Liquor magnate Sidney Frank '42 - already the largest donor in Brown's history - will give the University $5 million to support its Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, President Ruth Simmons announced at Opening Convocation Tuesday.
The donation will allow the University to expand significantly its hurricane response plans, first released Friday.
Meanwhile, Simmons told the faculty at a meeting Tuesday that all first-year students had arrived safely on campus. But David Greene, vice president for campus life and student services, added that three upperclassmen from the affected region are unaccounted for.
Greene told The Herald that some 45 upperclassmen have yet to arrive on campus and students typically continue to arrive through the first week of the semester, so the three students still unaccounted for may not have been harmed by Katrina. But efforts to reach them have been unsuccessful, he said.
University officials said Tuesday that Frank's gift will dramatically broaden Brown's hurricane relief efforts.
According to Senior Vice President for University Advancement Ronald Vanden Dorpel GS'71, some of the money will provide funding for the University's original response plan announced Friday, which included offers of tuition-free admission for affected students and visiting faculty positions for displaced professors. But the gift will allow Brown to do much more, such as provide housing and textbooks for temporary students and send a "brigade" of students to New Orleans to assist in rescue efforts, he said.
A committee to be appointed by Simmons will determine how to allocate the money, said Mark Nickel, director of the Brown News Service.
Simmons told the faculty that Frank's daughter, Cathy Frank Halstead, called Simmons Tuesday morning to inform her of the gift. Halstead, who became a member of the Brown Corporation in May, is president of the Sidney Frank Importing Company and oversees his philanthropy.
Though Frank's unsolicited gift came as a surprise, the phone call itself was not unusual, Vanden Dorpel said, because both he and Simmons are in regular contact with Frank and Halstead.
Simmons announced Friday that Brown was joining the Rhode Island Independent Higher Education Association in offering tuition-free admission for a semester to Rhode Island residents whose colleges or universities have closed for the semester because of hurricane damage. The University will also extend the offer to siblings of Brown students and students of Xavier University of Louisiana, Dillard University and Tulane University. Assistance for displaced graduate students and professors was also included in the plan.
Though housing is not guaranteed for temporary students, Dean of the College Paul Armstrong has asked Karen Sibley, dean of summer and continuing studies, to help temporary students find housing, Simmons told the faculty.
Simmons reiterated at the faculty meeting her desire to include many affected schools in Brown's assistance program. Other institutions and the news media have been focused on helping Tulane students, she said.
The University has received an outpouring of support from community members in providing housing and other resources to temporary students, Simmons said.
In May 2004 Frank gave Brown $20 million for a new academic building, and in September 2004 he gave another $100 million to endow a scholarship for Brown's neediest students - the largest donation in the University's history. Frank, who left Brown in 1939 after one year as an undergraduate, was awarded an honorary degree last May in recognition of his philanthropy.
The first Sidney Frank Scholars - 60 members of the Class of 2009 - attended their first Brown classes Tuesday. As evidence of Frank's wish to support the neediest students, the average parental income of the scholarship recipients is $18,600, Simmons told the faculty.
