nearly 6,000 undergraduate students are currently enrolled in the university, and approximately 80 concentrations are offered. The most popular 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 do not fit their interests.

Graduate School: Established in 1887, The Graduate School currently houses over 1,700 students studying over 50 disciplines. Eight different master's degrees are offered as well as Ph.D. degrees in over 40 subjects ranging from Applied Mathematics to Public Policy.

Alpert Medical School: The medical school offers combined degree programs leading to the M.D./Ph.D., M.D./M.P.H. and M.D./M.P.P. degrees.

Research Centers and Institutes: Watson Institute for International Studies and Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women

Brown University was ranked 27th in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking