Christina Paxson was officially sworn in as the University's 19th president July 2, but she said she did not feel her job had truly begun at the time.
"I won't feel that my job has really started until the day when I welcome students back to campus," Paxson told The Herald in July.
She will do just that tomorrow when she welcomes Brown's 249th class with a Convocation speech entitled "Constructive Irreverence."
Paxson, who was named president in March after serving as dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, will be officially inaugurated Oct. 27.
Paxson has been preparing for her new role for months, and she began meeting with faculty, members of the Corporation and Rhode Island officials even before she was sworn in.
"We don't want to pause," she said. "There are so many wonderful initiatives in the pipeline, and there are things we know we want to do. And so we don't have the luxury or the need to sit back for a year."
Paxson spent much of the summer individually meeting with department chairs and program directors in their offices. She said she was struck by the collaboration across disciplines.
"It's not as if each department is a little self-contained unit - people work across areas," Paxson told The Herald in July. "Learning about these layers of connections is just incredibly useful."
Paxson also met with local officials, including Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Gov. Lincoln Chafee '75 P'14. In May, the University agreed to contribute an additional $31.5 million to the city over 11 years, a deal that followed months of tense discussions. Paxson said she is grateful the negotiations were completed prior to her tenure.
"What it's done is given me the opportunity to start with a very clean slate," she said. "The mayor is very positively inclined to collaborating with Brown, and instead of talking about money flows from Brown to the city, we can really start to talk about true collaboration, things that are of mutual interest."
Paxson said she hopes to be involved in continuing discussions with the city about potential ways to join forces, including developing the Knowledge District.
"We're just in the very early stages, so I cannot predict where we will end up," Paxson said. She stressed the importance of moving quickly, adding that the University will have to make some important decisions in the first months of her presidency.
The University is currently in early planning stages for a major strategic initiative, Paxson said, adding that she hopes to have a detailed plan by the end of her first year.
As part of the planning process, the University will start discussing a new capital campaign, Paxson said. The University's most recent major fundraising initiative - the Campaign for Academic Enrichment - ended in Dec. 2010 and raised $1.6 billion. While Paxson's campaign will likely provide resources for some ongoing efforts - like renovations to residence halls, plans to build a new School of Engineering and increased funding for financial aid and athletics - Paxson said it will also include other projects. She added that fundraising efforts will continue outside of a capital campaign.
Paxson said she looks forward to the growth of Brown's research profile, emphasizing that Brown's strength comes from its focus on unifying teaching and scholarship.
"What excites me the most is the idea of developing programs that engage both students and faculty in scholarship on common themes," Paxson said. "So it's a very integrated approach. It's not 'Are we going to be a research university or are we going to be a teaching university?'"
Paxson said she imagines much of the research will be collaborative across departments and will often tackle global issues. Building a network of international collaborators with complementary interests will be vital, she said.
"We have more good ideas than we have resources, and I'd rather be in that position than the reverse," Paxson said.
An earlier version of this article appeared online July 3.
