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.
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. Brown's international programs are organized through the Watson Institute for International Studies. 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
Founding of Brown
In 1763, Reverend James Manning, a Baptist minister and an alumnus of the College of New Jersey (predecessor to today's Princeton University), was sent to Rhode Island by the Philadelphia Association of Baptist Churches in order to found a college. At the same time, local Congregationalists, led by future Yale College president Ezra Stiles, were working toward a similar end. The inaugural board meeting of the Corporation of the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations was held in the Old Colony House in Newport, Rhode Island. Former Royal Governors of Rhode Island under King George III Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward were among those who played an instrumental role in Brown's foundation and later became American revolutionaries. On March 3, 1764, a charter was filed to create the College in Warren, Rhode Island, reflecting the work of both Stiles and Manning. The university charter was executed under the authority of King George III.
The charter had more than sixty signatories, including the brothers John, Nicholas and Moses of the Brown family, who would later inspire the College's modern name following a gift bestowed by Nicholas Brown, Jr.. The college's mission, the charter stated, was to prepare students "for discharging the Offices of Life with usefulness & reputation" by providing instruction "in the Vernacular amd Learned Languages, and in the liberal Arts and Sciences." 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 Church of England members, 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 was sworn in as the College's first president in 1765. His tenure ended in 1791. The College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 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 in 1804 contributed $5,000 toward an endowed professorship. In 1904, the John Carter Brown Library was opened as a research center on Americas based on the libraries of John Carter Brown and his son John Nicholas Brown.
The Brown family was involved in various business ventures in Rhode Island, and made a small part of its wealth in businesses related to 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 complex history, under President Ruth Simmons, 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 Brown University in 1891, which was later named Pembroke College in Brown University. "The College" (the undergraduate school) merged with Pembroke College in 1971 and became co-educational.
Several of the original organizers and founding trustees and fellows of Brown listed in the section concerning the formation of Brown's founding charter were prominent business figures, religious figures or statesmen in the original thirteen colonies or in Rhode Island, particularly during the American Revolutionary period. Their individual lives reflect the historical currents that prevailed during a period of historic transition for the American colonies and for the rise of democratic governance as the colonies moved from legal integration within the British Empire to full fledged American independence. The original Brown University Charter (including its signatories and advocates) is a document of significant historic interest and offers a glimpse into this momentous historical period.
Petitioners for the Creation of Brown University
At the General Assembly of the Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, in America, begun and holden by adjournment at East Greenwich, within and for the Colony aforesaid, on the last Monday in February, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-four, and fourth of the reign of His Most Sacred Majesty George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, and so forth. AN ACT FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY WITHIN THIS COLONY
"Petitioners" and "undertakers in the valuable design ... to found, endow, order, and govern a College or University within this Colony":
Daniel Jenckes, Esq., Nicholas Tillinghast, Esq., Nicholas Gardiner, Esq., Col. Josias Lyndon, Col. Elisha Reynolds, Peleg Thurston, Esq., Simon Pease, Esq., John Tillinghast, Esq., George Hazard, Esq., Col. Job Bennet, Nicholas Easton, Esq., Arthur Fenner, Esq., Mr. Ezekiel Gardner, Mr. John Waterman, Mr. James Barker, Jr., Mr. John Holmes, Solomon Drown, Esq., Mr. Samuel Winsor, Mr. Joseph Sheldon, Charles Rhodes, Esq., Mr. Nicholas Brown, Col. Barzillai Richmond, Mr. John Brown, Mr. Gideon Hoxsey, Mr. Thomas Eyres, Mr. Thomas Potter, Jr., Mr. Peleg Barker, Mr. Edward Thurston, Mr. William Redwood, Joseph Clarke, Esq., Mr. John G. Wanton, and Mr. Thomas Robinson,
Founding Fellows and Trustees of Brown University
"... known in law by the name of Trustees and Fellows of the College or University in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, in America...":
Hon. Stephen Hopkins, Esq., The Hon. Joseph Wanton, Jr., Esq., The Hon. Samuel Ward, Esq., The Hon. William Ellery, Esq., John Tillinghast, Esq., Simon Pease, Esq., James Honyman, Esq., Nicholas Easton, Esq., Nicholas Tillinghast, Esq., Darius Sessions, Esq., Joseph Harris, Esq., Francis Willet, Esq., William Logan, Esq., Daniel Jenckes, Esq., George Hazard, Esq., Nicholas Brown, Esq., Jeremiah Niles, Esq., Joshua Babcock, Esq., Mr. John G. Wanton, The Rev. Edward Upham, The Rev. Jeremiah Condy, The R
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