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Plan would upgrade facilities, boost pay
BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer - Thursday, March 4, 2004
Journal photo / Sandor Bodo
The ambitious and broad-ranging 15-year plan would expand programs, add more buildings and faculty members, and cost about half-billion dollars. The former Speidel building on Ship Street, with its view of Route 195 and downtown Providence, will become a new laboratory.
PROVIDENCE -- When you slow down, you fall behind.
Aware that Brown University has lagged behind other elite institutions in several key areas -- modern facilities, faculty pay, library acquisitions, student-teacher ratios, financial aid and endowment funds -- Brown's corporation has endorsed an ambitious half-billion dollar plan to expand the university over the next 15 years.
A two-year discussion with students, faculty and alumni yielded an expensive list of priorities, some of which will affect Providence as well as the campus, says Brown President Ruth J. Simmons.
Simmons envisions a more diverse student body that receives more financial assistance; a larger, better-paid faculty with time to offer more courses and take more sabbaticals; new classrooms, materials and research facilities, including an expanded medical school; a better quality of life for students with a new fitness center and refurbished dining halls and dormitories; and a much larger endowment and annual fund to help pay for it all.
"We shouldn't be spending money on curlicues," Simmons said. "We need to come up with things that are important to our educational mission, not to impress people with how the campus looks."
A new $95-million Life Sciences Building adjacent to the current biomedical complex off Meeting Street is already under construction and scheduled to open in 2006. Another $23 million is transforming the former Speidel Inc. building on Ship Street in Providence's Jewelry District into biomedical laboratories and a genetics center. Together, the two projects increase Brown's research space by 75 percent and represent the biggest investment Brown has made in research facilities in 12 years. Brown officials hope the facilities will lure more federal grants and boost the state's plan to attract biomedical and biotechnology companies.
Brown already leases space for its development office and computer support services in the Jewelry District, but the Ship Street building is its first purchase there, said Richard Spies, a senior adviser in charge of Brown's planning. In fact, the Jewelry District has been targeted as a likely area for future Brown expansion, as space is limited on College Hill.
Because, like other top universities, only 40 percent of Brown's operating budget comes from tuition and fees, officials are already looking for other ways to finance this sprawling plan. Brown plans to kick off a $1-billion fundraising campaign in the next few years, to augment its endowment and double the annual fund. Some donations are already pouring in; alumnus Charles M. Royce just gave $5.5 million to endow six new professorships.
Another $335 million in other capital projects are also being discussed, but many will not be built for a decade, so estimating the real cost is impossible, Spies said.
Top on the list is a proposed $40-million campus center in a central location, where students and faculty can mingle, relax and learn, Simmons said.
The lack of a large center and social balkanization are common student complaints, Simmons said. Where it would be built is still up in the air.
"Fundamentally, we believe in excellence through diversity, and one dimension of that is providing an environment where students are exposed to different backgrounds," Simmons said. "But we don't have the kind of facilities we need to provide that experience." Students also want a large auditorium, so more students can hear speakers and attend events together.
Brown's "hopelessly inadequate" fitness equipment and long waiting lines are simply unacceptable, Spies said, particularly as tuition, board and fees are going up 4.9 percent this fall, to $39,808. The plan calls for a $15-million fitness center and upgrades to dormitories and dining halls.
Millions more must be spent on additional classroom space, library and technology upgrades and a $40-million facility for public health, officials said.
Given the intense competition among top-tier colleges, Brown has to start meeting the standards of other leading schools, according to its president.
Brown's student-teacher ratio hovers between 8 to 1 and 9 to 1, which Simmons said is high for the Ivy League. In addition, spending on library acquisitions and teacher salaries is lower, and Brown's professors can't take as much time for research and sabbaticals as their peers.
So far, $20 million has been earmarked to begin hiring 100 new faculty members -- a 20-percent increase -- over the next six years, 18 of whom have already joined Brown. The whole effort, including raising average salaries by 10 percent and improving benefits, is estimated to cost about $62 million. Once that goal is reached, the university still plans to hire as many as a dozen new professors a year.
Brown plans to build on its interdisciplinary structure by collaborating even more with the Rhode Island School of Design and other area colleges, and forming new partnerships, Provost Robert J. Zimmer said.
"Brown, like many of our peer institutions, is really committed to a broad-based set of intellectual agendas," Zimmer said. "We are trying to move in all areas in an important way."
As critical as the capital improvements are, investing in human potential is just as important, said Simmons, the first African-American selected to head an Ivy League university. Simmons, who grew up in segregated Texas as the daughter of a Baptist minister, said she is committed to making Brown more diverse. That means making sure Brown's doors are open to any qualified student, regardless of his or her ability to pay.
"The idea of education being a diversity of sources and ideas is a deeply held value -- diversity of gender, ethnicity and geography," Simmons said. "We want to make sure our financial aid policy matches that."
Brown plans to increase financial aid for undergraduates, Simmons said. Under the new need-blind policy, 43 percent of undergraduate students received aid last year -- up from 36 percent three years ago -- and the average package is about $24,000, most of which is in grants and scholarships, officials said. Graduate students will receive $4 million more in financial aid and receive health insurance under the plan.
"Brown is faced with a big question," Simmons said. "Given all the challenges we face in remaining competitive, what are the most important things we need to do to ensure we will be strong and viable a century from now?"
From The Providence Journal
