There's been a lot of interest in the entry for Brown University from the 2004 edition of Choosing the Right College, so we thought visitors might like to read the entire entry. Feel free to make any comments as to this essay's accuracy from your experience at Brown, especially if you are familiar with the institution.

Brown University
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

Architecture for dummies
Brown University likes to think of itself as an Ivy-sized version of a liberal arts college, a school that emphasizes undergraduate education more than its graduate schools. The school’s “mosaic of campus life,†crows its Web site, consists of “closely connected neighborhoods†situated around the central College Green. Brown is also proud of its laissez-faire curriculum. Not only is there no core curriculum, there are no distribution requirements whatsoever. Brown students, says the school’s literature, are “architects of their own educational experience.†This sort of architecture, apparently, requires no specialized training.

Its libertarian curriculum is just one reason why Brown enjoys a reputation as the most progressive of the Ivies (the Kennedys may have gone to Harvard, but JFK Jr. went to Brown). A lively drug scene, frequent protests, and a gaggle of more radical-than-thou students also prop up the school’s reputation for leftism and rampant political correctness. None of that is likely to change anytime soon, but thankfully the rep doesn’t always match the reality at Brown. And there are some good things happening at the school. Last year, Brown inaugurated Ruth Simmons as its new president. Simmons, the first African-American to head an Ivy League institution, has so far managed to garner praise from students of all political stripes. “She is encouraging a campus climate where students feel free to speak out on any issue and to bring their concerns to the administration,†says one self-described conservative student. She has also increased the number of faculty (by a hundred at last count), placing such a high priority on smaller student-faculty ratios that she dipped into the endowment to help pay for their salaries. “I think that Simmons is the best president that Brown has had in several years, and I think that her policies will increase Brown’s academic reputation,†a student says. And even with regard to the school’s famously PC atmosphere, Simmons may be an improvement. One professor is cautiously hopeful: “Brown’s new president has at least said the right things regarding political correctness, academic freedom, and free academic discourse, but has not yet had the opportunity to match her words with deeds.†If Simmons ends up doing anything at all to check the advance of further politicization at Brown, she ought to be applauded indeed.

Academic Life: Trusting Providence
As one faculty member says, at Brown “a student can get a good liberal arts education, but he must be able to avoid the academic fads (postmodernism, neo-Marxism) that some departments at Brown embrace all too quickly.†That word “fad†comes up often when students and faculty critique the academics at Brown. A quick perusal of the new courses proposed this term turns up such gems as Africana Studies 0089, “Narratives of Power†and the narcissistic American civilizations course, “Nostalgic Campus: The Private College Experience in the Twentieth Century.†Says the faculty member, “To get a good liberal arts education at Brown, a student should choose courses with an eye to the classics,†and not try to dabble in anything with the words “feminism/poststructuralism/materialism†in the title. Good advice at any school, but especially at Brown, where it takes some effort to find non-trendy courses.

Brown University has no core curriculum, nor does it have any distribution requirements. The only requirement is that students pass thirty courses before graduating and that they prove competency in writing. Students can take anything they feel like taking; theoretically, they can even take all of their courses on a pass/fail basis. This extreme academic flexibility is all part of the curriculum reform instituted at Brown in the 1960s and was meant to encourage students to try a little of everything. Parents—and employers, for that matter—should know that students can graduate with a Brown diploma without ever having taken American or world history, a foreign language, English, economics, philosophy, or even one science course. “Intellectual curiosity is very high, if somewhat lacking in direction,†says a faculty member. “Students are encouraged to pursue all avenues of inquiry, but aren’t always given the proper tools. It is in this regard that the lack of a university-mandated core curriculum is detrimental.â€

The school claims that its system works for the thoughtful and intellectually mature. But it can also lead to and encourage dilettantism. One faculty member reports that because of interdepartmental competition to attract the unfocused student, charismatic, flashy lecturers are generally assigned to introductory classes, which are therefore sometimes of dubious quality.

There remain, of course, some powerful utilitarian reasons for choosing one’s courses wisely. A sarcastic joke on campus—“So did you hear about the guy who took all his classes pass/fail but got into Harvard Med?â€â€”makes it clear, for instance, why the pass/fail option is not used as often as one might think. Students have ambitions, graduate schools (and occasionally even employers) want to see god marks and certain classes on one’s transcript, and the administration frowns on too many pass/fail grades.

Whatever academic structure there is at Brown is provided by individual departments and concentrations, which often require students to take a handful of core courses. English majors, for instance, must take three courses on the history of English literature: “Introduction to Medieval and Early Modern Literatures and Cultures,†“Introduction to the Enlightenment and the Rise of National Literatures and Cultures,†and “Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Literatures and Cultures.†They must also complete eight other electives in English.

The classics department at Brown is considered to be very strong. Those concentrating in the classics can choose from five different tracks: classics, Greek, Latin, a combined Greek and Latin program, or classics and Sanskrit. The strictly classics major is required to take eight total courses, including one advanced Greek or Latin course, two semesters of ancient history, and five other elective courses. Comparative literature and geology get strong marks for teaching, as do applied math and international relations. The sciences in general are serious and highly regarded. Students report that history is always a popular concentration; history majors and history buffs should seek out Joe Pucci’s classes on late antiquity and the early medieval world, a course on the American Revolution taught by Gordon Wood, and a Civil War course taught by Michael Vorenberg. A concentration in history requires eight courses, but students are allowed to choose a focus to the program, defined by geography and period, or comparative and topical (like comparative intellectual history), and then take at least four courses in the focus. The only department-wide requirement is a seminar, for which past choices have included “The European Enlightenment in Social Context,†“The City as Modernity: Popular Culture, Mass Consumption and Urban Entertainment in Nineteenth-Century Paris,†and “Comparative American Slavery.†Other good teachers at Brown include James Morone and John Tomasi in political science and James Mahoney in sociology.

Some say that the English department houses a number of quality teachers, but one professor cautions that the department has a number of vocal Marxist faculty members who are also members of the International Socialist Organization and who freely share their political views in class. Graduate students in the department have a reputation for abrasive interactions with other faculty and undergraduate students and for offering, er, “unique†interpretations of English literature. Students are advised to ask around to determine what are the more serious courses.

Several other departments are also infected by an obsession with academic trendiness. One professor reports that in the American civilization department and modern culture and the media (MCM) department, faculty members tend to approach their disciplines via “narratives of processes of domination.†As a consequence, nearly every American civilization course deals with race, gender, or sexual orientation. Brown, remember, likes to think of itself as the “Progressive Ivy†(as if Harvard and Penn and Cornell, etc., are positively hidebound) and as such rewards departments that engage in politically correct discourse. “In a move that no one could figure out, MCM was made a Ph.D.–granting department,†one faculty member reports, “potentially taking away fellowship and other support from Ph.D. students in classics, political science, history, economics, and other established disciplines.†Ah, but one must make room for the innovative scholarship in the American civilization department that has made possible such courses as “Clothing, an Interdisciplinary Approach,†and “Seeing Queerly.†MCM courses offered include “Jews and Blacks: Fiction, Film, Theory,†“The Essential Freud,†“Literature and Culture Capitalism,†and “Television Time and Space,†a course with the following description: “This course will explore television’s temporal and spatial construction, considering how television demarcates time (regulating it through flow and segmentation, articulating work and leisure times, marking familial and national events, encouraging rhythms of reception) and space (mapping public and private space, defining a ‘global media culture’ through local viewings, representing and enacting travel and exchange, creating imaginary geographies and communities).â€

Brown professors are accessible, students say, and the laid-back atmosphere means competition isn’t quite as cutthroat as it is at some of the other Ivies. “Brown places a greater emphasis on community-building activity than many other colleges do,†one student claims. A professor agrees: “There is a generally casual academic culture on campus, and not the overall academic intensity that Chicago, MIT, and Caltech are known for.†Perhaps this is one of the few benefits of the school’s relaxed curriculum. Notes one student, “For a student who wants the freedom to shape her own education and the chance to develop a close relationship with professors and other students in a friendly, relatively laid-back environment,
Brown might be the ideal choice.â€

However, one disadvantage of the Brown environment is that since its academic departments are smaller than those at most of the other Ivies, they offer fewer course choices, increasing students’ chances of getting stuck with the ideologues. Another problem is that course enrollments are strictly limited and the university rarely opens up new sections. Thus, a student might not be able to get into the most popular classes until his senior year, if then, which is a constant source of student frustration. Finally, Brown’s library is comparatively small for an Ivy League school—partly due to the school’s relatively small endowment.

As freshmen, Brown students are assigned an “advising partner,†usually a faculty member, who guides the student through first-year courses and pre-major choices. Brown calls them “partners†because students are half of the program, and the university expects students to “be prepared to articulate the reasons for your academic choices, and remain open to suggestions and new ideas.†Once students have declared a concentration, they work with faculty advisors in their departments.

Grade inflation is an issue at Brown, just as it is at most schools these days. The problem is not as pronounced at Brown as it is at Harvard, say, but grade inflation certainly exists. Much of the blame can be placed on the university’s unique grading system. Explains one faculty member: “Part of the problem at Brown results from the fact that there are no pluses or minuses added to grades. So a hard-earned B-plus is indistinguishable on the transcript from a B. The tendency, as a result, is to round up a B-plus to an A in order to distinguish it from the B (which could be a rounded-up C-plus). There is some talk about changing the grading system to allow for the use of pluses and minuses, but these changes are likely far in the future.†Another faculty member blames grade inflation on the fact that no student expects a grade lower than B. “Their ability to bargain for grades is truly extraordinary,†he says. Eventually, many professors give in, not wanting to spend all of their office hours defending grade decisions. This expectation of getting everything is part of the “Brown personality.†Some find it refreshing, others find it infuriating.

Political Atmosphere: Rights for light bulbs!
Brown’s reputation as the Ivy with the most lefty politics is pretty accurate; the joke goes: “How many Brown students does it take to change a light bulb? The whole campus—to protest for the rights of the bulb.†One graduate teaching assistant remarks that in his discussion sections of twenty-five students, one or two students might be conservatives, three or four are leftist social crusaders and the rest are mildly liberal. “In my observation, academic freedom in the classroom is respected,†says one professor.

However, outside of the classroom, things are a bit dicey. Students have shouted down speakers who voice unpopular opinions. And campus speakers in general tend to come from suspiciously similar political camps. “There is a very small but vocal group of students and faculty, much less than 10 percent of the student body, who shape and dominate the political debate at Brown,†says a faculty member. “This group ‘knows best’ and they can be intolerant of those who do not realize it.†They also work themselves into a fit of pique with some regularity. “One can expect one major campus protest every year,†says one unsympathetic student. But the sense is that President Simmons recognizes that Brown has a problem with intolerance, and is tackling the issue. In her opening convocation speech in fall 2002, Simmons said, “If you’ve come to this place for comfort, I urge you to rise, walk through yonder gate, and don’t look back. . . . Welcome to this quarrelsome enterprise that we call a university. Enjoy.â€

The issue du jour varies—sweatshops one day, the right to unionize university employees the next—but most protests at Brown are staged against perceived racism or other insensitivities. Students stole copies of the Brown Daily Herald after it ran the David Horowitz advertisement against slavery reparations in 2001, and they continued to protest for a week. (As one protester would have it, people were having trouble performing such basic functions as walking after reading the ad.) Then again, the paper did run the ad, unlike newspapers at many other schools, and the editor defended that choice vigorously, despite the protests. Conservatives at Brown must be prepared to defend their positions against those who vehemently disagree with them, but plenty of students refuse to be cowed by political agitation. Many steer clear of the protest culture altogether. “This is not Berkeley, and students who have come to Brown with the expectation that their college life will consist of continual protests have been disappointed,†a student says.

Faculty report that hiring and tenure decisions are based on “merit plusâ€â€” that is, the persons skill and accomplishments, surely, but with an eye also to diversity, balancing women and men faculty, and so forth. “Some of the postdoctoral appointments have raised a few eyebrows; it may be that merit is being treated as simply one factor among others,†says one. Self-appointed watchdog organizations on campus try to ensure that the expansion of the faculty includes the appropriate proportion of all protected minority groups. As another professor says, “Being ideologically proper is extremely important. In social sciences and humanities, open, even conspicuous, allegiance to leftist causes is de rigueur.†The problem is most pronounced among younger faculty and grad students, among whom that peculiar academic brew of postmodernism, critical theory, and Marxism continues to be regarded as a viable conceptual framework. Older professors tend to be more traditional liberal types who are not as openly ideological. A 2002 American Enterprise magazine article showed that in sheer numbers, Brown’s faculty is overwhelmingly liberal. For example, all seventeen of the history department’s faculty members were registered in a party of the left. In the university overall, fifty-four were registered in left-leaning parties, while only three were right-leaning.

Another Brown feature that may surprise prospective students: actual communists! The Young Communist League maintains a Web page, but not really being in a position in which they can, like Stalin, start breaking a few bourgeois eggs in order to make the utopian omelet, they are instead active in more prosaic causes such as increasing student financial aid (we’re not sure what’s communist about that, actually) and allowing university workers and graduate students to unionize. Indeed, grad students at Brown (some of them, at least) agitate rather loudly for unionization, but President Simmons’s budget, which includes full health insurance for grad students, may dampen their enthusiasm. However, this is an ongoing source of controversy that could lead to more protests over the next few years. And one likes to think that the Young Communist League applauded Brown’s recently implemented policy of “need-blind†admissions—it had been the only Ivy League institution without such a policy, meaning that some students were accepted partly on their ability to afford the school’s heavy tuition costs. But while this will make enrollment a possibility for a greater variety of students, the university raised tuition to support the new policy, a move that was unpopular in many quarters.

One of Brown’s greatest concerns is that women and minority students be comfortable. All students living in the dorms are aided by residential advisors, but women also get “women’s peer counselors,†and minority students have special minority advisors. If you happen to be a woman and a minority, you may have more advising than you know what to do with. The Sarah Doyle Women’s Center advocates the politics of liberal women. Recent “celebrations†of Roe v. Wade barely acknowledged the existence of dissent within female ranks. But the Brown for Life organization is active, as are a few other beleaguered right-of-center groups.

At least Brown students have attained political awareness, something that many students at other schools report to be missing. Students discuss politics in the cafeteria, the Brown Daily Herald is a decent paper for news coverage, and on the opinion side there is usually at least a token conservative columnist.

Student Life: Sex, drugs, and art and stuff
Besides being known for left-wing politics, Brown is also reputed to be more of a party school than the other Ivies. Marijuana is easy to get hold of, as are some of the “higher class drugs†popular with some wealthy students. Brown students also enjoy the standard college drinking scene, found mainly at private parties rather than fraternities; the Greek scene is almost entirely peripheral, with less than 5 percent of the student body participating. Brown students view fraternities and sororities as representatives of old-school conformity—and they prefer a newer, hipper conformity. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Club sponsors some of the best-attended parties and dances. According to a survey of Ivy League schools, Brown also has a higher percentage of sexually active students than its counterparts.

The university guarantees housing for all four years and requires that students live on campus for at least three years. Around 85 percent of the student body lives on campus. Students who wish to live off campus can petition the residential life office and pay a $450 “non-resident fee.†The campus is divided into five main areas. The largest is East Campus, but Pembroke Quad—once the home of Pembroke College, a women’s college that merged with Brown in 1971—houses the most students. Residence halls are located no more than a six- or seven-minute walk from class. The university does offer at least one hall for just women each year. There are several coed bathrooms on campus, but a housing official says this is a mere “practicality,†since in some coed suites, it makes sense to share a bathroom rather than use the one on the other end of the hall. Brown also recently set aside one dormitory for coed rooms, where students can elect to live with a member of the opposite sex, although the university never randomly assigns men to room with women, or vice versa. The Greek organizations are also single sex and occupy dormitory space. The university offers virtually every type of living option, including suites and apartments, theme houses, and traditional dormitories.

Sports are not as important at Brown as they are at the other Ivies, especially Princeton and Penn. Students usually ignore sporting events except when a team is especially good. One student refers to his classmates as “fair-weather fans.†Brown does field thirty-five varsity teams, but the university has never placed much of a priority on sports and thus, athletically, Brown is often the Ivy League doormat. The university also has around twenty club sports and an intramural program featuring flag football, ultimate Frisbee, tennis, ice hockey, and other pursuits.

The arts, rather than sports, play a large part in student life at Brown. The school is a short drive from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD, pronounced “Ris-Deeâ€), where students can register for art classes and receive course credit. A capella groups emerge at night like earthworms after a storm, and the campus dance groups perform frequently. And there are many artistic and cultural groups among the more than two hundred student organizations.

The attractions of Providence, Rhode Island, population 160,000, are within walking distance of campus. Many students enjoy the Trinity Repertory Company and a couple of performing arts centers as well as the excellent art museum at RISD. The town also has plenty of interesting food joints, including a homey café that will bake you a cookie the size of a dinner plate and a plethora of ethnic restaurants. The area surrounding the campus caters to students and their eccentricities. One student describes how an Egyptian restaurant displayed a flyer for a Young Socialists meeting. Judging by the restaurant’s bustling business, the immigrant owner seemed to think his capitalist enterprise had more to gain than to lose by posting the flyer.

Brown’s campus is not particularly safe. Just on campus alone (that is, not counting crime in the surrounding neighborhoods) there were sixty-one auto thefts from 1999 to 2001. There were also thirteen robberies and 153 burglaries. These numbers are high and reflect the character of the surrounding city of Providence. In other words, students should take caution. Brown’s Department of Public Safety is an accredited law enforcement agency of eighty-five employees that sponsors escort and safety van services as well as crime prevention workshops.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Big Brother,