The welcome center’s main entrance is on the Quiet Green, which is home to Brown’s iconic Van Wickle Gates, historic Carrie Tower and Martin Puryear’s “Slavery Memorial.” The center, which was designed in harmony with the historic, Greek Revival-style 1834 Manning Hall, features interior woodwork that nods to the building’s fluted Doric columns, brick elements that evoke some campus residence halls and buildings, and wood accents inspired by Martinos Auditorium in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

“One of the stunning features of this space is that visitors are able to experience the eclectic architectural styles that they’ll see when they’re out on campus,” Powell said. 

Brown junior Sanai Rashid is among the 70 student admission ambassadors who will bring the new space to life as they welcome and engage with visitors. When the day’s first tour group arrived on Monday morning, Rashid helped make history by welcoming the first visitors to the new space.

“The first thing I remember when I stepped in the space is that it felt so bright, inviting and welcoming — I was amazed,” said Rashid, who is from New York and is concentrating in English and economics. “There are just so many beautiful images and text and so many different creative elements and aspects really embedded into the space to give visitors, students and families a really nice welcome to Brown.”

One such element is a larger-than-life 2D color map of the Brown campus in which campus buildings and green spaces spring to life, serving as the focal point of an expanse of wall flanked by the center’s windows.

“I’m so grateful that we have this kind of space now to introduce stories and to give visitors a sense of Brown before the tour even starts,” Rashid said.

A fitting tribute to Galen V. Henderson

To the colleagues, friends, loved ones and mentees of the late Dr. Galen V. Henderson, there is no better place to bear his name than a space dedicated to welcoming people to Brown.

Henderson was a 1993 Warren Alpert Medical School graduate who came to Brown via the University’s longstanding partnership with Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Mississippi.

“His spirit, his brilliance, his compassion, his calling — they’re all here,” said his widow, Dr. Vanessa Britto, who is Brown’s associate vice president for campus life and executive director of student health and wellness. “When I look around at this really beautiful building… I can’t help but consider all that it represents, and I can’t help but be humbled.”

Britto, who consulted with the project team as the space took shape, offered remarks during a private ceremony a few weeks ahead of the public opening of the center, sharing reflections on her husband, who died in 2023. 

“One of his missions in life [was] to create and support foundational moments for others, opportunities for others to learn from and to build on,” Britto said. “And if you knew Galen, you knew that he embodied a welcoming spirit — he had a way of making everyone feel like they belonged, whether it was a patient sitting in an exam room, a student searching for direction, a colleague finding their footing in the neurointensive care unit, or introducing someone to a new jazz artist.”

Vice Chancellor Pamela R. Reeves, a friend who served with Henderson on the Corporation of Brown University, recalled his signature bowties and the way he welcomed and aided her transition when she became a trustee, describing him as “an arms-wide-open-with-welcome” kind of person.

“Galen was so very smart — and combine that with his being so thoughtful and analytical, it made him an excellent, excellent Corporation member,” Reeves said. “And he did it all with that fierce dedication, that twinkly smile and his signature warmth.”

In Henderson’s decorated medical career, he became the country’s first Black neurointensivist and first Black fellow to be inducted into the Neurocritical Care Society. He served as director of neurocritical care in the Department of Neurology and chief diversity and inclusion officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Always dedicated to Brown, he was the first medical school graduate to become president of the Brown Alumni Association and to be appointed to Brown’s Corporation.

“He supported Brown in myriad ways,” Reeves said. “And he did all of that the way he did his service in other areas — the way he served his patients, and his students, and the hospital and everybody around him — with a full-on commitment to the way things might be now, but more important, how they could be and maybe how they should be.” 

A native of a small town in Mississippi with fewer than 1,000 residents, Henderson believed in the power of education, and in Brown’s commitment to access for all students, Britto said.

“He knew the transformative power of education, because he lived it,” Britto said. “From his days at his beloved Tougaloo, where the seeds of excellence were sown, to his time at the Warren Alpert Medical School here at Brown, where those seeds took root and flourished, he carried with him a fierce belief in what was possible for students like him from the Mississippi Delta, for first-generation scholars, for anyone willing to work, to dream and also to serve.”

Now the building that bears his name on its doors and a plaque near the welcome desk will usher in future generations of Brunonians.

“The Galen V. Henderson Admission Welcome Center will be… the first place many encounter Brown University, and how fitting that the first thing they experience will be a spirit of welcome, a space that invites the curious, the courageous, the seekers [and] the scholars to step forward and find their place here,” Britto said. “That’s who Galen was: a man who opened doors, a man who built bridges, and a man who said to the world, ‘Come in, there’s room for you here.’”

A new era for Brown’s visitor experience

Funded entirely by the generosity of donors, the renovation project included modernizations and accessibility upgrades to Manning Hall and the surrounding area. Previously, the first-floor space was home to a gallery for Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, which is in the process of moving to a newly renovated space at 1 Davol Square in Providence.

Junior Nakhil Ahn, who led one of the first tours from the new center, appreciates the calm and quiet of the space and the convenience of centralizing the visitor experience in one building.

“It’s nice to see people walk in and they’re not just standing around — the space gives them things to do, like look at these different maps and use some interactive tools, like the screen you can tap through and look at the different concentrations,” said Ahn, who is from Needham, Massachusetts, and is concentrating in biology and international and public affairs. “And whenever they’re ready, they just head upstairs and go to the info session.”

The building’s second floor continues to house Brown’s Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, and now the Manning Chapel space is used for admission information sessions before each tour, dramatically expanding what was possible when tours set off from the campus center and information sessions were hosted in other spaces across campus when availability allowed.

“I think it’s really transformative,” said tour coordinator Mia-Nathalie Pridgen, a senior from Brooklyn, New York, who is concentrating in biochemistry and molecular biology. “Not only are we able to have a center dedicated for the visitor experience, but we’re able to show Brown University in such a wide way through video and interactive elements.”

Among the project partners, Utile Architecture and Planning and Planning led the project team, which included Stimson Landscape Architects and Shawmut Design and Construction. Roll Barresi and Associates helped develop the suite of graphic design displays, and OPUS Design developed the wall map that helps orient visitors to campus.

In addition to photos of moments like Brown Bears’ athletic triumphs and joyful graduates at Commencement, the center features a screen that enables visitors to explore the 97 undergraduate concentrations at Brown; digital displays on the walls that cycle through lively photos with biographical snapshots of the tour guides; and a “then and now” display that juxtaposes archival and modern-day photos, like students studying in the John Hay Library and the annual Campus Dance.

The new welcome center is managed by admission staff with student ambassadors and an admission officer available to support visitors during business hours, which are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. In a concurrent move, the Office of College Admission relocated its full team from offices in the Jewelry District to a renovated space in Brown’s Sciences Library.

Shelving that wraps around the new welcome desk boasts a reimagined suite of admission materials, brochures and colorful illustrated maps — another element to herald a new era for the visitor experience at Brown.

“While they’re here, visitors will be able to learn more about Providence, learn more about Brown and learn more about the admission process,” Powell said. “We are so grateful to have this incredible space.”