Strandberg began teaching dance in a converted dormitory lounge at Brown’s Pembroke College in 1969. For more than a decade, she was the only dance instructor at the University; eventually, under her leadership, dance grew to become its own program within the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. Current students and several generations of alumni have praised Strandberg for her inclusive approach to dance, which is often viewed purely as a competitive pursuit. Together with a fellow dancer and Brown alumna, Strandberg co-founded Artists and Scientists as Partners, an initiative that brings the art of dance to people with neurological disorders and catalyzes new scientific research on the benefits of movement therapy.

The longtime faculty member said it was special to receive the Rosenberger Medal alongside Mor, a close colleague.

“My current work is centered on arts, healing and community engagement, so it is particularly meaningful for me to receive this award with Vincent Mor, one of the founders of the Department of Public Health’s graduate program,” she said.

Mor is just one among a long list of faculty from across the University with whom Strandberg has worked over the years. She said she was honored that her fellow faculty members had chosen to recognize those cross-disciplinary partnerships.

“I began teaching dance... the same year that the Open Curriculum was adopted,” she said. “In many ways, it was a new birth for the University and a new birth for me. Because of the Open Curriculum — which freed both students and faculty to chart new waters and forge new partnerships — interdisciplinarity has become a defining element of a Brown education.”

Full text of the citations

Vincent Mor
Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice

For your essential role in adding a new dimension to Brown University, one that has and will continue to improve the public welfare, the Brown University Faculty awards you the highest honor it can bestow: the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal of Honor.

Having arrived at Brown in 1981, you are known for the stunning impact of your service, leadership, and research at this university — not only on its graduate and undergraduate public health training and research programs, but also on Brown’s reputation nationally and internationally. You have been described as a tireless advocate for vulnerable elders, as prolific, effective, and joyous in the pursuit of better care for older Americans.

Your contributions to Brown — development of undergraduate and graduate educational programs, undergraduate teaching, graduate student mentoring, recruiting and supporting postdocs and junior faculty, launching new academic departments, envisioning and helping to launch a School of Public Health — are accomplishment enough. However, the professional success has always been matched, or perhaps even eclipsed, by the lasting impact recounted through so many personal anecdotes — about an act of kindness, about generosity with your time as a colleague and mentor, about your infectious enthusiasm and commitment to instilling others with the confidence to succeed.

In a year that has nurtured a deeper understanding of public health and appreciation for its practitioners, it is especially appropriate to present you with this award. With admiration and gratitude, the Brown University Faculty presents you with the Rosenberger Medal. It is our acknowledgement of your dedication to scholarship, your devotion to individuals, and to the public good.

Julie Adams Strandberg
Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies

With gratitude for your presence at Brown for over five decades, the Brown University Faculty awards you the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal of Honor.

It is only under exceptional circumstances that the Rosenberger Medal has been awarded to persons still actively engaged in the affairs of Brown University. It is your work as teacher, artist, scholar, and your ongoing engagement with the community, that rises to the level of exceptional. For over fifty years you have epitomized the mission of Brown University and remained an example of individuality, exploration, and integration of knowledge across disciplines. You have provided students with meaningful, formative, and influential experiences, and they have carried those lessons into all walks of life.

In 1969, the same year as the Open Curriculum was established, you founded the Brown Dance Program in the women’s Physical Education Department of Pembroke College​. Now, over five decades later, Brown boasts a sizable dance faculty, an expanded dance curriculum, and a dance track within the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies (TAPS). All of this came from the seed that you planted a half-century ago, and have cultivated and grown ever since.

Your devotion to rigor and excellence, your communication, empathy, and your pivotal role in elevating the arts as a whole at Brown, have earned the highest honor that the Faculty can bestow.

About the Rosenberger Medal

The Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal of Honor is awarded through the Susan Colver Rosenberger Fund, established by Jesse L. Rosenberger in 1919 as a memorial to his wife, the daughter of Charles K. Colver, Class of 1842. His gift provided that from time to time a medal should be awarded for “specially notable or beneficial achievement.”

Previous recipients include, among others, Thomas Tisch, chancellor emeritus of the Brown Corporation; Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of engineering; Brown physicist and Nobel Laureate Leon Cooper; Sheila Blumstein, professor emerita of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences and former interim president of Brown; Theodore Francis Green, former governor and senator from Rhode Island; Brown presidents Ruth J. Simmons, Vartan Gregorian, Howard R. Swearer and Henry M. Wriston; Charles Evans Hughes, former chief justice of the United States; Artemis A.W. Joukowsky, chancellor emeritus, and Martha Sharp Joukowsky, professor emerita; Alexander Meiklejohn, educator and Amherst College president; Sen. Claiborne Pell, the longest-serving U.S. senator in Rhode Island history; Stephen Robert, the 19th chancellor of Brown University; John D. Rockefeller Jr.; Thomas J. Watson Jr., former vice chancellor; and Mary Emma Woolley, educator and Mt. Holyoke president.