It was a great pleasure to greet new faculty in late August and to see so many students and colleagues at Convocation earlier this month. With the new year fully underway, I am excited for the work we will do together as a community to advance Brown’s academic aspirations. I write today to highlight some areas of focus for the weeks and months ahead as we sustain the positive trajectory of strengthening Brown as an institution dedicated to scholarship and discovery. 

In her Convocation remarks, President Christina Paxson called attention to the Statement of University Values and Voice approved in May and its articulation of Brown’s core institutional values: the pursuit of knowledge and understanding; academic freedom and freedom of expression; commitment to openness and diversity of ideas, perspectives, and experiences; and responsibility for a thriving academic community. I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on the last of these values, in particular, by outlining efforts to ensure continuing excellence in the twin pillars of education and research. In choosing which of the many exciting initiatives and activities underway across the University to highlight in this letter, I have focused primarily on large-scale efforts that advance these aspects of the University’s academic mission.

Building a Stronger University

The Opportunities of a New School. On July 1 we officially established the Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs. Its launch marks the beginning of new approaches to strengthening a university whose academic enterprise has become more robust over the past two decades – with the previous launch of schools of engineering, public health and professional studies, as well as a growing number of research centers and institutes.

The Watson School aims to be a hub for policy-related activities across the University, harnessing our distinctive interdisciplinary approach toward research, teaching, and public engagement to serve the community, the nation, and the world. To achieve these goals, the School will expand its academic community to embrace a wider range of disciplines, perspectives, and expertise, including by forging stronger collaboration with academic departments from the sciences to the humanities. The Watson School will also elevate its Master’s in Public Affairs program by more closely connecting students and curriculum to faculty expertise within the School and across the University and by offering distinctive policy-focused learning experiences. A faculty-led strategic planning committee, chaired by inaugural Dean John Friedman, will work closely with the larger Brown community to develop a roadmap for advancing these two interconnected ambitions.

Funding Support for Research Institutes. The summer also brought very welcome news about two research institutes at Brown. First, the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) was awarded a $16.5 million award that will enable it to continue convening leading mathematicians and scientists from academia and industry to interact with each other and with early-career researchers and students through seminars, programming, and outreach. ICERM initially was established in 2010 with funding from the National Science Foundation and has been led since 2016 by Professor Brendan Hassett. 

Brown also was awarded a new $20 million grant from the NSF to lead a national artificial intelligence institute. Professor Elie Pavlick will direct the AI Research Institute on Interaction for AI Assistants (ARIA), leading a team of researchers that draws on expertise—from within Brown and from external partners—who are working at the interface of data, artificial intelligence, and humans. ARIA’s goal is to develop AI assistants that interact with people to support their needs by exploring natural language processing technology and its use in mental health applications. ICERM and ARIA illustrate the impact of the kind of creative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary work that is emblematic of Brown’s institutes, which are central to the University’s research mission.

Supporting Groundbreaking Research

Pioneering Efforts in Artificial Intelligence. Exploring the potential of AI remains a key priority, and I continue to be impressed by the activities that are taking place across the full spectrum of disciplines. This includes the Cogut Institute for the Humanities’ first collaborative lab program, “Models-Scale-Context: AI and the Humanities.” Cogut has expanded its vision to include a focus on AI that complements and builds on work in other programs, including the Library, the Center for Digital Scholarship, and the Data Science Institute. It aims to bring a distinctively humanistic perspective to the study of AI, examining its ethical, legal, psychological, and social aspects, in the belief that questions about the human versus the technological necessarily touch on themes that are central to the humanities: values, judgment, deep thinking, empathy, and intuition. These are vitally important questions, and Brown is well positioned to address them.

Professor Michael Littman, the inaugural Associate Provost for Artificial Intelligence, has begun coordinating university-wide AI efforts across research, teaching, administrative operations, policy, and communications. He is working in close partnership with Vice President for Information Technology Christopher Keith to evaluate tools to support Brown students, faculty, and staff, and help Brown assume a leading position among peers in the use of the most advanced technologies available. He also has convened a committee to examine the use of generative AI in teaching and learning, which plans to deliver a report to me by the end of the fall semester on the impacts of this technology, along with policy recommendations. 

Safeguards for Research Resilience. The events of the past year, especially the interruption of federal funding, served to remind us of the centrality of research to the University’s mission. I am pleased to update that our NIH funding has been fully resolved, in terms of the unpaid past invoices dating back to April. The vast majority of the non-competing renewals (NCR) have been processed, and a large fraction of the terminated awards have been restored. While we anticipate certain awards will not be fully restored (including cancelled programs, foreign sub awards, and executive actions across the sector), we will direct PIs with relevant projects to our new research resilience fund.

Compared to our peers, Brown is exceedingly reliant on federal grants, and among my goals is diversifying the sources of support for our research enterprise by expanding corporate engagement through the appointment of an Associate Vice President for Research for Corporate Engagement who can strengthen partnerships between Brown researchers and industry. This leadership role will be held by a senior faculty member who can advance collaboration within Brown and connect with partners beyond Brown.

In addition, I am working closely with the Division of Advancement on an initiative to expand philanthropy that supports innovative research, particularly in vitally important areas that are no longer priorities for the federal government, such as climate science and sustainability, gender studies, and race and ethnicity. Finally, I have charged Vice President for Research Greg Hirth to establish a cross-unit team to address logistical problems that faculty face. The “Research Red Tape Reduction Initiative” (3RI), about which Greg will communicate more details soon, is dedicated to identifying and eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic barriers that hinder the efficient conduct of research at Brown.

Adapting Doctoral Studies for the Current Era

Last year, I worked closely with the Academic Priorities Committee to assess how best to balance our commitment to excellence in doctoral education with the internal and external financial challenges facing the University. That process resulted in adjustments to 2025 and 2026 admissions targets in many programs; some programs will pause admissions for next year. Looking ahead, we will need to reflect on sustainable approaches to doctoral education in the context of the continuing uncertainties regarding federal funding, questions about the value of higher education, and the changing landscape of the academic job market. 

I therefore plan to collaborate with the Interim Dean of the Graduate School, Professor Janet Blume, to convene a small group of colleagues, including representatives from appropriate faculty governance committees, to reflect on this complex set of questions and recommend a process for addressing them. My ultimate goal is to ensure that doctoral education, which is integral to our academic mission and institutional identity, can adapt to changing circumstances and will continue to thrive at Brown. This work will take place during the fall semester and help to inform the priorities of the next Dean of the Graduate School.

Advancing Innovative Education in the Arts and Sciences

At the undergraduate level, Brown expects students to be independent learners, and the Open Curriculum permits them wide latitude to pursue their interests and develop their talents. The ethos of exploration, risk-taking, and creativity permeates not only the College but graduate education and our research enterprise. As the University grows and evolves, how can we continue to nurture this ecosystem? How do we develop curricular opportunities that resonate with the spirit of the Open Curriculum and reaffirm its value for today’s undergraduates? How can we support our faculty in being innovative scholars and inclusive teachers? Over the course of the coming year, Dean of the Faculty Leah VanWey and Dean of the College Ethan Pollock will convene a series of open discussions on the role of the liberal arts and sciences in the twenty-first century, with a focus on strengthening the synergies between research and education.

These conversations will take place alongside a series of events sponsored by Brown 2026, which explores not only the history and legacies of the American Revolution, but also the role of research universities in democratic societies. A steering committee chaired by Professor Kevin McLaughlin, Director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study, and Professor Karin Wulf, Director of the John Carter Brown Library, is planning an ongoing set of activities this year—lectures, conferences, courses, reading groups—designed to engage the entire community in cross-disciplinary discussions about the relationship between the liberal arts and sciences and democracy.

In addition to the strategic planning work outlined above, the Watson School is developing new opportunities for public discourse that will extend across campus and beyond with events and programming that include an interdisciplinary research seminar series, policy-focused Dean’s Fireside Chats, and an exciting signature launch event next month. Please keep watch for further details about these and other events, which together will comprise an extraordinary program of events, lectures, and convenings. 

Finally, I want to note efforts to shore up the leadership team that will contribute in important ways to the many efforts outlined in this letter. I am delighted to share that Nicholas Monk will join us on October 1 as Executive Director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. He is committed to supporting and expanding programs and services offered through the Sheridan Center and will (among other things) collaborate with Associate Provost Michael Littman on the AI initiative. Also, in addition to the search for the Associate Vice President for Research for Corporate Engagement noted earlier in this letter, we have begun the search for the next Dean of the Graduate School. I trust that you saw last week’s announcement and call for nominations and hope to receive recommendations of outstanding candidates for this critically important role.

In Conclusion 

Even as I recognize that the coming year may present unanticipated challenges, particularly as the national policy landscape for leading research institutions continues to shift, I remain confident in the capacity of all faculty and staff to fulfill Brown’s commitment to its values. I continue to be inspired by our ability to work together to realize the vision of a thriving academic community that was endorsed by the faculty last May as part of the formal statement of Brown’s values:

“The University is a community of students, faculty, and staff, and holds itself responsible for generating the conditions necessary for every individual member of its community to thrive. This responsibility rests on the fundamental presumption that all persons have something of value to contribute to the University mission.”

With all best wishes for a successful academic year,

Francis J. Doyle III, Provost