News

Affirmative action case draws nearly 100 amicus briefs

Number of GISPs drops to eight this semester

Each semester, anywhere between eight and 30 groups of ambitious students get together with a professor to choose a topic, write a syllabus and create their own credit-bearing course known as a Group Independent Study Project, or GISP. There are eight GISPs open to Brown students this fall.

Students dig up Spanish past while abroad

Rafael Gonzalez '11 MD'15 spent his summer after junior year uncovering mass graves filled with the remains of victims from the Spanish Civil War. Alongside a team of forensic scientists, archeologists, anthropologists, medical doctors and dentists, Gonzalez said he spent a week working at a grave site ...

Computers added to SunLab lobby

The computer science department began installing 10 new computers in the lobby outside of the SunLab at the end of last week. The computer increase is in response to rising student enrollment in the department's courses, said Tom Doeppner, vice chair and associate professor of computer science.   It ...

Nelson '77 pledges to donate half of wealth

Corporation board member Jonathan Nelson '77 P'07 P'09 recently joined CNN founder Ted Turner, former member of the class of 1960, and 89 other American billionaires in a pledge to donate over half of his wealth to a charitable cause. Nelson, the chief executive officer and founder of the private equity ...

Lead levels rise in aging Providence buildings

Providence has seen an elevation in lead levels in the water of some old buildings in recent years, including those on and around the University's campus. Many houses on College Hill are more than 100 years old. This means that some properties have pipes that are either made entirely of lead, or, more ...

Election roundup: post-debate, Romney sees bump in polls

Taveras approval rating up despite slow recovery

Child poverty rate rises to one in five

'Sons of Providence' author speaks on U.'s past

Biographer Charles Rappleye proposed looking at the past as a continuum rather than a series of isolated events in a lecture inspired by his novel "Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade and the American Revolution," the assigned summer reading for the class of 2016. Reflecting upon ...

For third year, U. hosts Latino scholars

Forty college students from Latin America and Puerto Rico arrived at Brown Oct. 1 to kick off the two-month Botin Scholars program, which brings students to the University for a week before they head to Spain for the duration of the program. This is the third consecutive year that the Watson Institute ...

Patricia Watson named VP for advancement

Patricia Watson, Cornell's senior associate vice president for alumni affairs and development, will serve as the University's senior vice president for advancement beginning Dec. 1, President Christina Paxson announced in an email yesterday morning. Watson will replace Steven King '91, who resigned ...

'TED-ish' talks discuss bio lab projects

  The biology department held the first of its "TED-ish" talks Wednesday, as a group of professors helped "get the word out" about the revolutionary projects taking place in the University's biology labs, said Marjorie Thompson '74 PhD'79 P'02 P'07 P'09 P'12 P'14 P'16, associate dean of biological ...

UCS talks strategic planning, Keeney damage

Provost Mark Schlissel P'15 spoke about the University's strategic planning initiatives at Wednesday night's general body meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students. 

U. threatens fees after weekend vandalism in Keeney

Fifty-seven exit signs were destroyed, and a bathroom stall's dividers were ripped out in Keeney Quadrangle during a weekend at the end of September. The incident was the peak of an upward trend in campus vandalism in the past two years, according to the Office of Residential Life.

TEDxBrownUniversity selects student speakers

Eduardo Diaz-Santana Vazquez '14 and Ria Mirchandani '15 were the winners of the TEDxBrownUniversity Student Challenge held Tuesday evening in Metcalf Auditorium. As a lead-up to the TEDxBrownUniversity conference Oct. 20, the Student Challenge was designed to select a student to join the lineup of ...

38 Studios prompts commerce overhaul

A Sept. 25 report commissioned by Gov. Lincoln Chafee '75 P'14 P'16 suggests Rhode Island's business climate is in critical condition and recommends a major overhaul to current state organizations relating to commerce and economic development.

Nine years later, site of nightclub fire memorialized

Raymond Villanova, owner of the property that formerly housed the Station Nightclub in West Warwick, voluntarily signed the land's deed over to the Station Fire Memorial Foundation Sept. 28. The nightclub burned down in 2003 after pyrotechnics ignited the building, killing 100 people and injuring hundreds ...

Romney, Obama square off on economy

President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney covered domestic topics in last night's presidential debate, including job creation, tax policy, deficit reduction, social welfare programs and healthcare policy. Social issues were not addressed. During the debate, Obama positioned ...

R.I. launches new system for teacher evaluations

By the time President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced in 2009 that the federal government would distribute $4.35 billion to states purposed for  developing more intensive teacher evaluation systems, among other elements, Rhode Island already had begun to overhaul ...