Plan for Academic Enrichment

Introduction
Areas of Strategic Focus
Resource Implications of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives
Resources Needed to Support the Academic Enrichment Initiatives

Introduction

Brown University is renowned for its distinctive student body—independent, energetic, mature, responsible, and self-directed—and for the educational culture that fosters and reinforces these qualities as essential elements of their education. This special quality of Brown achieves its fullest expression currently in the Open Curriculum for undergraduates. The Plan for Academic Enrichment is designed to augment this educational culture so that it plays out on an even broader scale; so that all our students—undergraduate, medical, and graduate—are offered the best education possible through opportunities to craft their own educational paths, with access to a wider array of venues and a broader scope of activities, with the most up-to-date means at their disposal, and guided by a nationally distinctive and well-supported faculty and staff.

The Planning Process. Over the last two years, Brown has conducted a thorough, highly consultative, wide-reaching review of its purpose, needs, overall aims and priorities—near and immediate-term decisions as well as longer-term planning. Members of the Brown community, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni, have helped to guide the planning process and shape both the general directions and the specific recommendations. Our process has been iterative: we have discussed ideas; criticized them and exposed their weaknesses; refined them; put them away; revisited them; revised them and discussed them again. We have already learned that success in this effort requires commitment, energy, and a great deal of hard work. It has also demanded a willingness to take reasonable risks and the determination to stay the chosen course during inevitable challenges and occasional setbacks.

Many essential elements of the Plan for Academic Enrichment are already well underway, with a series of initiatives having been approved by the Corporation in February 2002. The results to date are encouraging, and we have made significant progress over the past two years. We should be proud of that progress, but we recognize that we are in a competitive environment and we have a great deal to do in order to ensure our preeminence in the coming decades. That work is the Plan for Academic Enrichment.

Taking Stock of Brown. One of the key tasks in undertaking a large planning effort is to take a considered and careful look at where the University is today—to see clearly Brown's virtues and deficits in order to understand their implications for moving forward. We have tried to capture here a snapshot of Brown's strengths and weaknesses—it is not a comprehensive view of the University. We have focused in this process on the academic life of the institution and activities that directly support that endeavor.

If we were starting from a position with no programmatic and institutional deficits, our task would be somewhat different. The fact that we can identify those deficits, agree upon how to address them and, at the same time, move well beyond them to envision improvements that are credible in some areas and pace-setting in others is a tribute to the strength of Brown's Corporation, faculty, administration, staff, and students. It is also a tribute to past leaders, faculty and others who advanced the University to its existing excellent state. Our task today is to build upon that foundation with as much vigor, commitment, and knowledge as necessary to advance the University through the rapidly evolving circumstances of a new era.

Where is Brown today? Brown is a preeminent university today by almost any measure. We attract excellent undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, and the combination of a dedicated faculty and a challenging curriculum provides our students a first-rate education. Our faculty contribute in significant ways to the world of scholarship and carry out important research programs in a variety of disciplines and in emerging areas of interdisciplinary study. We have graduate programs that are well respected and, in some cases, world leaders. Our Medical School has charted a unique course since its founding 30 years ago and has achieved notable success in medical education and research and in public health. Overall, Brown is viewed as a leader in the country and the world in developing and sustaining a very special university-college model of teaching and research.

While Brown has long been known for its superb undergraduate education and its excellent small research groups in the graduate and medical schools, its overall reputation as a research university, as measured by various national rankings, has not always been as strong as we would think appropriate. Largely because of a lack of resources—most notably reflected in the too-small size of the faculty and insufficient faculty support—our programs are not recognized as leaders as consistently as many in other great research universities. Our leading peer institutions have moved forward effectively and Brown risks being left behind if it does not make significant investments in faculty expansion and in infrastructure and facilities.

Our faculty need more time and support in order to perform research and pursue scholarship to the extent they desire. A lack of resources has also made it difficult for some graduate programs consistently to attract the very best students. Even the undergraduate program, which receives an extraordinarily high level of attention from the Brown faculty compared to other major universities, suffers from the fact that faculty are stretched thin and too often have to forage for the kind of intellectual and logistical support that is routinely available at peer universities.

Moreover, the demands placed on Brown, both by external constituencies and by the very ambitious goals we set for ourselves, continue to increase year by year. Inevitably, whatever shortcomings and gaps we have today will—without the investments and choices contemplated by the Plan for Academic Enrichment—be further accentuated in the future.

Building from Strength. Brown has some distinct advantages as a university that should be enhanced as we seek to achieve even more ambitious goals for the future. Our small size compared to most other leading research universities provides a human scale that allows members of the University community to interact on a meaningful personal level and to develop relationships that enhance the teaching and research work of the University.

We are also more focused as a university on the arts and sciences, without a large number of professional schools that might pursue separate and diffuse agendas. Those professional programs that we do offer (e.g., through the Division of Biology and Medicine and the education and engineering departments) are heavily engaged with undergraduates and work closely with related departments throughout the University.

The scale and the extensive interaction that occurs here support and reinforce the sense of community that is a defining feature of Brown. With a culture of collaboration among faculty and students that is unusual in universities organized around departments and disciplines, Brown offers a flexibility of intellectual boundaries that creates opportunities to take innovative, multidisciplinary approaches to intellectual problems of all kinds and to pursue unique approaches to teaching and research.

Our location is a decided asset that we can also build on for the future. As one of a handful of leading institutions in the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island, we have a chance to forge strategic and mutually beneficial relationships with the city, the state, and important local institutions. Moreover, residing in a beautiful, vibrant, civic-minded city in a small state accentuates our sense of place and reinforces our appeal. We are also very conveniently located in terms of many potential strategic partners in other parts of New England and New York.

Being a residential community significantly shapes our approach to education and research. Higher education at its best can be a "24-7" activity. The fact that essentially all of our students live on or near the campus and most faculty and staff live in relatively close proximity means that the interactions among them are almost continuous. Every moment of the day and night is a potential teaching/learning opportunity. This sense of constant, high-level engagement contributes in dramatic ways to the education of our students and, in more subtle but equally important ways, to the research efforts of both students and faculty.

Brown has a history of innovation and forward-thinking that should encourage us to take risks and assume a leadership role in American higher education. Witness our undergraduate curriculum. With excellent leadership from the faculty and the Corporation and an experienced administrative team, we have the ability to come together as a community, build consensus in support of shared values and a common vision for Brown, and develop a plan that is both practical—i.e., achievable—and strategic. Not many universities have the combination of advantages that we have at this moment. These advantages give us a special opportunity to advance this great institution through carefully selected but ambitious choices that renew and extend its mission.

Brown's preeminence is rooted in its enduring strength as an academic leader. That it must remain fit and vigorous in this regard is clear to all. However, the University's specific advantages, by which it enhances all of higher education, are in its unique approaches to undergraduate and graduate education and scholarship:

Brown's self-definition as a university-college must be a continuing feature of all plans to improve Brown. It is that context that must guide decisions about the relative size of the different student groups, the priorities of planning, and the allocation of resources.
The empowerment of learners wherein they are partners and primary architects of their intellectual itineraries in a research-rich context differentiates Brown from every other leading university. This distinction must be maintained, protected, and enhanced.
The adaptive, flexible, permeable way in which scholars collaborate at Brown is a defining feature of its academic culture. That feature, too, must remain and be enhanced.
The unusual independence of students at Brown in the living environment and the empowerment of the students in the learning environment are mutually reinforcing, adding a dimension of personal growth and satisfaction that makes Brown one of the most popular college destinations. That culture must be supported.
The opportunities for graduate and medical students to participate more fully in the broad scholarly and learning community are exceptionally promising. We must fulfill that promise, extending the collaborative model and shared experience of Brown to these important groups.
Brown's culture is based on widespread engagement among its varied constituencies. We must build on effective, satisfying, and participatory governance for all members of the Brown community, including alumni.

We are at an important moment in Brown's long and distinguished history when all of us who care about this great University have an opportunity and a responsibility to set Brown's course for the next several decades. While Brown is today a preeminent University, we are obligated to take decisive steps now to ensure that Brown is even stronger in the future. For all these reasons—both the identified needs and the unusual combination of advantages and assets present today at Brown—we believe that this is the right moment to undertake significant improvements.

The Plan for Academic Enrichment. The Plan is organized around ten Strategic Areas:

Enhancing Undergraduate Education
Excellence in Graduate Education
Faculty Excellence in Teaching and Research
Leadership in Biology, Medicine, and Public Health
Fostering Multidisciplinary Initiatives
Enhancing Excellence Through Diversity
Building a Shared Sense of Community
Diversifying and Expanding the University's Sources of Revenues
Collaborating with the Local Community on Issues of Mutual Interest and Benefit
Enhancing the Quality of our Facilities, Infrastructure and Administrative Support

A section of the document that follows is devoted to each area and describes in detail the goals and objectives for each. It is important, however, to articulate first the result we intend to achieve as a consequence of embarking on this plan. The intent of this Plan is to lay out a direction and priorities that are clear but still allow the University to respond to an ever-changing environment and unknown external factors. With that in mind, the question we must address is: If we are successful, what will a Brown student see and experience in 15 years?

First and foremost, they will benefit from a faculty which is significantly larger in size. These faculty will be, across the board, better supported in terms of salaries and start-up packages that are truly competitive with our peers. They will be fully engaged in teaching and research, and committed to the principles of the Brown curriculum that has been—and will remain—the hallmark of our distinctive undergraduate student education. For all students this will mean a substantively better teaching-learning environment with sufficient numbers of courses, freshman seminars, more varied research opportunities, and improved advising. In short, students will find more and better opportunities to interact with nationally-ranked faculty in academic and non-academic settings.

The students who attend Brown 15 years from now will be better-supported financially as well. Brown will offer need-blind admission for all undergraduates, including international and transfer students. Support packages for graduate students will be competitive with our peers and Brown will be able to compete for the very best students regardless of their financial circumstances. As a result, the student body will be increasingly diverse and the University will occupy a position of leadership on issues of access and affordability.

The academic and intellectual environment in which students live and learn will be livelier and more diverse. There will be new graduate programs, including professional masters programs, and multidisciplinary collaborations such as the Brown-Trinity Consortium and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. The Division of Biology and Medicine, including the Medical School and Public Health, will have benefited from a strengthened Deanship and more strategic relationships with our affiliated hospitals. All of these complementary academic initiatives and undertakings will have combined to produce a richer and more stimulating curriculum with additional research opportunities and more faculty mentors and advisors to guide students in their choices and academic development.

Students and faculty will work in academic facilities and avail themselves of academic support commensurate with a University of Brown's stature and aspirations. We will have added over half a million gross square feet of teaching and research space, and renovated a quarter of a million more. There will be an enhanced physical campus in all respects, including walkways, open space, and public art that reinforce a sense of place and purpose. Additional support for libraries, technology, and the overall academic infrastructure will enable students to access and utilize the academic resources they require, in facilities that are consistently attractive, effective, and flexible. These will include classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and common study space where students can work on group projects.

Outside of the classroom and library, students will find a residential life that supports and enhances their academic experience. Ongoing renovation of undergraduate residence halls on a more aggressive cycle than in the past; appropriate and appealing housing for graduate and medical students, renovation of Sharpe Refectory, modern fitness facilities, and a campus center available to all students are among the capital priorities that will greet new students as they enter the Van Wickle Gates. They will find, as a result, appropriate places to study, eat, work out, and socialize with each other and with faculty and staff. Their residential experience will complement, support, and extend their academic experiences. Overall, the students of 15 years from now will find more and better opportunities to develop a greater sense of community and a greater engagement across subgroup boundaries.

These are ambitious but realistic aspirations. Many can be realized in less than fifteen years, but all are the important elements of a long-term plan befitting a distinctive institution like Brown. Any lesser goals would be a disservice to the future students of Brown and past generations of leaders who have built this great University.

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Areas of Strategic Focus

I. Enhancing Undergraduate Education

Specific Objective 1:
Expand opportunities for students to interact with faculty in academic and non-academic settings, including new courses in emerging areas of inquiry and richer offerings in more traditional areas.

Specific Objective 2:
Develop additional programs and increase resources available to support undergraduate participation in meaningful research opportunities, including both individual and team-oriented research.

Specific Objective 3:
Develop and implement an improved program of student advising.

Specific Objective 4:
Continue to align financial aid policies with Brown's educational mission, and seek to attract and support the most highly qualified and diverse group of students, without regard to their financial circumstances.

Specific Objective 5:
Improve the quality of students' residential and extracurricular experience, and integrate that experience more closely with academic goals. (See Strategic Goal VII.)

Proposals

Increase the size of the faculty and lower the overall student-faculty ratio.
Expand research opportunities, both through central programs and in multidisciplinary centers and with strategic partners.
Improve support for faculty advising and develop innovative new advising programs.
Improve financial aid—eliminate freshman work expectation, adopt need-blind admission, make further enhancements.
Improve campus life facilities. (See Strategic Goal VII and related proposals.)

Historically, Brown's particular strength among our peers has been the quality of undergraduate education provided here. At Brown the phrase "university-college" has real meaning and defines us as an institution that is neither solely a research university nor a liberal arts college. Indeed, our goal is to combine the best of both of those and to compete successfully on both fronts.

Because of the quality and commitment of our faculty and because of the emphasis placed on integrating undergraduates fully into every aspect of the academic and educational life at Brown, we draw superb students to Brown from very diverse backgrounds. Indeed, Brown continues to be one of the most desirable places to be as an undergraduate. Our goal in the academic enrichment program is to enhance the strengths that have made Brown such a distinguished undergraduate institution and to do better in some of the areas where a lack of resources has held us back in the past. In addition, we are convinced that by enhancing the research and scholarly dimensions of the institution and strengthening our graduate programs, the quality of the undergraduate program will be strengthened as well.

At Brown, all students have a unique opportunity to be full partners in the intellectual and academic work of the institution, which means that strengthening any part of that effort adds value to the overall effort. The Brown undergraduate curriculum exemplifies and facilitates that partnership between students and faculty, and questions asked by even beginning undergraduate students can stimulate discussion among faculty, graduate students, and other undergraduates about exciting and relevant problems facing our society today. All of this happens at Brown with much greater frequency than at almost any other institution, which is the primary reason we are able to attract such exciting students and why the particular types of faculty who find Brown exciting desire to teach undergraduates as well as graduate students. The goal of academic enrichment is to build on these strengths and to support better the work of our extraordinary faculty and students.

Additional Faculty Positions. One of the most important benefits of the academic enrichment plan for undergraduate education is the addition of a significant number of faculty positions. When the analysis leading to these recommendations began in the fall of 2001, Brown had the second highest student-faculty ratio in the Ivy League. Given the demands placed on faculty by the Brown curriculum and given our overall commitment to undergraduate teaching, we should in fact have one of the lowest student-faculty ratios. We have been able to provide a superb undergraduate education for our students despite this lack of resources primarily because of the quality and commitment of our faculty, but there are simply not enough hours in the day under current conditions for even the most dedicated faculty to meet all of the obligations and expectations of a modern university, for research and scholarship and for graduate education as well as for a wide range of undergraduate teaching and advising.

If a faculty member at Brown were to give up her or his scholarly pursuits and concentrate exclusively on undergraduate teaching, the quality of that teaching would quickly begin to erode. Indeed, the best kind of teaching at Brown takes place when undergraduates are pulled into the work of faculty and graduate students engaged in scholarship and research. Without some increase in the size of the faculty, there is a danger that the overall quality and commitment of our faculty to undergraduate teaching will in fact decline. Thus, we are recommending that Brown add approximately 100 new faculty positions in the initial stages of the academic enrichment effort. Progress on this work has already begun and the faculty in FY04 is already 14 positions greater than in FY02 as a result of allocations made through the academic enrichment effort. Moreover, an additional 51 positions have been created and searches for those positions will take place over the next three years or so.

For undergraduates, the benefits of adding to the size of the faculty will be many. First and foremost, there will be many more opportunities for interaction with faculty simply because there will be more faculty to interact with. This will also show up in an increase in the number of courses that we can offer and the number of sections that can be mounted for each course, meaning that fewer students will be left out of courses simply because of an imbalance of supply and demand. There will also be smaller classes, such as the immensely popular first-year seminar program that was launched in 2002-03 and is projected to involve approximately 60 courses by 2004-05, and more opportunities to participate in research activities with faculty and others. Throughout this effort, the goal remains to provide students at all levels with as many opportunities as possible for direct interaction with faculty and other students in stimulating intellectual environments with interesting problems on the table. We are heartened by the progress made to date.

Financial Aid Improvements. Another major contributor to the quality of undergraduate education at Brown is the quality and diversity of the student body itself. By bringing together incredibly talented and interesting young people from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives, Brown provides a very special kind of educational environment in which those students learn from each other as well as from faculty and other teachers. Both in classroom situations where the different perspectives open up new lines of inquiry and cause people to look at both old and new problems in different ways and in a wide variety of co-curricular and extracurricular environments in which students are confronted with ideas and ways of thinking that are different from their own, the diversity of our student body is a major contributor to the Brown education. In order to sustain and enhance the diversity of our student body, therefore, one of the very early steps taken as part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives was the commitment to a full need-blind admission policy for U.S. undergraduate students. In the class of 2007, the first class admitted to Brown under the need-blind program, the percentage of students on financial aid was approximately 43%, a significant increase from the 36% we saw for the class of 2004, this year's seniors.

In addition to adopting need-blind admission, we have eliminated the term-time work expectation for all first-year financial aid students, starting with the class of 2006. The goal of this change was to enable those first-year students to have the extra time to experiment academically and in other ways in their first year at Brown, as non-financial aid students typically do. Freeing up 10-12 hours during each week that the student would otherwise have to work has enabled many of those students to sample more fully from the rich curricular and extracurricular offerings at Brown, positioning themselves much more effectively to take full responsibility for their education as upperclass students.

The commitment to need-blind admission and the elimination of the work expectation for first-year students represent significant improvements in undergraduate financial aid at Brown. They do not meet all of our long-term needs and aspirations, however. As we think about the goal of attracting the very best students to Brown and enabling them to have the full range of opportunities offered by this wonderful institution, it is clear that further improvements in financial aid would be desirable. A few of our peers, for example, have been able to extend need-blind admission to international students. We think that Brown would be well served if we were able to do the same thing. In addition, we do not now provide significant amounts of financial aid for transfer students or resumed undergraduate education (RUE) students. Again, we think that our financial aid program and the diversity of our student body would be enhanced if we were able to increase the amount of financial aid for those groups and eventually have those programs operate on a fully need-blind basis. In addition, we would like to improve the financial aid program for all our students by, for example, reducing the loan expectation or other components of self help.

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II. Excellence in Graduate Education

Specific Objective 1:
Attract the best students to our graduate programs and provide them with competitive levels of support.

Specific Objective 2:
Consider additional innovative and distinctive new graduate programs, including programs associated with the new multidisciplinary initiatives.

Specific Objective 3:
Expand the Graduate School modestly to provide critical mass in very small programs and to take advantage of new centers and partnerships.

Specific Objective 4:
Initiate programs both to prepare future faculty and to prepare students for non-academic careers.

Specific Objective 5:
Improve the quality of graduate students' residential and extracurricular experience by integrating that experience more closely with academic goals. (See Strategic Goal VII.)

Proposals

Increase the size of the faculty to enable faculty to devote more time to research and work with graduate students.
Develop new doctoral programs where appropriate to take advantage of new partnerships and programs such as the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole and RISD in the digital arts.
Improve competitiveness of support packages for our graduate students—health insurance, stipend levels, additional dissertation fellowships and TAs.
Continue to develop new masters programs, including opportunities for undergraduates to take a 5th year before entering the workforce, and expand existing masters programs as appropriate.
Develop innovative programs to help prepare graduate students for their future careers, such as the new partnership with a neighboring liberal arts college that provides our students with valuable teaching experience.
Provide housing for graduate students.
Improve campus life facilities. (See Strategic Goal VII and related proposals.)

Graduate education at Brown has a long and distinguished history, dating to the late nineteenth century when the earliest advanced degrees were awarded. Graduate education is a responsibility of the best universities, to prepare faculty, scholars, and researchers to assume positions of leadership in a wide range of academic and professional fields.

Graduate students work with faculty in the production of new knowledge at the forefront of the disciplines and they ensure that undergraduates are integrated into those endeavors. They serve as mentors and teachers for undergraduates, just as advanced undergraduates do for first-year students. Accordingly, enhancing our graduate programs and our ability to attract the best students to those programs is a critically important goal of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives.

Additional Faculty Positions. As is the case with undergraduate education, the most important improvement we can make to graduate education is to increase the size of the faculty. Graduate students work directly with faculty trainers and mentors at the leading edge of research and scholarship in their fields. The small size of the faculty at Brown has inhibited our ability to provide the full range of opportunities graduate students expect to find. Faculty who are stretched too thin may not have time to give students the attention they need and deserve. As we increase the size of the faculty, those opportunities will become more readily available for both graduate and undergraduate students.

Financial Support for Graduate Students. Brown's financial aid packages for graduate students are generally not competitive. When we began the planning process in 2001-02, Brown's financial aid offers for graduate students were significantly below those of most of our peers and competitors. By FY05, we will have added approximately $4M to the budget for graduate student support, which enables the Graduate School to cover health insurance costs for graduate students receiving financial aid, to raise average stipends for University-provided fellowships by more than $3,000, and to provide some summer support for students in the humanities and social sciences. Even with these improvements, however, we remain behind most other leading universities. We have seen a significant increase in the number of applications for the Brown Graduate School over the last three years and some measurable improvement in our competitive position with regard to financial support, but there is much more that needs to be done. Accordingly, the academic enrichment proposals include significant additional increases in graduate student support in future years.

Graduate Student Housing. In addition to fellowships and other forms of support such as insurance coverage, we have also been evaluating the housing needs of graduate students. We are concerned about the escalating cost of housing on the east side of Providence. Given our other needs, however, we do not believe that providing significant new support for housing is the highest priority at this time. We plan to experiment over the next few years with some market-based housing possibilities, but this falls short of the major University-owned housing complexes and/or University subsidies for market-based housing of many of our competitors. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and explore opportunities for expanding some of these early experiments if that proves useful and financially feasible. For the longer term, greater support for graduate student housing will be necessary.

New Graduate Programs. Brown is establishing or expanding several multidisciplinary programs, including the Brown-Trinity Consortium, the new graduate program in partnership with the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, and new masters programs in Public Policy and Public Affairs. Discussions continue with RISD on possible joint programs in digital media, with the Annenberg Institute and the Education Alliance on a program in Urban Education Leadership, and with the Watson Institute and numerous departments on a new doctoral program in Development Studies. The new Humanities Center and the John Nicholas Brown Center will both offer additional opportunities for innovation in graduate education.

These centers and partnerships build on Brown's commitment to making students take responsibility for their education by building their own programs of study. Multidisciplinary centers and programs, in collaboration with Brown's existing graduate culture of cross-disciplinary study and of low boundaries between departments, position graduate students effectively for the future of research in which problems and the skills needed to solve them often fall outside, or across, disciplinary boundaries.

Finally, we expect to expand some selected professional masters programs as part of the academic enrichment effort, including some programs designed to allow talented undergraduates who wish to complete a masters and extend their skills before entering the workplace to do so at Brown. Computer science, bioengineering, public policy, and the emerging field of entrepreneurship and organizations are areas in which we already see significant student demand. We expect that such programs will pay for themselves and cover some amount of University overhead.

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III. Faculty Excellence in Teaching and Research

Specific Objective 1:
Recruit and retain the highest-caliber faculty for Brown.

Specific Objective 2:
Provide increased support for the teaching and research activities of the faculty.

Specific Objective 3:
Plan for continuing growth of the faculty on the order of 1 to 2 percent (6 to 13 positions) per year, following the addition of the 100 new faculty positions.

Proposals

Move quickly to increase the size of the faculty by 100 full-time equivalent positions (FTEs).
Plan for longer-term growth beyond the initial 100 positions.
Improve competitiveness of faculty salaries.
Increase the opportunities for faculty to take leaves for research and scholarly purposes.
Provide start-up funds, seed money for research, recruiting expenses, etc.
Provide facilities and other infrastructure support. (See Strategic Goal X and related proposals.)

Our ability to realize the goals we have set for Brown in the academic enrichment program is directly dependent on our ability to attract and retain the very best faculty and to provide the support those faculty need to teach and carry on research programs that are truly distinguished. These are the faculty who teach and mentor our students and who represent Brown in the larger world of scholarship and service. If we fail to attract and retain superb faculty to carry out this work or if we have inadequate facilities or insufficient support, academic enrichment will have limited impact on our students or anyone else. Accordingly, significant attention has been given in the early stages of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives and in our planning for the long-term to sustaining and increasing the quality of our faculty and providing significantly better support so that they and our students can do the very best work possible.

Additional Faculty Positions. The first and most significant component of the plan to increase faculty support is to increase the actual number of faculty. As indicated earlier, the small size of the Brown faculty currently makes it difficult for even the most committed and most talented faculty to meet the full range of their obligations to their students and to their scholarly work. Adding 100 faculty will make a significant difference in all the areas that we consider most important: undergraduate teaching and advising, graduate education, and the exploration of new fields of knowledge. This work is often done through participation in multidisciplinary initiatives of various kinds and involves the creation and dissemination of knowledge in forms ranging from traditional publication to the creation of new companies based on innovative ideas. It can also benefit from forging partnerships with new organizations that are able to contribute to the quality of intellectual life at Brown. Finally, the work of the faculty should include an effective role for faculty participation in University decision-making and governance.

Because of the central role of this particular recommendation in the overall Academic Enrichment Initiatives, we began to add faculty positions as early as fall 2002. For the current academic year, 14 of those positions have already been filled and searches have been authorized for an additional 51 positions.

Growth of the Faculty Beyond the Initial 100 Positions. Even after we have reached this new plateau of faculty size, Brown will still be one of the smallest of the great universities. As we analyze our own evolution as a university and the growth patterns of other universities, it is very likely that we will need to continue to increase the size of the faculty gradually over time. That will be necessary to remain competitive in our teaching programs as well as in research and scholarship as fields of knowledge continue to expand and as the demands of an increasingly complicated society increase. The experience of our own University, as well as others, suggests that increasing the size of the faculty by something like 1-2 percent per year is a sensible planning target.

Competitive Salaries. A second, equally important step being taken to improve Brown's ability to attract and retain the best faculty is a systematic improvement in faculty salaries and other benefits. As we analyze the available data, our salaries for tenured faculty in particular have been significantly below those of our peers. Using the 75th percentile of the salaries for all full professors as one measure of that competitiveness, we started this process about 15% below the average of the comparable numbers for all COFHE universities and 25% below those of a smaller group of leading peer institutions. As a result of the initiatives undertaken in FY03, those gaps have been reduced somewhat—to about 10% for all the COFHE universities and slightly over 20% for the leading peer institutions.

Although additional funds were allocated in FY04 and more is recommended as part of the budget proposals for FY05, we need to continue to reduce this gap over time. Our ability to do so will affect the competition for new faculty, including positions that are designed to replace retiring faculty as well as new positions created as part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, and to retain the very best of our current faculty who are constantly in a position to attract outside offers.

Sabbatic Leaves and Other Support. A third element in this equation is the ability to offer competitive personal and professional benefit packages for our faculty. On the professional side, that includes adequate opportunities for sabbatic leaves and other kinds of research support. It also includes provision for significant start-up funds for new faculty. The changes made early in the academic enrichment program to the tuition assistance program that helps faculty and staff with the educational expenses of their own children was an important step in the right direction on this front. Our recent efforts to provide mortgage assistance through a preferred provider program is another small step in the same direction. Similarly, the introduction of teaching relief for childcare and the potential postponement of the tenure decision for faculty with newborn or newly adopted children were necessary changes in policy.

We are currently working on ways to increase the opportunities for faculty to take sabbatic leaves in order to advance their research and scholarship. We are also increasing significantly the start-up funds available for new faculty and seed monies for research support are now available through the office of the vice president for research. Increasing the amounts available in all these areas will be important as we go forward.

Improved Infrastructure. In addition to these faculty-related expenses, there are a whole series of infrastructure investments that will be essential if students and faculty are to be able to do their best work. For example, providing adequate facilities for faculty to carry on research programs at the highest level will in the end have at least as much effect on our ability to attract faculty as our salary structure. Similarly, library collections in some fields represent the infrastructure need that is most important to faculty; computing and other technology support can make the difference in some areas; and creative and performing artists need specialized facilities such as studios, concert halls, exhibition spaces, and sophisticated technical support. These needs will be discussed more fully in a subsequent section of this report on infrastructure and other support.

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IV. Leadership in Biology, Medicine, and Public Health

Specific Objective 1:
Establish more effective means of integrating and coordinating strategic goals in research and education across all components of the Division of Biology and Medicine and the Brown Medical School, including the biological sciences, clinical medicine, and public health.

Specific Objective 2:
Strengthen the reputation and visibility of the Division and the Brown Medical School at the national level.

Specific Objective 3:
Continue to evaluate and revise the curriculum of medical education, expand the educational programs of the Medical School.

Specific Objective 4:
Enhance clinical education and research through greater collaboration with affiliated hospitals, the creation of centers and other programs focused on translational research, and increasing external support for such work.

Specific Objective 5:
Recognize public health as a special strength of the Brown Medical School and build on that strength by increasing the visibility of the effort, investing additional resources in faculty positions and facilities, and enhancing the educational offerings.

Specific Objective 6:
Enhance our capabilities in the basic biological sciences by adding faculty, improving and expanding facilities, and supporting both existing and new collaborations between faculty and students in the Division and their colleagues throughout the University and elsewhere.

Proposals

Strengthen the Dean's position as strategic planner and leader.
Add faculty positions in key areas of the life sciences and public health.
Improve and expand space for teaching and research in the biological sciences and public health; develop an appropriate new facility to serve as the home of the Brown Medical School and new space for public health.
Provide discretionary funds for the Dean to use as seed money for strategic initiatives and to improve the overall level of support for faculty teaching and research.
Restructure the Medical School Curriculum Committee and move from a discipline-based curriculum to organ-based and function-based offerings.
Develop and implement arrangements with the affiliated hospitals that strengthen academic programs and encourage greater collaboration and more strategic planning.
Provide start-up funds and seed money for new faculty.
Increase the Division's emphasis on biotechnology collaboration and commercialization with the State of Rhode Island and other strategic partners.

Through the Division of Biology and Medicine and the Brown Medical School, the University is committed to achieving recognition as a national leader in medical education and research, public health, and the biological sciences. The University's strong new leadership and the explosion of scientific discovery in the life sciences offer the Division the opportunity to achieve a new level of excellence. Acting on this commitment, an external review of the Medical School and the Division was completed a year ago and shared with the Board of Fellows, the Corporation Committee on Biomedical Affairs, and the full Corporation. The results of that review were vetted with Brown University's key constituencies and form the basis of our current proposals.

The University is committed to strengthening the Division, the Medical School, and its Deanship. New arrangements for the structural and financial relationships between the Medical School and the University and between the Medical School and its affiliated hospitals will permit the articulation and implementation of a powerful new vision for the future—one that will improve collaboration and enhance the world-class teaching and research activities across the Division.

Enriching Academic Programs through Faculty Growth and Support. The faculty lead our research and education programs. Many are also deeply engaged in the delivery of clinical health care in our partner institutions. The academic component of the faculty's work—teaching and research—must be clearly, coherently, and strategically identified and supported, while recognizing the intellectual, cultural, and organizational variations across hospitals and biomedical disciplines.

As part of the President's Academic Enrichment Initiatives and the Medical School's own strategic plan, the size of the faculty in the biological sciences and public health will increase by approximately 35 positions—a more than 40% change. Some of those positions will be supported through funds allocated by the University as part of the academic enrichment effort, some through Medical School resources and fund-raising, and some through sponsored research or other forms of external support. We intend also to raise new endowment to support a Dean's discretionary fund, as well as current use resources to support major new initiatives within the Division and the Medical School. The overall strategy also includes a substantial increase in the level of support from sponsored research and other external relationships.

Supporting Research Collaboration for Strategic Growth. Over the last five years, the Division and the Medical School have made tremendous strides. Strategic planning, faculty initiative, and investment of resources have led research support on campus and in the hospitals to more than double. The combined total of external funding for the Division and Medical School, including both the campus departments and the hospitals, exceeded $120M in FY03.

The University is making essential investments in laboratory and other space to support the work of the Division. A 170,000 square foot Life Sciences Building is under construction adjacent to the existing biomedical complex. Additionally, in 2003 the University identified and acquired a 105,000 square foot building in the Jewelry District that is now being renovated for additional biological sciences laboratories. The Ship Street facility will be occupied in August 2004, and the Life Sciences Building is slated for occupancy in the spring of 2006. These investments will increase the amount of space available for work in the life sciences by approximately 75% and will improve teaching and research programs throughout the biological and medical sciences.

The research that will be done in these locations already represents significant collaboration with the research activities of hospital-based faculty being conducted in hospital space co-located in the Jewelry District, and prospects for additional synergy are outstanding. For example, the Division's new Genetics, Genomics and Proteomics Center, to be located at Ship Street, will expand already existing collaborations among faculty in MPPB, MCB and Pathology with clinical departments. This new, federally funded $11M center is a locus for research in genetics and genomics that will establish the foundation at Brown and its hospitals for translational research to link basic science in the laboratory and innovative patient care at the bedside.

The University's investment of more than $130M for these facilities dramatically demonstrates the commitment to the Division of Biology and Medicine and the Medical School.

Enhancing the Success of Public Health. Our nationally prominent Public Health Program brings major external research resources into the Brown community: current year grants and contracts exceed $55M and total multiyear funding already committed exceeds $250M across the Centers. Graduate education programs continue to grow and to attract high-quality applicants, and graduates are sought after by noted institutions. Demand for undergraduate courses and the number of Community Health concentrators also continue to increase. Research, education, and public service activities have grown significantly over the past five years.

The Program has engaged in active strategic planning efforts over the last several years, including two external visiting committees in the past three years. Based upon recommendations of the visiting committees, current and projected demand for academic programs, scientific opportunities, and associated space requirements, the Public Health Program has developed a plan for strategic faculty recruitment and for a dedicated building that will allow greater consolidation of Public Health research centers with academic programs.

Over the next five years, the Division's strategic plan calls for the recruitment of 17 new tenure-track faculty (representing 10 tenure-track FTEs) to address educational and research needs in Public Health. The Department of Community Health (the academic unit in which most of the Public Health Program academic appointments will be made) is slated to grow from 54 to 100 full-time faculty, 27 of whom will be tenure-track. Graduate student numbers will include 110 in professional masters programs (MPH and a new MS in Biostatistics) and 50 in other masters and doctoral programs, an overall doubling. We also anticipate a steady flow of about 70 undergraduate concentrators in Community Health annually. Moreover, there is substantial growth anticipated in research productivity. A business plan covering the strategic recruitments, space needs, and anticipated revenue has been developed. Based on our current assumptions and plans, a building of approximately 150,000 gross square feet will be required to co-locate the Brown-based public health centers with the related academic programs. It is anticipated that, after an initial investment of start-up costs, this expanded program will be at a minimum self-sustaining, by generating additional revenues via tuition and indirect cost reimbursements.

Strengthening Educational Programs and Heightening National Visibility. For the first time in almost two decades, the Brown Medical School will accept applications from qualified graduates of any college or university. As a result, the student body (which currently includes PLME, post-baccalaureate, Brown Avenue, EIP, and Brown-Dartmouth students) will also include 8-10 matriculants from the "standard" route of admission, starting with the class entering in 2005. Although this is currently just a pilot project, we fully expect to bring this idea forward as a more formal proposal in the near future.

This initiative is a positive step in continuing to strengthen our School. It will affirm our ability to attract the most talented applicants from across the country, on a par with peer institutions. It will also give our School more visibility nationally as a premier institution for medical education. The quality of students across all admissions routes will remain high; broadening the pool of motivated, high-achieving students will enrich the experience of students and faculty alike.

Of course, the attributes expected in current students will be sought in standard admissions applicants as well. As articulated in our mission statement, we seek "students who regard medicine as a noble profession rather than a trade to be learned, as a humanitarian pursuit as well as a scholarly discipline, and as a unique lifetime experience."

As our faculty and space increase, plans are underway to increase the size of the graduate student body in the biological sciences, perhaps by as much as 50% over the next five years. Programs will be restructured so that students can complete course work in a shorter period of time, allowing more graduate students to be supported by external grants. We also will be investigating the possible introduction of new masters programs and increasing Brown's existing one-year biology masters program.

Curriculum enhancement is also in progress. The Medical School Curriculum Committee has been reconfigured to better oversee and improve the curriculum. Imbedding the nine abilities of the competency-based curriculum in the Medical School's course work and integrating content more effectively across disciplines are among the goals of the enhancement process. Expansion of the clinical experiences in the first two years, provision of basic science continuity in the third and fourth years, and a problem-based curriculum are educational objectives also being pursued.

The world is at an exciting acceleration point in scientific discovery, particularly in areas related to human health. Clinical applications of what was solely pure basic science less than a decade ago are becoming common. Education and research programs at Brown's Division of Biology and Medicine are being positioned for leadership in life and health care sciences in this ever-changing environment. The Academic Medical Center, comprised of our Medical School and its affiliated hospitals, will make major contributions to the clinical science knowledge base and to its translation into improved disease prevention and healthcare, helping to create a healthier nation.

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V. Fostering Multidisciplinary Initiatives

Specific Objective 1:
Establish major new centers or institutes of multidisciplinary teaching and research as resources are generated to support those initiatives.

Specific Objective 2:
Expand and improve existing institutional relationships and develop new partnerships in areas where the research and teaching interests and strengths of those institutions complement our own.

Specific Objective 3:
Leverage resources by connecting existing centers and institutes more closely to the work of academic departments and programs.

Specific Objective 4:
Develop academic support and infrastructure to serve the needs of multidisciplinary programs and centers, as well as more traditional disciplines.

Specific Objective 5:
Continue to develop distinctive, nationally recognized multidisciplinary graduate and undergraduate programs.

Proposals

Establish and build support for new multidisciplinary initiatives as proposed by the Academic Priorities Committee in spring 2003.
Develop key strategic partnerships with RISD, MBL, Trinity, etc.
Allocate faculty positions to these initiatives and recruit new faculty to help lead them.
Provide start-up funds, seed money for research, recruiting expenses, etc.
Provide discretionary funds and support budgets.
Provide space and other support. (See Strategic Goal X and related proposals.)

One of Brown's special strengths is the degree to which faculty and students here engage in inquiry across traditional disciplinary boundaries. This "culture of collaboration" may derive some of its vitality from the undergraduate curriculum, in which students at even the earliest stages of their academic careers are challenged to think about the nature of the education they want and are encouraged to put together courses and lines of inquiry in ways that no one thought of before. It may also derive partially from the fact that Brown has always been much smaller than most of our peers and, therefore, faculty are more likely to go outside the bounds of their own disciplines to look for professional and personal interactions. At larger universities, communities are often defined by departments and the structure of the institution reflects a certain amount of rigidity as a result; in those institutions, multidisciplinary initiatives are much less natural and require much more intervention and investment by the university and the participants. At Brown, faculty and students more naturally assume several identities and intellectual homes, in both departments and multidisciplinary efforts. As part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, we seek to build on this special strength at Brown and develop programs that can and will become leaders in the country and in the world.

Opportunities Created by Brown's Culture of Collaboration. Our objective in strengthening the existing culture of collaboration and building on it in the creation of new multidisciplinary initiatives is to provide students and faculty with more and better opportunities to pursue exciting new questions and problems. As a result of these initiatives, there will be new courses in emerging areas of inquiry in addition to richer offerings in more traditional areas. Faculty and students will have more and better opportunities to work on complicated problems of importance to the whole society, often involving innovative research techniques and approaches to those problems. By combining the perspectives and tools of several disciplines to work on problems that are of interest to students and faculty and are important to the world at large, we have the opportunity to assume a position of leadership in emerging fields that are both exciting and important.

Another significant advantage of multidisciplinary initiatives, especially at Brown, is the potential for pooling of resources. Starting with faculty time but also including everything from research equipment to technical staff support, we believe that the potential for pooling of resources within multidisciplinary centers is substantial.

Strategic Partnerships Outside Brown. In addition to collaboration within the University, the Academic Enrichment Initiatives call for us to strengthen existing partnerships with other organizations with complementary missions and resources and establish new such partnerships. Because Brown will always be one of the smallest research universities, this leveraging of our resources will be essential to our continuing success. Fortunately, there are a number of institutions that do in fact complement very well the goals of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives and whose geographic locations and institutional histories suggest that they too would benefit from a closer relationship with Brown.

Several of those relationships have been advanced over the last two years. There is, for example, a longstanding relationship between Brown and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) that has produced many fruitful partnerships in the past. In the last two years, both institutions have committed themselves to taking this collaboration to a new level. The formation of the Theatre Consortium in the spring of 2002 is another example of inter-institutional collaboration. In this case, Brown and the Trinity Repertory Theatre have formed a partnership that has already produced new masters programs in directing and acting and will inevitably expand the opportunities available for many students and faculty interested in the theatre. We are hopeful that RISD will join this consortium in the near future and, as a result, those opportunities will be expanded even further to include set design and some of the more technical aspects of theatre production. A relationship with the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole was announced in the summer of 2003. Through that relationship, graduate and undergraduate students at Brown will have greatly increased opportunities to work with faculty and other researchers at one of the world's great centers of marine biology and environmental sciences. Closer to home, relationships with the Annenberg Institute and the John Nicholas Brown Center have been strengthened and broadened to make the resources of those very special, and specialized, organizations more widely available to Brown students and faculty. All of this has required only modest amounts of new investment by Brown, but those investments are now more strategically directed to achieving the overall goals of academic enrichment.

New Multidisciplinary Initiatives Already Announced. As a result of an extensive process of discussion and deliberation, the University established several new multidisciplinary centers in the spring of 2003. Those initiatives were the Humanities Center, the Environmental Change Initiative, the Initiative in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, and the Center for Computational Molecular Biology. The primary commitment associated with the establishment of these initiatives is the allocation of faculty positions to the centers and to related departments and programs. These faculty positions have been planned within the context of the overall increase in the size of the faculty called for under the Academic Enrichment Initiatives. There will also be some start-up costs associated with these centers and ongoing need for seed money and cost-sharing funds to support their activities.

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VI. Enhancing Excellence Through Diversity

Specific Objective 1:
Make diversity integral to the education of undergraduate, graduate, and medical students.

Specific Objective 2:
Foster greater diversity among students, faculty, and staff.

Specific Objective 3:
Address issues of diversity within the curriculum and in extracurricular programs.

Specific Objective 4:
Develop and implement strategies to place diversity at the center of campus life.

Specific Objective 5:
Provide support for managing diversity among students, faculty, and staff.

Proposals

Allocate faculty positions to the Target of Opportunity program and recruit outstanding new faculty.
Establish an Office of Institutional Diversity.
Develop innovative programs to bring diversity into the curriculum and extracurricular programs, such as the Curriculum Transformation Workshops and the Conversation Series recently initiated by the Office of Institutional Diversity.
Develop effective support systems and programs for individuals and groups, such as the Intergroup Dialogue and Conversations About Teaching.

Achieving academic excellence requires a commitment to diversity. Students educated in diverse environments have been found to learn better, to deal with complexity more readily, and to emerge with a greater understanding of how to participate productively in a pluralistic society. Reaping the benefits of diversity requires that we engage ourselves in diverse environments, environments that challenge our comfort level or expand our knowledge base about other people, other values, and other perspectives. While creating and sustaining a diverse environment involves significant challenges, reaping the benefits of diversity requires adapting to its demands.

Brown has long been seen as a place where students, faculty, staff, and others of diverse backgrounds could interact effectively in an environment of mutual respect. That is a special part of the education we provide, and it both facilitates and benefits from the intellectual openness that is embodied in our undergraduate curriculum and in our culture of collaboration among faculty and students. Our goal, as part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, is to realize the potential of this diversity more fully and to make it an even more integral part of our educational environment. We also hope to make Brown even more of a leader in the national effort to manage and learn from the rich diversity of the nation and the world.

New Office of Institutional Diversity and Target of Opportunity Program. To achieve these ends, we have developed a three-point plan designed to make diversity more central to the core of our academic mission. The plan will be led by the new associate provost and director of institutional diversity, a position created specifically for this purpose.

The plan begins with an emphasis on recruitment. The most powerful settings for learning are those that are characterized by a diversity of views, outlooks, and perspectives. This means that Brown must have rich diversity within its student body and workforce. Adopting a need-blind admission policy and working to increase the pool of funds available through financial aid are examples of the types of commitments that will greatly complement our efforts to recruit a more diverse student body. Another example is the Target of Opportunity Program. Twenty-five of the 100 new faculty positions that are being created as part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives are reserved for a "target of opportunity" program. Programs like this allow us to identify distinguished candidates for faculty appointment and bring them to the University under conditions of greater flexibility in timing and availability. A major aspect of this program will be the recruitment of minority faculty.

Diversity in the Curriculum. Creating richly diverse academic environments also requires that we broaden and expand the perspectives, ideas, and viewpoints represented in the curriculum and extracurricular programs. Therefore, the second aspect of the diversity plan focuses attention on developing opportunities for faculty and students to bring greater diversity to the course offerings and out-of-classroom activities. Opportunities for curricular innovations, such as the current Curriculum Transformation Workshop that is designed to support faculty members as they address crucial aspects of diversity in various gateway courses, will be central to these efforts. In a similar vein, lecture programs like the Conversations Series, which is designed to bring groups of speakers to campus for the purpose of juxtaposing competing ideas, represents one of many activities being created to provide the Brown community with new and challenging opportunities to engage in discussions across a range of points of view.

The final aspect of the plan focuses on providing adequate structural support for maintaining a diverse campus environment. Diverse environments are stimulating, intense, and provocative and, although they can be powerful settings for learning, they can also be personally demanding and challenging. Sustaining a diverse environment that balances the benefits and the demands for all members of the community is crucial. Establishing programs such as Conversations about Teaching that will allow faculty to explore pedagogical and other issues related to managing a diversity of views in the classroom and devising a Diversity Development Plan that will provide the staff with ongoing opportunities to advance their diversity knowledge and skills so that their work and the workplace supports our diversity goals are central to this aspect of the plan. Also important will be developing programs designed to help students develop the skill sets needed to negotiate multi-cultural, multi-perspective situations so that they are able to achieve the greatest learning outcomes. These programs will include a range of activities, such as the Intergroup Dialogue that bring students together to talk across differences and the Community Living Programs that are designed to prepare our students better to live in a diverse residential system.

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VII. Building a Shared Sense of Community

Specific Objective 1:
Develop the appropriate facility or facilities needed at Brown to foster a greater sense of community among students, faculty, and staff and to meet a variety of specific needs for shared space.

Specific Objective 2:
Reorganize and improve existing community facilities to integrate more effectively the academic and extracurricular/co-curricular lives of students.

Specific Objective 3:
Improve the quality of students' residential experiences and provide more housing options for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students.

Proposals

Develop and implement a plan for a campus center or comparable facility.
Plan and build a new fitness/wellness center.
Renovate Sharpe Refectory to meet modern needs and standards for undergraduate dining.
Improve facilities within the Rockefeller and Science Libraries to meet more effectively the needs of students for group study space and information access.
Increase the number and range of housing options available for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students.
Institute a program of regular rehabilitation of residence halls based on a 30-35 year cycle.

As indicated earlier, education at Brown is not limited to the classroom or laboratory. As a residential university, Brown has an opportunity to have learning experiences extend throughout the day and into all settings. Students learn frequently from their peers in the residence halls and in a variety of extracurricular and co-curricular activities, with and without faculty involvement in those experiences. This continuous learning is indeed one of the elements of a Brown education to which alumni point most often as a distinguishing feature of their education, differentiating it from those offered by other institutions.

In order to take full advantage of these many learning opportunities, it is essential that we have residence halls and other non-academic facilities that encourage and support such activities and interactions. It is the overwhelming consensus of students, faculty, and others who have looked at these questions that our current facilities are, for the most part, not suitable for these extended learning opportunities. As a result, the recommendation that we make selective but significant investments in campus life facilities is an integral feature of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives.

Campus Center and Other Facilities. The most significant investment contemplated in this area is the development of a campus center or comparable facility. Based on an extensive planning process that has involved hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and others over more than a year and a half, we believe that such a facility can add significantly to the quality of education and student life at Brown, by bringing students from many different parts of the campus together with graduate and medical students, faculty, staff, and others in informal settings and programs. Such a center might offer opportunities for informal dining; meeting spaces for student organizations and other groups, including classes; informal study space and computing facilities; a coffee house; and other, similar opportunities.

Much more planning and analysis will be necessary before we can make any specific recommendations about what is needed and where a campus center should be sited, but there are at least three "requirements" about which there is considerable agreement even now: (1) the facility needs to be large enough to provide adequate space for a fairly broad range of activities, in order to create enough reasons for people to go there on a regular basis; (2) it needs to be identified clearly as belonging to the whole campus community and not just one or two subcommunities (e.g., undergraduate students); and (3) it should be located in a central place identified with the whole campus community and easily accessible to as many people as possible.

In addition to the proposed campus center, we are recommending the construction of a fitness/wellness facility. This facility would serve the entire campus population and would be in addition to small satellite fitness areas scattered around the residence halls and other such spaces.

Attention should also be paid to the group study spaces and other community aspects of the Rockefeller and Sciences Libraries, in order to support those activities more effectively and meet some of the same kinds of needs as the proposed campus center.

Student Housing. As a residential university, Brown should be committed to meeting the housing needs of all its undergraduate students, primarily by providing residence halls and related facilities for those students. Currently, we house approximately 80% of our undergraduates in University residence halls, with about 1,100 students living off campus. Although there are obviously advantages for some students in living off campus and establishing somewhat greater independence in their lifestyles, we believe that the educational experience of our students overall would be enhanced if we could increase the number of housing units in our undergraduate residence halls by 300 or so. That would enable us to limit off-campus permission to seniors, in effect expecting that students will live in residence halls for at least three of their four years at Brown. Moreover, by building new units in a more apartment-style configuration, we believe that we can meet the needs and desires of more upperclass students. All this will serve the University by sustaining the residential nature of our education, including the many interactions that take place in the residence halls among students and between students and others.

As described earlier in the discussion of graduate education, we need as well to develop a housing program for graduate and medical students. Over time, we should aim to house 400-500 graduate and medical students in University-sponsored housing.

In the long term it is essential that we develop a formal and systematic program for renovation and rehabilitation of our student residence halls. While it is true that some of the investments being considered to expand the amount of housing and to increase accessibility and solve other current deficiencies will improve significantly the quality of many of our residence halls, those investments only defer for a few years the need for this kind of annual program. Our residence halls, among the most heavily used campus facilities, cannot serve the needs of students adequately without continuous renewal of these structures. A new or completely rehabilitated residence hall should have a useful life of 30-35 years before a major investment in renewal is required. We should, therefore, plan on renovating approximately 150 bed spaces every year in perpetuity.

Other Campus Life Facilities. Sharpe Refectory was built in 1951 and contains approximately 110,000 square feet of space, currently almost exclusively devoted to eating space and related food preparation and storage. After considerable discussion and analysis, the Student Life Task Force and the consultants with whom that group has been working are recommending that Sharpe continue to function primarily as an undergraduate student dining hall. At the same time, it is imperative that the building be renovated to meet modern building codes as well as to serve more effectively the dining needs of today's undergraduate students. The recent renovation of the Verney-Woolley dining facility suggests what can be done to enhance greatly the quality of the dining experience at Brown.

Finally, the student life task force and the consultants with whom we have been working recommend that Faunce House be reprogrammed for other uses following the completion of the campus center. Such an investment will enable Faunce House to meet the more specialized needs of the performing groups that occupy much of the space currently, as well as reconfigure dining and other space for students, faculty, staff, and visitor use as a complement to the opportunities being created in the new campus center.

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VIII. Diversifying and Expanding the University's Sources of Revenue

Specific Objective 1:
Double the level of giving to the Brown Annual Fund and significantly increase current use giving for financial aid, athletics, and other priorities of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, all as part of a comprehensive campaign.

Specific Objective 2:
Raise more than $750 million in capital gifts and pledges in the campaign, including at least $200 million for capital construction projects and the remainder for new endowment.

Specific Objective 3:
Significantly increase the level of external support for sponsored research.

Specific Objective 4:
Establish new professional graduate programs and other revenue-generating continuing education programs.

Proposals

Undertake a major comprehensive campaign over the next 6-8 years, with a goal significantly above $1 billion. Refocus and increase staff and other resources in order to engage, cultivate, and solicit alumni, parents, and other friends of the University more effectively.
Expand and enhance research facilities, augment support for research administration, target start-up and seed funding to promising research faculty.
Develop new professional masters programs in areas of demonstrated need and capacity and explore new opportunities for continuing and executive education.

The financial assets and revenue streams of Brown University are intended to support the basic teaching and research programs of the University. As with all universities, Brown relies heavily on assets accumulated over many years—almost 240 in our case—and the revenues that are generated by ongoing activities in order to advance the cause of education and scholarship. In developing a strategy for managing these assets and revenue streams, it is important to keep those goals in mind. In particular, our goal now should be to increase those assets and revenues to support the Academic Enrichment Initiatives and develop a more diversified revenue stream in order to provide a stable financial base and support those initiatives over the long term. In particular, we must reduce the fraction of the budget that is supported by student tuition and other fees, by increasing endowment per student, annual fundraising, sponsored research, and revenues from continuing education and other non-traditional sources. Brown is unusual among our peers in our dependence on tuition and, while the precise mix of revenues varies widely across institutions, we are generally less diversified than most of the institutions we normally compare ourselves to.

A Comprehensive Campaign to Increase Endowment and Annual Fund-Raising. It is clear that the single most important step we can take to expand the University's sources of revenues is to proceed with a successful comprehensive fund-raising campaign. In such a campaign, we will seek to raise significant amounts of new endowment and increase the level of annual fund-raising for current use purposes, as well as solicit gifts for major capital projects. If, for example, we are able to raise $500-600M in new endowment and double the Brown Annual Fund and other current use fund-raising over the course of the campaign, we will have added more than $50M in new revenues to support the Academic Enrichment Initiatives. All other things being equal, this would reduce the fraction of the budget contributed by student fees by approximately 10 percentage points, by increasing the fraction covered by these new funds. Tuition currently accounts for approximately 54% of Brown's annual budget, not including the budget of the Division of Biology and Medicine. For most universities that we normally think of as our peers, the contribution of student fees is more typically in the 30-40% range.

In addition to raising substantial amounts in support of the proposals described here as part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, the comprehensive campaign will also contribute to the longer-term financial health of the University. By increasing the total amount of fundraising each year to more than $200M—for current use expenditures, new endowment beyond that raised in the campaign, and new capital funds for future construction projects—this campaign will enable the University to continue to grow and take on new challenges as the needs of our students and the larger society evolve and increase in complexity. Moreover, greater diversification of revenue sources will provide greater protection against external factors that cause one or more of these revenue streams to change significantly and unexpectedly, just as diversification within an investment portfolio reduces the volatility associated with the overall portfolio.

The Role of External Support for Sponsored Research. Although Brown has done very well in recent years in increasing the level and scope of external support for sponsored research, such support still accounts for a smaller fraction of our budget than we find in many of our peers among private research universities. In the E&G budget, sponsored research currently accounts for less than 20% of our total revenues, whereas for many of our peers this number is 25% or more. In addition to providing direct support to faculty and students to carry out research projects, sponsored research support also includes reimbursements for the overhead or indirect costs associated with running a major research activity. Important among these indirect costs is reimbursement for the operating and maintenance costs of research facilities and, where externally financed, the debt service associated with the initial construction or major rehabilitation. As we consider major improvements and expansion of our physical plant, much of our planning is focused on providing faculty and students with first-rate facilities for carrying out research projects. Our ability to increase sponsored research support and the attendant indirect cost reimbursements is a critical part of our larger financial strategy. As we add faculty and improve facilities and other support for the work of faculty and students, it is reasonable to expect that we will compete more successfully for federal and other external support. Providing the right kinds of encouragement and incentives for faculty to seek such support is also critical to this effort. The creation of a vice presidency with responsibility for overseeing and supporting such research efforts is a vital first step in that initiative.

Continuing Education and Professional Masters Programs. Brown has an opportunity to both serve a larger population and generate revenues that can help cover our fixed costs by expanding selectively our efforts in continuing education and professional masters programs. In continuing education, we can build on the successful summer studies program that has attracted many fine young students to Brown during the summer and given them a chance to either taste college life for the first time or fill in gaps in their knowledge and experience. Studies are currently under way about how this model might be extended both in terms of the times of the year in which courses are offered and the populations we serve. Again, the expectation is that such programs will not just cover all their direct costs but also contribute surpluses that can be used to defray overhead costs and/or support some of the initiatives for academic enrichment.

Similarly, the market for professional training beyond the baccalaureate is growing rapidly, particularly in specialized technical fields such as information technology and health care. In some of these areas, Brown has significant strengths that can be tapped either to expand existing masters programs or to create new ones. When done well, such programs can generate additional revenue over and above the costs involved, as well as serve a valuable purpose for the individuals attending those programs and for the organizations that will employ them. Examples currently under study at Brown include some expansion of the masters program in computer science and the creation of new masters programs in public policy and in public health within the Division of Biology and Medicine.

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IX. Collaborating with the Local Community on Issues of Mutual Interest and Benefit

Specific Objective 1:
Develop closer and more collaborative ties with neighbors and neighboring institutions.

Specific Objective 2:
Contribute to the educational, cultural, and economic life of the City of Providence and the State of Rhode Island more effectively and with greater impact.

Specific Objective 3:
Work with the local community to develop more effective and collaborative approaches to quality of life issues such as safety, parking, and transportation.

Proposals

Collaborate with the City and area colleges on the implementation of an equitable and sustainable PILOT program.
Work with neighboring institutions and with the City and State on identifying ways to enhance educational, cultural, and economic opportunities for both the institutions and the broader community.
Work with neighboring institutions and with the City and State to improve safety and security in this area.
In collaboration with the City and State, develop improved parking and transportation facilities and systems.
Work with other educational institutions to make better use of our collective resources through consortia or other collaborative arrangements.
Develop processes and communications channels to keep neighbors and neighboring institutions informed about and involved in ongoing planning efforts.

One of the great strengths of Brown is that it exists intertwined in the fabric of a vital urban environment, situated in a lively and historic neighborhood located in a beautiful city that is the capital and center of our State. That is also one of our greatest challenges. It is impossible for Brown to move forward without interacting with our neighbors on the east side and in the larger city and state. Those interactions can sometimes lead to synergistic outcomes as opportunities to collaborate and address issues of mutual interest lead to initiatives and solutions that none of us could have accomplished alone. At other times, however, we find ourselves competing for scarce resources, frequently land on which to construct buildings and develop programs. Because the Academic Enrichment Initiatives involve significant amounts of growth and change, these interactions will be even more frequent and more challenging over the next decade than they have been in the past. Our ability to take advantage of possible synergies and work out conflicts in a cooperative and forward-thinking way will have a significant impact on these initiatives.

Collaboration With Our Immediate Neighbors. The east side of Providence is a beautiful and historic neighborhood, of which Brown is one vital component. As we work to advance Brown's agenda for academic enrichment, we must collaborate with our neighbors to manage our growth effectively. The development of a community relations working group in which leaders of local neighborhood associations meet regularly with University officials is one small step in the direction of greater collaboration and coordination. Another example is the recent initiative to work with the owners of Thayer Street commercial properties and the City to improve the appearance and functioning of that vital retail district. The work that Frances Halsband has done with local residents in the development of our physical master plan (The Strategic Framework for Physical Planning at Brown, accepted by the Corporation in October 2003) is yet another example of how we can work together to achieve the best possible results. The University will need to continue to invest in this area and to work regularly with a variety of neighborhood groups in order to achieve both our objectives and theirs in a sensible and comprehensive way.

The City of Providence and State of Rhode Island. As one of the leading institutional citizens in both the City and the State, Brown has both opportunities and challenges in managing its relationships with those entities. There is no doubt that Brown contributes in very significant ways to the educational, cultural, and economic well-being of the City and the State. The challenge is to find new ways to do that while also serving Brown's fundamental mission of teaching and research. Our potential role in issues such as K-12 education, housing, and the arts demonstrates the complexity of that challenge: how do we take advantage of the substantial human and other resources Brown has in these areas to assist the City and the State, without detracting from our own mission of educating students and carrying out first-rate programs of research and scholarship? Working closely with officials of both the City and the State, as well as with other universities and colleges and other institutional citizens, we are optimistic that we can in fact find reasonable answers to these questions over the next several years.

In the area of economic development, there may be special opportunities for Brown to collaborate with the City and the State to the benefit of the entire region. In particular, Brown's goals for the Division of Biology and Medicine and for increasing collaboration with for-profit partners in other fields of science and technology are consistent with the plans of City and State officials to build future economic development around the so-called "knowledge economy." As our own research activities expand and move into new fields, the opportunities for collaboration with such companies grow and become more attractive, whether those companies are spin-offs from activities created here at Brown or come from other regions or other sources. The development of a major research laboratory for Genetics, Genomics, and Proteomics in the Jewelry District is an example of such an opportunity, in that it physically locates an exciting new research initiative in an area already populated by hospital-based researchers and at least potentially by for-profit companies trying to take advantage of the same technologies. Working with the City and the State, we are optimistic that we can find ways to move forward on these compatible agendas together.

Quality of Life Issues. In any conversation about such issues as safety or parking at Brown, it becomes obvious very quickly that we live in a neighborhood concerned about exactly those same quality of life issues. Parking, transportation, safety and security, cleanliness and upkeep, street repairs, quality of open spaces and walkways, and a host of other such issues occupy the time and attention of both the University and local residents. None of us will find solutions to the existing problems or develop new opportunities to expand and improve the quality of life without the cooperation and support of the other players in this game. The recognition that Brown is not an island or a fortress in which everything we do impacts only on ourselves is an important aspect of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives. Finding ways to work with our neighbors, with neighboring institutions, and with the City and the State to advance the quality of life for all our citizens is essential.

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X. Enhancing the Quality of our Facilities, Infrastructure, and Administrative Support

Specific Objective 1:
Attract and retain the best possible staff and provide adequate staffing and other resources to support the work of faculty and students.

Specific Objective 2:
Ensure robust internal and external communications to advance the University's position locally, nationally, and internationally.

Specific Objective 3:
Provide appropriate library support for faculty and students in all fields of study, with particular focus on ensuring resources for new fields of study. Make libraries more accessible and more responsive to students' needs for varying types of space for study and collaborative work.

Specific Objective 4:
Expand support for the use of technology in the academic and administrative work of the University. Provide classrooms, labs, and computer clusters in which digital and multimedia applications can be developed and used easily and effectively.

Specific Objective 5:
Invest in the physical infrastructure of the campus, including new and renewed academic, administrative, and campus life buildings, utilities systems, technology infrastructure, parking and transportation facilities and systems, and campus landscaping.

Proposals

Ensure competitive staff salaries and benefits. Enhance and target staff training and development.
Ensure appropriate level of staff support in academic and administrative departments.
Increase support for library acquisitions, operations, and facilities.
Increase support for technology, with the goal of providing ongoing funding for the regular replacement and upgrade of desktop hardware and software and planned funding for major system and network upgrades.
Increase the number of digital classrooms and provide ongoing funding for the renewal of existing digital classrooms.
Develop systematic programs of facilities and infrastructure renewal and rehabilitation for buildings, utilities, and other infrastructure.
Invest in new facilities and campus infrastructure—academic space, campus life, utilities, and parking/landscaping/walkways/etc.
Invest in positioning Brown for long-term expansion of facilities off College Hill.

No matter how bright and energetic the students and no matter how talented and committed the faculty, it is impossible to carry out first-rate programs of teaching and research without adequate support facilities and programs. At Brown we have not invested adequately in the academic infrastructure of the University as essentially all of our peers, and the problems with that infrastructure are beginning to affect our ability to achieve our broader educational and research goals. In order to address these issues, one of the most important recommendations of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives is to begin to make such investments in those areas that are most critical to the work of our students and faculty.

Library and Computing. For students and faculty to teach and learn and to advance the frontiers of knowledge, they must have access to excellent library, computing, and other information resources. Brown has substantial resources in these areas, but we have not been investing as much in recent years as many of our peers. In the case of the library, for example, our expenditures on the acquisition of books, serials, and other materials is 25% to 50% below comparable expenditures at other research universities, even after correcting for the fact that we do not support a significant number of large professional schools. Although the impact of that difference can be greatly ameliorated through the use of inter-library loans and other means of access to materials, we believe that it is still necessary to increase our acquisitions capability over the next several years. This will become even more important as new initiatives are launched in multidisciplinary areas and as new faculty come to Brown with different teaching and research interests that will call for adjustments in our acquisition strategy.

In addition to acquisitions support, it is essential that we continue to upgrade our library facilities and operations. As more and more material is available electronically and in multi-media form, the library must continue to change the way it operates and improve its technology base to support our students and faculty adequately. We must also upgrade our facilities to provide the kind of group study space that students now require, in addition to making the libraries more comfortable as places to work and hang out.

Computing and technology require constant investment in order to stay current and to meet the needs of students and faculty who are constantly pushing the boundaries of the available technology. Over the last two years we have invested significantly in upgrading and expanding the campus network, including wireless systems. We have also begun to invest in administrative systems and in network security, all of which is necessary in order to operate a modern university at the highest level and in a cost-effective manner. These investments must be continued in the future and made a regular part of our University operating budget. We also need to provide more and better support for the use of technology in teaching.

Administrative and Other Support. As we increase the size of the faculty and undertake new academic initiatives, it is necessary to provide staff and other operating support for these activities. Some of that support will need to be provided through the academic departments and centers themselves, while others will make more sense to manage centrally. In either case, however, there will almost certainly be some additions to staff and other expenses as part of this support.

We are assuming that only relatively modest amounts of money will be added to this initial allocation over the next several years. We will rely instead on improving efficiency and increased use of technology in the delivery of support services. The work that was done last year in the administrative review process provides a good example of the kind of fresh thinking that can be brought to bear on administrative and support problems and the opportunities that exist to improve both the quality of the support we provide for faculty and students and its cost effectiveness.

Facilities Renewal and Rehabilitation. Brown owns and operates more than 200 buildings comprising over six million square feet of space. These facilities include approximately 2.4 million square feet of academic space, including sophisticated laboratories and computing space, classrooms, libraries, faculty offices and research space, and support space of all kinds. It also includes student residence halls, dining and social space, athletic facilities, performing spaces, administrative office buildings, and space for major support groups such as Facilities Management, Public Safety, and Computing and Information Services. Taken all together, Brown's physical plant has an estimated replacement value of approximately $2 billion, even without taking account of the value of the land on which those facilities sit.

Maintaining the value and usefulness of the physical plant is a major responsibility of the University, so that our successors have the opportunity to enjoy the same kind of facilities that we do today. In the recent past we have met this responsibility largely by making ad hoc allocations of funds to support major renewal projects in specific facilities, and the result is that the basic structure of our physical plant is in relatively good condition. Going forward, however, we believe that it is necessary to budget more systematically for renewal projects and to take a more strategic approach to the planning and scheduling of such projects. Our ultimate goal is to be able to provide $35-40M each year for renewal projects, approximately 2% of the current replacement value of the plant. One part of that effort has already been discussed; namely, a program to rehabilitate dormitories on a roughly 35-year schedule, which would require approximately $15M per year. Similar kinds of expenditure should be made for academic facilities, administrative and other campus life spaces, and for our utilities and other infrastructure (including parking).

New and Expanded Facilities. In addition to meeting the needs of new faculty and new programs launched as part of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, Brown has a considerable amount to do in terms of the academic facilities we provide for our students and faculty. Over the last two years Brown has taken some significant steps to increase its investment in facilities, particularly in the life sciences. The acquisition of 70 Ship Street in the Jewelry District and the construction of the new Life Sciences Building on Meeting Street will add approximately 270,000 square feet of research and teaching space by the spring of 2006. Other projects undertaken over the last two years or currently in planning or construction will add a major annex library facility; expanded space for computer sciences teaching and research; new labs to support faculty additions in Engineering, Physics, and EEB; a new home for English and Creative Writing; completely renovated space for Anthropology; new studio and film editing space for MCM; a renovated Cabinet building for Population Studies; and a new building for the Watson Institute. These and other investments represent an important and significant step in the direction of providing faculty and students the first-rate academic facilities they need and deserve.

If Brown is to continue to meet the needs of students and faculty in an ever more complicated and competitive environment, however, we must continue to expand both the size of the faculty and the facilities we have available to support them. Just to accommodate the planned addition of 100 faculty, we need to add space even beyond the facilities just described. In total we estimate that approximately 250,000 square feet of new space will be required over the next 15-20 years. Following the adoption of the Strategic Framework for Physical Planning at Brown, the Corporation authorized the engagement of Frances Halsband of Kliment & Halsband Architects to develop plans for the addition of academic space in the area between Waterman Street and the Pembroke campus. This work is being carried out in conjunction with the study of a proposed new walkway from Lincoln Field to the Pembroke campus, which was also a recommendation of the Strategic Framework.

Planning has also been carried out and recommendations are emerging for the addition of space and significant renovations of existing space to improve our facilities in Campus Life. As described more fully in the section of this report on campus community, the recommendations for this area include the development of a campus center, the construction of a new fitness center, major renovations in Sharpe Refectory and Faunce House, and eventually the construction of additional undergraduate and graduate and medical student residence halls.

Utilities and Other Campus Infrastructure. The increasing age and complexity of the campus will require regular investments in our utilities and other infrastructure elements, with or without campus expansion. Those investments are likely to include gradual replacement of our central utility plants and distribution systems, most of which are now well in excess of 40 years old; the construction of at least one parking structure and other improvements to provide parking and transportation support for students, staff, and faculty; and some selected investments in new or improved pathways, drives, and landscaping more generally. Although we hope that the regular rehabilitation of such infrastructure will be programmed into the operating budget over the next 15 years or so, we do not believe that we can wait that long for at least some of these investments to proceed.

Long-Term Campus Expansion. Finally, one clear result of the Master Planning process is the realization that we need to be planning today to provide for the very long-term expansion space for the University. It is possible that land can be acquired for very long-term use that will not require a significant drain on our capital resources, but we cannot count on that result at this time. Accordingly, we should prepare for the possibility that we will need to commit unrestricted capital funds to this purpose in order to acquire the ability to accommodate our long-term need for expansion space.

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Resource Implications of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives

As with the rest of the planning proposals described in this report, the analysis of the resource implications of going forward with these plans is still at a very general level. In this section of the report, we describe estimates of what it will cost to go forward with the proposals described here and to achieve the goals that we have laid out for Brown. We have also tried to look at different phasing options for these proposals, recognizing that this is a long-term plan and not something that can—or even should—be accomplished over just a few years. We have not, however, tried to develop a year-by-year budget that shows exactly how expenditures will be made to match revenues available in each year. That will come later as we develop detailed implementation plans and annual budgets. Moreover, it is important to maintain substantial flexibility with respect to the implementation of these plans, in order to allow the University to respond appropriately to changing needs, opportunities, and constraints.

Tables 1 and 2A, 2B, and 2C provide estimates of the costs and possible funding sources for the academic enrichment proposals: Table 1 shows the possible impact on the annual operating budget and Tables 2A, 2B, and 2C show projected capital expenditures. With both categories of expenditure, we first describe where we are now in terms of implementing the academic enrichment proposals, then where we hope to be following the completion of a successful fund-raising campaign, and finally our long-term goals extending beyond the campaign. In order to keep all the numbers comparable and understandable, we have stated everything in terms of FY04 dollars, without adjusting for future inflation. Inflation and other needs and opportunities unrelated to the Academic Enrichment Initiatives will be factored in as we develop multi-year financial projections and propose annual budgets to implement these proposals.

Impact on Annual Operating Budget. The first column of Table 1 shows that we are already well along in implementing—and budgeting for—the major components of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives. Indeed, assuming that the FY05 budget is approved as recommended by the University Resources Committee and the President, we will be spending more than $50M next year on specific components of the academic enrichment proposals. In particular, we have budgeted for 36 of the proposed 100 additional faculty (we started with the 14 positions already filled in the current year and, using past experience as a guide, assumed that 22 of the searches currently underway will result in appointments for next year); we will have added approximately 10 percentage points to faculty salaries, over and above the normal salary increase pools, and significantly increased the funds available for start-up packages, research support, and our new multidisciplinary centers; we will have two full classes of undergraduates admitted under need-blind admission and with full financial aid, plus another class of first-year students for whom scholarships have replaced the campus work expectation; we will have increased the budget for support of graduate students by $4M, providing health insurance coverage for all graduate students supported with University funds, increased stipends for University fellowships, summer support for most students in the humanities and social sciences, and additional fellowships and teaching assistantships; we will have begun to build into the budget the debt service and operating costs (O&M) of new research facilities in the life sciences; and we will have increased budgets for advancement, the library, computing, administrative support, and a variety of other infrastructure needs.

As called for in the February 2002 proposals which launched the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, these expenditures are being paid for through greatly increased support from the Brown Annual Fund and other current use fund-raising; a higher endowment spending payout rate; budgeting for the actual number of students enrolled, rather than setting the budget based on smaller numbers and achieving a windfall each year; greatly increased sponsored research support, including reimbursement of indirect costs; and a signification reallocation of resources that was the result of a mandate last year to reduce costs in administrative and supporting units by approximately $7M. In addition, for FY05 and the next few years, we have assumed that we will invest funds that have been accumulated in recent years in reserves, unexpended endowment income, and a small amount of quasi-endowment to cover fund-raising costs and other special expenditures, which accounts for the very large "other" category in Table 1. Again, the main point here is that we are already well along in the efforts to implement the Academic Enrichment Initiatives, and are doing so within the context of a responsible financial plan.

The middle column of Table 1 represents our goals for the years immediately following the completion of the campaign. It assumes that the campaign will be successful and that most pledges will be paid fully within a relatively few years following the close of the campaign. To a first approximation, then, this column represents the current situation with a successful campaign laid on top. On the expenditure side, we believe that we will need to be spending an additional $60M a year on the academic enrichment proposals by this time. The faculty growth will have continued and we expect that all 100 new faculty positions will be filled by then. In addition, we will have made even more progress in bringing faculty salaries to a competitive level; increased start-up funds and other support for the work of the faculty; and raised significant funds to support the new multidisciplinary centers and other initiatives in the Division of Biology and Medicine. We also expect that we will have fully implemented need-blind admission for undergraduates and undertaken other improvements in our financial aid program, as well as expanding further the support for graduate students. Finally, we will have made further progress on our infrastructure needs, including building into the annual operating budget greater support for facilities renewal and covering the operations and maintenance expenses (O&M) of new and rehabilitated buildings.

The funding for this additional $60M of annual expenditures will come primarily from three sources: a significant increase in endowment earnings as a result of adding $500-600M of new endowment raised through the comprehensive campaign; a greatly increased level of annual fund-raising, essentially doubling the Brown Annual Fund (in current dollars) and significantly increasing support for financial aid and other academic enrichment priorities; and continuing significant growth in sponsored research support, including indirect cost reimbursements, driven primarily by the addition of new faculty and the expansion of the research facilities and other support needed to compete successfully for such external funding.

Finally, the last column of Table 1 represents our current estimate of the longer-term costs of proceeding with the academic enrichment proposals described in the previous sections of this report. We have assumed here that we will continue to increase the size of the faculty each year, even beyond the additional 100 positions that were included in the initial academic enrichment proposals, and that we will continue to improve faculty salaries, start-up funds, and other research support. We have also assumed that there will need to be further improvements in both graduate and undergraduate financial aid and that our support for infrastructure will need to increase significantly. Again, for these goals to be realized, we will clearly need to continue to add to the endowment through new gifts and increase our annual fund-raising, as well as increase sponsored research support. In effect, we will need to continue to raise funds in the post-campaign era at the same level as during the campaign itself.

Capital Needs. Turning to capital needs and resources, Table 2A describes capital expenditures that are already accounted for in our financial planning and are either underway or well along in the planning. All of these are, as the table indicates, funded through the operating budget in the form of debt service or through existing gifts. They reflect the very substantial commitment to improving infrastructure in support of the Academic Enrichment Initiatives that has already been made by the Corporation. With the Life Sciences Building and the 70 Ship Street laboratory facility representing the biggest single pieces of this package, it is clear that we have begun already to expand and improve our facilities support for research and teaching. Morever, all this has been done in advance of the campaign. (Since the Life Sciences Building will not open until the spring of 2006, we actually do not have all the debt service expenses for that building programmed into the FY05 budget, but they are included in the projections for future years that the URC and the Budget and Finance Committee are currently working with.)

Table 2B shows what we hope to be able to spend on capital projects between now and the completion of the campaign. During that time period, we hope to raise something over $200M for new construction and major renovations as part of our campaign goals. Once we are successful in achieving that result, we will be able to go forward with the plans for expansion of academic space to house new faculty and programs. While the specific planning is still ongoing for exactly how to do that and how much space will be needed over this time period, it is clear that we will need something like 150,000 square feet of new space and significant renovations of existing spaces for new or expanded programs. In addition, if the decision is ultimately made to go forward with the construction of a campus center and new fitness facility as well as with major renovations of the Sharpe Refectory and other campus life spaces, we could be looking at a total need for campus life expenditures of approximately $100M. Discussions are also underway about new facilities for the public health program within the Division of Biology and Medicine and a possible new home for the teaching facilities and administrative offices of the Medical School. The assumption here is that the cost of Medical School facilities, including debt service as well as annual operating costs, will be covered largely through increased indirect cost reimbursements and other external funds. Finally, we are assuming that some investments in expanded infrastructure will be required, including parking facilities, utilities renovations, and some building renewal projects.

Table 2C shows additional capital expenditures that are likely to be required even after the investments made through the campaign. Obviously, these numbers are much more speculative than any other expenditures shown in this material, but it is clear that we will need to continue to raise money for support of capital projects after the campaign at roughly the level we imagine achieving during the campaign itself. As with fund-raising for new endowment and current use funds, this reflects the fact that Brown will need to be in the equivalent of campaign mode just as much when the campaign is finished as we will be over the next 6-8 years. Most of our peers are already there.

Overall Assessment. As indicated earlier, the purpose of this exercise is not to describe a detailed financial plan, nor to propose specific budgets or the timing of individual initiatives. Rather, the value of this work is that it indicates a broad scope and overall phasing for these proposals that seems reasonable and consistent with our existing and projected resources. Clearly, the upcoming campaign must be successful for us to realize the goals described in these proposals. We have known that for some time, however, and the good news is that these goals and plans are consistent with our tentative campaign goal, both in terms of the overall target number and in terms of the broad program categories for which we expect to seek support. Moreover, the assumption that we can continue to raise funds at a campaign level in the years following the campaign is realistic and consistent with the experience of many of our peers, if we establish that requirement right from the beginning and are clear with everyone about it.

It is important not to place undue importance on specific numbers at this point in the process. Much more planning and analysis remains to be done before many of these proposals can be brought forward for approval and implementation. Many more discussions will take place about the scale and scope of individual proposals as well as their relative priorities. At this point, therefore, we should be thinking about the overall package rather than about individual items. If the Academic Enrichment Initiatives are to succeed in the ways that we expect, it is important to keep focused on the larger goal of enriching Brown, judging each individual proposal in terms of its contribution to that overall objective.

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Resources Needed to Support the Academic Enrichment Initiatives

Table 1: Operating Budget Needs and Possible Sources of Support

Table 2A: Capital Project Needs and Possible Sources of Support

Table 2B: Capital Project Needs and Possible Sources of Support

Table 2C: Capital Project Needs and Possible Sources of Support