Get Herald RSSAs the campus reacted Wednesday to news of the largest donation in Brown's history, administrators continued to iron out details of the $100 million Sidney E. Frank Scholars program, and President Ruth Simmons said the gift marked a turning point in the University's capital campaign.
Frank's $100 million donation will allow the University to eliminate loans for its neediest students. Frank, now 84, dropped out of Brown after one year because he could not afford to return. He went on to become a billionaire liquor distributor.
Simmons said Frank "raised the bar" with his donation, which is one of the largest single contributions toward undergraduate scholarships ever made in the United States. Frank also gave $20 million this summer for a new academic building that will bear his name.
"For us it's very unusual, because until just a short while ago, we hadn't even had a gift of $20 million," Simmons said. Now, the University has "been getting gifts over $5 million pretty consistently," she said.
"We know that Brown alums are capable of doing this," Simmons added. "We just needed to set our sights higher. Alums respond when we say we want to do ambitious things."
"This is just the beginning," Simmons said. "This campaign is far from over."
Thanks to Frank's gift, some students entering the Class of 2009 whose family incomes fall below $30,000 a year will be designated Frank Scholars, Simmons wrote in a campus-wide e-mail. "We think we can support a total of about 128 students" across the four undergraduate classes after four years, Simmons said. "But it could be somewhat more than that or somewhat less," depending on individual students' needs, she added.
Nor will $30,000 be a rigid cutoff, said Michael Bartini, director of financial aid. "While $30,000 or $40,000 probably represents the maximum income people will have, it doesn't necessarily mean everyone in that group will be a (Frank) Scholar, because there are a limited number of students who can be Scholars," Bartini said.
Frank Scholarships will be awarded automatically based on need, Simmons and Bartini said. Unlike for some non-Brown scholarships, prospective students will not have to complete a separate application, Bartini added.
Currently enrolled undergraduates will not benefit from the new program. Additionally, students on financial aid whose family incomes lie above the cutoff will not see direct benefits from the Frank donation, Bartini said.
"This particular program is targeted toward our lowest income students," he said. "There won't be changes for other students. Over the long run, I think that as we proceed with the campaign and the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the opportunity to improve our financial aid programs will continue," Bartini added.
With Frank's gift, Brown joins a number of universities that in recent years have moved to eliminate loans for their neediest students. Princeton University, which in 2001 replaced loans with grants for students of all income levels, has seen an increase in both its number of low-income students and its number of students on financial aid since the switch, said Robin Moscato, senior associate director of undergraduate financial aid at Princeton.
About 52 percent of Princeton students received need-based financial aid in the past few years, an increase of at least 10 percent since Princeton eliminated student loans, Moscato said.
Brown provided financial aid to 42 percent of its students this year, up from 38 percent in 2002. The University has already achieved the two specific financial aid goals laid out in Simmons's Plan for Academic Enrichment - adopting a need-blind admission policy and abolishing first-year work requirements. But Frank's donation went above and beyond anything envisioned in the plan, Simmons said.
"What a donor wants is always very important," Simmons said. "We try to achieve a meeting of the minds."
Frank "wanted to do something that would be best for Brown," Simmons added.
Simmons said she did not find it unusual that Brown's greatest benefactor only spent one year at the University. "I love it," she said. "You know why? Because the relationship of an alumnus with the University is really not based on how long they were here. It's based on the impact the University made on them."
Frank "has said that Brown literally changed his life, that Brown made all the difference to him," Simmons said. "He says to me, 'Ruth, I always remember.' He remembers Brown for what it did for him."
Frank has been remembering Brown more of late. He told The Herald in July that he'd originally planned to give only $1 million, but said Ronald Vanden Dorpel GS '71, senior vice president for University advancement, convinced him to give his earlier donation of $20 million.
Prior to that, however, Frank's only other donation to the University on record was a 1977 gift of $100 to the Brown Annual Fund, the Chronicle of Philanthropy quoted a University official as saying.
Frank is certain to rank among the top philanthropists of the year in the United States. In 2003, only 10 Americans contributed more than $100 million to charities, according to Slate.
Simmons said the deal with Frank has been in the works for months. "The question of when it would actually happen was less certain," she said.
"Such large gifts are very odd, because it's hard to predict, given the size, when they will come in," Simmons added.
Frank said in a statement that establishing the scholarship fund is "something I've wanted to do for a long time."
His donation comes as the latest in a string of record-setting gifts to universities. The University of Michigan announced last week it had received its largest donation ever, a $100 million contribution to its business school. Also last week, Tufts University received a school-record $50 million donation to its veterinary school.
The official announcement Wednesday of Frank's gift to Brown did not come as a complete surprise. Frank told The Herald in July he was "contemplating a very large gift" that would fund scholarships for students unable to afford tuition otherwise. And both Forbes magazine and BusinessWeek reported in the last week that Frank would soon announce his $100 million contribution.
Frank refused an interview request from The Herald for this story.
Forbes reported on Friday that Frank is now worth at least $1.6 billion. Frank used his marketing savvy to achieve financial success - he earned his first millions importing Jägermeister, a German liqueur only palatable when ice-cold. He later developed Grey Goose vodka, which he sold to Bacardi in June for $2 billion. Frank isn't done innovating; he is developing new wines and liqueurs, Forbes reported, and has even created a new energy drink in a joint venture with the hip-hop artist Lil' Jon.
"I have to say that until I started visiting Mr. Frank, I had never had Jägermeister or Grey Goose," Simmons said. "Since my first visit to him, I have become an avid consumer of both."
Herald staff writer Jonathan Ellis '06 edits the Metro section. He can be reached at herald@browndailyherald.com.
