Brown University

Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1764 as The College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine Colonial Colleges established before the American Revolution.At its foundation, Brown was the first college in the United States to accept students regardless of their religious affiliation.Its engineering program, established in 1847 was the first in the Ivy League. Brown's New Curriculum sometimes referred to in education theory as the Brown Curriculum was adopted by faculty vote in 1969 after a period of student lobbying; the New Curriculum eliminated mandatory general education" distribution requirements, made students "the architects of their own syllabus  and allowed them to take any course for a grade of satisfactory or unrecorded no-credit.In 1971 Brown's coordinate women's institution, Pembroke College, was fully merged into the university.Undergraduate admissions is among the most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 9.5 percent for the class of 2019, according to the university. The University comprises The College, the Graduate School, Alpert Medical School, the School of Engineering, the School of Public Health, and the School of Professional Studies which includes the IE Brown Executive MBA program. Brown's international programs are organized through the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and the university is academically affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Rhode Island School of Design. The Brown/RIDS Dual Degree Program, offered in conjunction with the Rhode Island School of Design is a five-year course that awards degrees from both institutions.Brown's main campus is located in the College Hill Historic District in the city of Providence, the third largest city in New England. The University's neighborhood is a federally listed architectural district with a dense concentration of Colonial era buildings. On the western edge of the campus, Benefit Street contains one of the finest cohesive collections of restored seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture in the United States.Brown has produced 7 Nobel Prize winners, 57 Rhodes Scholars,Manning arrived at Newport in July 1763 and was introduced to Stiles, who agreed to write the Charter for the College. Stile's first draft was read to the General Assembly in August 1763 and rejected by Baptist members who worried that the College Board of Fellows would under represent the Baptists. A revised Charter, written by Stiles and Ellery, was adopted by the Assembly on March 3, 1764.

In September 1764 the inaugural meeting of the College Corporation was held at Newport. Governor Stephen Hopkins was chosen chancellor, former and future governor Samuel Ward was vice chancellor, John Tilling hast treasurer, and Thomas Eyre secretary. The Charter stipulated that the Board of Trustees comprise 22 Baptists, five Quakers, five Episcopalians, and four Congregationalists. Of the 12 Fellows, eight should be Baptists including the College preside and the rest indifferently of any or all Denominations.The Charter was not, as is sometimes supposed, the grant of King George III, but rather an Act of the colonial General Assembly. In two particulars the Charter may be said to be a uniquely progressive document. First, where other colleges had curricular strictures against opposing doctrines, Brown's Charter asserted that Sectarian differences of opinions, shall not make any Part of the Public and Classical Instruction. Second, according to University historian Walter Bronson, "the instrument governing Brown University recognized more broadly and fundamentally than any other the principle of denominational cooperation.The oft-repeated statement that Brown's Charter alone prohibited a religious test for College membership is inaccurate; other college charters were also liberal in that particular.James Manning was sworn in as the College's first president in 1765 and served until 1791. In 1770 the College moved from Warren, Rhode Island, to the crest of College Hill overlooking Providence. Solomon Browne, a freshman in the class of 1773  wrote in his diary on March 26 1770 five National Humanities Medalists,eight billionaire graduates,and 10 National Medal of Science laureates, and has also produced Fulbright, Marshall, and Mitchell scholars.The origins of Brown University may be dated to 1761 when three residents of Newport, Rhode Island, drafted a petition to the General Assembly of the colony.The Brown family Nicholas Brown, his son Nicholas Brown, Jr., class of 1786, John Brown, Joseph Brown, and Moses Brown were instrumental in moving the College to Providence and securing its endowment. Joseph became a professor of natural philosophy at the College, John served as its treasurer from 1775 to 1796 and Nicholas, Junior, succeeded his uncle as treasurer from 1796 to 1825.On September 8,180 the Corporation voted, That the donation of $5000 Dollars, if made to this College within one Year from the late Commencement, shall entitle the donor to name the College. In a letter dated September 6, 1804, that appeal was answered by College treasurer Nicholas Brown, Junior, and the Corporation honored its promise: In gratitude to Mr. Brown, the Corporation at the same meeting voted, 'That this College be called and known in all future time by the Name of Brown University.Over the years, the benefactions of Nicholas Brown, Jr, would total nearly $160,000, an enormous sum for that period, and included the buildings Hope College and Manning Hall, built 1821- 22 and 1834- 35.