February 23, 2008
Dear Brown Parents,
Each year at its February meeting, the Brown University Corporation considers recommendations for the following academic year’s budget. In submitting a budget for the Corporation’s consideration, various campus bodies, including the University Resources Committee and the President’s Cabinet, consider a variety of opportunities to improve the education we offer our students. I am writing to give you a report on enhancements approved at today’s meeting.
I am very pleased to inform you that the Corporation approved our recommendation to increase funding for undergraduate financial aid. Effective in the 2008-2009 academic year, we will eliminate all loans for families earning less than $100,000 annually and there will not be an expected parental contribution for most families earning under $60,000. In addition, loan expectations for all financial aid packages will be reduced as indicated in the chart below.
2008-09 Loan Amount by Class Year and Income Group
The total cost of attendance (tuition, fees, room and board) for the 2008-2009 academic year will be set at $47,740, 3.9 percent over the current year tuition and fees. In spite of the significantly higher increase in costs virtually across the board (energy, construction, salaries, health benefits etc.), we have sought to alleviate further the financial burden for our students and families through one of our lowest increases in recent years.
Even as we improve financial aid and lower tuition increases, we remain committed to improvements in our offerings. The Corporation also approved increases in the budget to accommodate the following enhancements:
- significant expansion of advising resources as identified in the Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education;
- increased funding for building staffing and improvements;
- additional safety and security measures;
- upgrades to a variety of facilities; and
- support for a range of curricular and research programs, including the international education initiative.
This program of improvements could not be undertaken without reallocations, aggressive fundraising, deferrals of some initiatives, moderation of faculty and staff salaries, and other measures, including an increase in our endowment draw. The widespread consensus throughout the campus that we must maintain competitive financial aid and excellent education programs enables us to achieve a sound balance among many competing demands. We are also aided in this effort by the extraordinary generosity and commitment of our friends, alumni and donors who support our efforts to remain at the forefront of higher education not only in the United States, but throughout the world.
I would like to report on a number of other developments related to the undergraduate program:
Task Force on Undergraduate Education: Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron has announced her intention to take immediate action on the recommendations of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education. The recommendations include a review of Brown’s concentrations, improved advising, and support of collaborative teaching. She also advocated the funding of a new science resource center to enhance instruction across the science, technology, engineering and math disciplines.
The Report of the Task Force is now available for your review. I encourage you to read the report and to direct any questions you may have to the Task Force web site at http://brown.edu/college/tue/parent_downloads/draftReport.pdf
Committee on the Residential Experience: A group of faculty, staff and students has undertaken a review of student life outside of the classroom. This review included an assessment of facilities that support the student residential experience, as well as programming designed to encourage strong links between curricular, extracurricular and co-curricular activities. The Committee is continuing to gather input from the Brown community this spring and will issue a final report and recommendations in May.
Facilities: The University has invested more than $350 million over the past five years in improvements to research and lab space, academic and classroom facilities, and in libraries, athletics and residential facilities. Recent projects include completion of the temporary swimming pool, with students reporting a high level of satisfaction with the results. We have begun the process of demolishing the Smith Swim Center in preparation for a new aquatic facility on the same site in the coming years. The near term facilities plan also includes:
- upgrading classroom space beginning this summer;
- making significant renovations to residence halls;
- reclaiming common spaces in many of the residences;
- constructing the Nelson Fitness Center;
- renovating Faunce House for the new Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center following the selection of the architectural firm of Schwartz Silver to design the Center;
- reopening J. Walter Wilson this summer, having transformed it from biological laboratories to accommodate a variety of student services and 11 new classrooms;
- reopening of the renovated and expanded Peter Green House, home of the History Department, on its new site at the corner of Brown and Angell Streets;
- planning for the Creative Arts Building, now in the design phase, to be sited on the new Pembroke-Brown walk now under construction;
- investing in conservation projects to reduce carbon emissions.
For a complete update on facilities projects, please go to http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/Building_Brown/projects/
Security: Campus safety and security remains a priority, and we have continued to make immediate improvements in this area while planning for a number of additional enhancements in security staffing and infrastructure in the coming year. During the past year, we have increased police and security staffing on campus, moving from six to ten outside security officers on regular patrols and a minimum of five campus police officers on patrol during weekends. We have improved SafeRIDE services and hours of operation and provided additional safety escort and shuttle services. The Department of Public Safety is also making personal alarms available to students. We continue to conduct joint training with the Providence Police Department to prepare for emergency situations. In the year ahead we will invest in technology upgrades, including the installation of new exterior cameras on certain major pathways, streets and intersections surrounding campus, new radios for officers and laptop computers for police cruisers.
We have developed emergency action plans and acquired an emergency notification system using electronic mass communication systems to allow expedited contact with students, faculty and staff via cell phone, e-mail, text messages and land lines. Finally, three outdoor emergency warning sirens have been installed on campus to alert community members to seek shelter and obtain additional information via e-mail, the web or voice mail. For more information about public safety programs please see http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Public_Safety/
International Programs: In January, a Brown parent, Idan Ofer, announced a scholarship program to assist African students who come to study at Brown. He joins other parent and alumni donors who have recently provided support for international students. (For a list of recent scholarship donors please see the general press release at http://www.brown.edu/news/2007-08/07-104.html) Our commitment to be a global institution requires that students of diverse economic and geographic backgrounds join our community of scholars on College Hill. It also requires that our students have access to different learning communities around the world.
Our overall international initiative goes forward under new leadership; Professor David Kennedy joined us on January 1, 2008 as vice president for international affairs. David was most recently the Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A well-known scholar in the field of global governance, he will lead our efforts to become a more meaningfully and focused global institution by overseeing the development of our strategic framework for this area.
I recently had the opportunity to meet with a group of presidents of many of the leading universities from all over the world through the Global University Leaders Forum at the World Economic Forum. At that meeting, we discussed the obligations of universities in a changed and increasingly challenging global environment. These leaders agreed that the education community around the world is linked today in new and ever more powerful ways. In the robustness of these links is the key to the health and prosperity of many populations and the means to reduce the vast educational inequities that exist within and among societies.
Brown must be a resource not only to our communities at home but also to those abroad. In the coming year, we will provide more information about the partnerships we have formed with educational institutions in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and in the United States to assist in this effort. These partnerships not only benefit our faculty, students, and curricula, but they also enable us to teach our students what membership in an international community requires of all of us: open-mindedness, initiative, a willingness to collaborate with others, the capacity to learn from divergent approaches, and the understanding that only international efforts can address the most complex, world-wide dilemmas of this and future times.
Thank you for participating in this important work and for encouraging the best efforts of our remarkable students.
Sincerely,
Ruth J. Simmons
President