The Brown Education: Then and Now
“The various courses should be so arranged that, in so far as practicable, every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.”
“You take classes how you want to, when you want to, and why you want to. Education at Brown is not something to 'get out of the way.' It's something that should be enjoyed.”
The purpose of the Brown Curriculum is to put your education in your hands.
It is designed to give you the freedom to explore, the freedom to focus, the freedom to take risks, the freedom to fail, and the freedom to succeed. It encourages and develops your inherent strengths and gives you the opportunity to discover new interests and passions.
As the architect of your own course of study, you will leave Brown with the intellectual tools that will allow you to adapt and succeed. Your education at Brown will be the foundation from which you engage the world.
How It Began
Brown adopted the New Curriculum (now known as the Brown Curriculum) in 1969, marking a major change in the school’s institutional history. The curriculum was the result of a paper written by Ira Magaziner and Elliot Maxwell,"Draft of a Working Paper for Education at Brown University." The paper came out of a year-long Group Independent Studies Project (GISP) involving 80 students and 15 professors.
The curriculum was based on three principles. The first was that students were to take an active role in their education by assuming responsibility for the direction of their education. Second, an undergraduate education was seen as a process of individual and intellectual development, rather than simply a way to transmit a set body of information. Finally, the curriculum should encourage individuality, experimentation, and the integration and synthesis of different disciplines.
In some ways, this approach was nothing new for the Brown community. In 1850, President Francis Wayland outlined his understanding of the proper nature and structure of the undergraduate curriculum: an impatience with conventional approaches to undergraduate study; a focus on cultivating ways of thinking as well as acquiring set bodies of knowledge; and a belief that students should take responsibility for the shape and direction of their own educations. He famously wrote, “the various courses should be so arranged that, in so far as practicable, every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.”
The reformers of 1969 and the President of 1850 shared what is still the heart of a Brown education in the 21st century: the belief that choice, responsibility, and innovation are the keys to academic success.