Forty years ago, Brown began a relationship with Tougaloo College, a historically black college in Jackson, Miss. The connection was forged in 1964 as a cooperative experiment in academia, a product of the Civil Rights Movement and its fallout of political activism.
Now, after 40 years of modifications and varying degrees of success, the schools continue to participate in an exchange program that, like the relationship itself, is now in the midst of another reevaluation, according to University administrators.
Associate Professor of History James Campbell said the group of committees concerned with the Tougaloo program "is in the process, again, of reconsidering how to do what it does better."
The relationship between the two schools is being "reinvigorated," rather than revised, according to Valerie Wilson, executive director of the Leadership Alliance and leader of the Brown-Tougaloo exchange. "It is a critical truth that longstanding relationships must be reinvented constantly in order for there to be relevancy in the programs," she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
"Last February there was a meeting of individuals who have some sort of relationship with Brown and Tougaloo," she said in an earlier phone interview. "They met to consider a series of questions about the relationship," such as how it should be developed.
The meeting resulted in a decision to reinvigorate the Brown-Tougaloo relationship, Wilson said. She said the program's historical importance and renewed interest from the schools' new presidents, both of whom were hired less than four years ago, were key factors in the decision to breathe new life into the program.
She added that when President Ruth Simmons went to Tougaloo as the college's Commencement speaker last spring, she "signed a recommitment to the relationship between Brown and Tougaloo" with Tougaloo President Beverly Hogan.
"We are at a stage of building the programs," Wilson said. "We're in the quiet phase." According to Wilson, the University is waiting to establish a new set of programs with Tougaloo before widely publicizing the relationship again.
Karen Allen Baxter, professor of Africana studies and chair of the Tougaloo Campus Advisory Committee, said information about the exchange opportunities right now is spreading "basically (by) word of mouth."
Brown and Tougaloo are still exchanging students, however, and the collaboration includes several different exchange programs, including ones for students, faculty members and administrative experts. Students can take classes at the other college for a semester, and Tougaloo professors teach at Brown during the summer.
The student exchange includes an undergraduate exchange and the Early Identification Program, which accepts a handful of Tougaloo students each year to enter the Brown Medical School.
Sheree Carney MD '07, a former Tougaloo student, entered Brown in Fall 2003 through the Early Identification Program. She applied for the program when she was a sophomore at Tougaloo and completed the required exchange semester at Brown her junior year.
Carney knew she wanted to apply for the Early Identification Program as early as her freshman year at Tougaloo, where, she said, "it's very, very well known and established."
The current stage of development for the relationship involves looking at the schools and deciding what kind of collaboration would best benefit both institutions, Wilson said. According to her, the three exchanges - student, faculty and "academic enrichment," which includes positions like library employment - are the focus of most development concerns.
Several plans are being considered for new collaborative programs, Wilson said. The Education Alliance at Brown and the Tougaloo education division, for example, "are considering ways in which students and faculty may be able to participate in the Education Alliance program" at Brown, she said.
Wilson also said that she is working with another faculty member "to develop a grand proposal for international research opportunities." These opportunities, she said, would potentially be designed "to recruit individual students from Brown and Tougaloo who would work together in teams at international research sites."
