After a year of leading worship with a small group of followers in Providence, Roger Williams converted his small congregation into the First Baptist Church in America. Although Roger Williams left the church soon after, the congregation...
The Reverend Chad Brown was the founding father of the Brown family in America. After emigrating from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he soon made his way to Providence. Here, he assumed the leadership of the First Baptist Church in...
In late 1762, a group of Baptist leaders met in Philadelphia, among them Morgan Edwards, who made a motion for the establishment of a Baptist college in New England. Rhode Island, one of the few colonies without a college, and a growing...
At the first commencement, held at the Baptist Church in Warren, seven students were awarded degrees. Initiating a tradition of commencement debates, students presented arguments on both sides of the statement: “The Americans, in their...
As the debate raged about the best permanent location for the College, a proof of interest and knowledge of science in Providence was about to take place. Future college Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy Benjamin West used a telescope...
After years of competition among the communities of Rhode Island and strong advocacy by both the Brown family and city leaders, the decision was finally made to make the College’s permanent home in Providence. With a number of factors in...
“The situation of the College is remarkably airy, healthful and pleasant, being the summit of a hill pretty easy of ascent, and commanding a prospect of the town of Providence below, of the Narragansett Bay, and the islands, and
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Soon after the College moved from Warren to Providence, President James Manning was called to be the pastor of the First Baptist Church. During his ministry, the ample meeting house was built at the base of College Hill “for the publick...
Deeply affected by the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the students of the Class of 1775 decided to cancel the public commencement ceremony, recognizing, “the Distresses of our oppressed Country, which now most unjustly feels the baneful...
When British troops seized Newport and Aquidneck Island, the College was garrisoned by American troops. With no other option, President Manning published a notice in the Providence Gazette, closing the College. The school wouldn’t...
During the six years that the College was closed, the campus was requisitioned as a barracks for American troops and later used as a military hospital for the French soldiers of General de Rochambeau. Many students left to join the war...
The first university bell rang from inside the new College Edifice in 1788. Within just four years, it would be replaced by a larger bell of “about 300 pounds,” hung inside the newly completed cupola. A student was given free tuition and...
After several days of debate, Rhode Island finally ratified the United States Constitution by a narrow margin of 34-32, the last of the 13 colonies to do so.
While the second day of the President’s visit was devoted to speeches and addresses, it was the evening of his arrival that was, perhaps, most memorable. After sailing from Newport, he landed in Providence to a greeting of “discharge of...
For many years, Brown’s commencement was a public celebration that drew observers from around the state. As historian Janet Phillips describes it, “Although much of it was conducted in Latin or Greek and was over the audience’s heads, it...
The number of students enrolled in the College grew steadily in the late 1700s, reaching 107, as listed in the first printed Catalogue of the Officers and Students, in 1800. The names of the students and their home states were...
Asa Messer, Class of 1790, served in a variety of functions at the College including tutor, librarian and professor of both “learned languages” and “natural philosophy” before being named first president pro tempore and, finally, president...
A short-lived program in medical instruction was organized in 1811. Three professors were appointed: Solomon Drowne, Class of 1773, professor of materia medica (pharmacology) and botany; William Ingalls, professor of anatomy and...
Built as dormitory space to house the growing student body, Brown’s second building was paid for by Nicholas Brown, who asked that it be named after his sister, Hope. At the same meeting at which Hope College was received and named, the...
In a letter to Anatomy and Surgery Professor Usher Parsons, President Wayland announced his intention to end the short-lived medical course. Wayland’s desire to improve discipline at the College drove his insistence that instructors live and...
As fraternities began to populate American campuses in the 1830s, Brown was no exception. Alpha Delta Phi established a chapter in 1836, followed by Delta Phi in 1838, and Psi Upsilon in 1840, with many more to follow, despite disapproval...
Established in 1847, Brown’s Engineering program was the first in the Ivy League and the third civilian engineering program in the country.
“The various courses should be so arranged that, in so far as it is practicable...
After the Corporation voted to allow women to sit for exams, President Andrews recruited six women to begin study at Brown in the fall of 1891. They received similar, but separate, instruction from Brown professors in Greek, math, French and...
In 1900, the Class of 1899 first organized an association of the women graduates of Brown. The organization was initially named the Andrews Association, in honor of Brown President Elisha Andrews, who worked to help gain women admittance to...
Brown’s close neighbor, the co-educational Rhode Island School of Design, opened in 1877. The school entered into cooperative arrangement with Brown in 1902, initially opening three courses to Brown students.
“Here over the arch at the central point of student life at Brown [Rockefeller Hall Trophy Room], I put the head of a real Brown bear, labeled beyond recognition....
In 1907, the new Sayles Gymnasium (now Smith-Buonanno Hall) opened for the use of female students. The building’s facilities included a track, a bowling alley and a “resting room.” Among wider efforts to create a separate women’s culture at...
In the Fall of 1915, there were 1,053 students enrolled at Brown, passing the 1,000 mark for the first time. Of these, 246 were women and 807 were men.
Founded by Otto Neugebauer, Professor of Mathematics, Brown’s History of Mathematics Department was the first in the country. From its founding in 1947 until it was disbanded in 2005, the department’s program focused on the history and...
After nearly 200 years of conducting commencement ceremonies in the First Baptist Church, the size of the graduating class finally forced another approach. With 1,596 seats needed for seniors and their parents, a larger space was needed....
Inspired by the American Indian artifacts he found on his Bristol property, Rudolf F. Haffenreffer II began to acquire items from further afield. After his death in 1954, his family donated his museum and 500-acre estate to Brown. In 2008,...
In 1963, Brown initiated a six-year program leading to a Master of Medical Science degree. It had been 136 years since Brown’s short-lived foray into medical education in the 1820s. This time, the program would grow, with clinical training...
In the Fall of 1967, student enrollment reached 5,062. Of these, 1,368 were women and 3,694 were men.
From the time in 1891 when women were first permitted to take classes, stand for examinations, and receive Brown degrees, they had been admitted to and enrolled in a separate college, first the Women’s College, later Pembroke College in...
At Brown, students embraced the use of the phrase “Third World” over “minority” to collectively address the needs of students of color without suggestions of inferiority and powerlessness. The Third World Center was opened to meet the needs...
In 1981, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women was established as a research center on gender. The Center supported a new, multidisciplinary Women’s Studies concentration as well as the integration of the study of gender...
In 1984, the Brown Corporation approved the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME). This new eight-year continuum incorporated four years of undergraduate work and four years of professional training into a single course of study. The...
In July 1988, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity was established at Brown. One of the nation’s earliest academic centers dedicated to research, scholarship and academic exchanges on issues of race and ethnicity, the Center became...
In April 1992, Gymnastics co-captain Amy Cohen, Class of 1992, and twelve other Brown female student-athletes brought suit against the University for violation of the 1972 Title IX legislation that stipulated that there be no gender-based...
In the Fall of 1994, the number of women attending Brown exceeded the number of men for the first time, with 3,714 female and 3,672 male students. This approximate gender ratio has continued through the admitted undergraduate class of 2018...
In 2001, the Afro-American Studies Program was upgraded to department status and renamed the Department of Africana Studies. According to department chair Lewis Gordon, the name reflected “the current broad focus on the African diaspora, the...
In an effort to integrate research and study of engineering and physical sciences with the life sciences and clinical practice, Brown founded the Center for Biomedical Engineering in 2002. Interdisciplinary research areas include...
In support of Brown’s long tradition of interdisciplinary studies, the Brown Humanities Center (later re-named the Cogut Center for the Humanities) opened in 2003 to support collaborative research among scholars in the humanities. Since 2008...
In March 2004, a new resource center opened in Faunce House to allow students to explore issues related to sexuality and gender. Today, the LGBTQ Center, serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and...
In September 2014, in conjunction with the 250th Anniversary Fall Celebration, a sculpture by American artist Martin Puryear was installed on the Front Green, just in front of Manning Hall. The installation of the sculpture was a project...
