Brown University.

In 1917 the university established the Brown War Records Bureau, whose intention was to "collect and preserve a record of all Brown men who are serving in the present war". Brown faculty, students and alumni who were in the military were asked to fill out a small card called "Are you in the war?" and to send original letters, clippings or photographs which "have any bearing on the service of Brown men in the war." This collection is partly a result of that effort.

Diaries, personal narratives, and account books of Brown University students.

Correspondence from Brown University students, alumni, and faculty who were serving in the American Expeditionary Forces or the YMCA during World War I.

William J. Slack was the Director of Special Events at Brown University from the early 1980's into the early 2000's.

This collection represents a decade during which Brown adopted, first, its "Permissive Curriculum" of 1963, followed by its New Curriculum of 1969.

The Committee on Prizes and Premiums was a standing Brown University faculty committee with jurisdiction over all undergraduate academic prizes and premiums, as well as being in charge of the Faculty Scholars Program. The Committee's work was subsumed by the College Advisory Board in 2003.

Lecture notes taken by students at Brown University.

The events commemorating the founding of the Women's College of Brown University fell under the rubric "One Hundred Years of Women at Brown" but were organized and sponsored by several groups on and off campus. An ad hoc committee of the Brown University Corporation primarily was responsible for "Transcending Boundaries: Women, Power and Leadership, A Centennial Symposium Celebrating 100 Years of Women at Brown." The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women took part in the ad hoc committee's work and sponsored a lecture series funded by Cynthia Lee Jenner (1961). The center helped coordinate the production of The Search for Equity: Women at Brown University, 1891-1991, which was directed by Polly Welts Kaufman (1951) and includes articles written by alumnae and others. With the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, the Pembroke Center cosponsored an exhibit, lecture series, and dramatic revue ("Going A Hundred," written by Professor Lowry Marshall and Colby Moss).

Established in the fall of 1939 by arrangement with the Civil Aeronautics Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the program, which permitted undergraduates to receive flying instruction and pursue related academic courses, was originally a civilian program, but later required applicants to state their intention of applying Army or Navy flight training when needed.

Correspondence between Brown University students and their families and friends.

Lecture notes created by Brown University faculty for instruction.

Some of the material consists of full texts which were read verbatim.

From the Brown News Bureau (1997 May 8) about the dedication ceremony for the war memorial at the site of the Soldier's Arch on Thayer Street, between Waterman and George streets.

"The war memorial will honor the 205 Brown alumni who died during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. It will be located on both sides of the walkway inside Soldiers Arch, which was dedicated in 1921 to honor the 42 Brown students and one faculty member who died in World War I. During the procession, the University Hall bell will toll for each of the 248 Brown people killed in the wars.

"The memorial was designed by Richard Fleischner, an internationally acclaimed sculptor and environmental artist. The memorial includes a long bench of polished granite, an 11-foot granite column and an eight-foot-long marble mass with a perpendicular interlocking section of bronze lattice. The names of the 205 Brown alumni who died during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War will be inscribed on the marble slab.

"The site will be planted with a variety of flowering trees and shrubs, with climbing roses at the lattice base. Additional lighting will be installed at a later date.

"Ceremonies to dedicate the memorial and rededicate Soldiers Arch will begin at 9:30 a.m. Speakers will include Brown President Vartan Gregorian; Joseph Weisberger, Class of 1942, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who served five years in the U.S. Navy, and whose father served in World War I and World War II; Sen. John Chafee, a decorated Marine captain and former secretary of the Navy, who served in World War II and the Korean War; and Dr. Robert T. Steinsieck, Class of 1941, who served as a physician in the U.S. Army, and whose son, Robert T. Steinsieck Jr., Class of 1968, died in Vietnam. The younger Steinsieck's name will be inscribed on the memorial.

"The speakers, each accompanied by a uniformed member of the armed forces, will lay wreaths at the war memorial. A wreath will be placed at Soldier's Arch by Elizabeth Tillinghast Nadeau, Brown Class of 1961, in memory of her grandfather, Henri Ferdinand Micoleau, the first Brown-affiliated person killed in World War I. Nadeau will be representing her mother, Lisette Tillinghast, who is Micoleau's daughter. Micoleau, a French citizen, was a member of the Brown faculty who returned to Europe to serve in the French Army. Nadeau, mother of three Brown graduates, is the daughter of Charles C. Tillinghast Jr., Class of 1932, a senior fellow and former chancellor at Brown.

"Assistant University Chaplain Deborah Blanks, a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve, will offer prayers.

"'A memorial must accomplish all the things one seeks in a memorial that pays respect to those who have given their lives in war,' said Fleischner, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate and former member of the Brown faculty. 'But memorials are also places where people can go and think, where they will feel comfortable gathering, sitting, conversing.'

"Overall, 178 Brown alumni died in World War II, seven in Korea and 20 in Vietnam."

The Sesquicentennial celebration marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of the University lasted for five sunny days, October 11 to 15, 1914. No expense was spared and Friends of Brown contributed the entire cost of the festivities. College Hill was festooned with ropes of laurel draped from the trolley poles. Japanese lanterns lit up the campus, and fence posts sported wooden tubs of evergreens and autumn berries. University Hall was illuminated as it had been for earlier celebrations.

On Sunday afternoon, October 11 President Faunce preached the anniversary sermon. Monday’s exercises reflected the religious history of the university with speakers representing the four religious denominations associated with the founding. Also the "Pageant of Warren" was performed at "Maxwelton" in that town where the college was first located.

Tuesday was a day for class reunions, capped by what must have been the most spectacular event of the week, the torchlight parade. Led by mounted police, the National Guard, the First Light Artillery, the Varnum Continentals, and the American Band, alumni and students in costume marched downtown through throngs of spectators. First came the classes of 1870 through 1899 in caps and gowns of white and brown, then the classes of 1900 through 1905 in the Puritan garb of the first settlers of Providence, followed by the classes of 1906 through 1908 as Quakers in gray. The classes of 1909 through 1914 dressed as the French soldiers who had occupied University Hall during the Revolution, while the senior class of 1915 were soldiers of the Continental army. Juniors wore uniforms of the War of 1812 and sophomores were French sailors of the Revolution. The freshmen as Narragansett Indians were dressed, according to a contemporary account, "in gaudy red blankets, their faces copper-color and a single feather stuck jauntily in their simple head-dresses." Costumed representatives of special events came next, the crew of 1873, the 1870 baseball team, Colonial and early nineteenth-century gentlemen, and finally, those marchers of other days, a recreation of the Junior burial with coffin and books on their way to a "cremation." The glorious procession returned from parading through the Van Wickle gates, decorated with laurel and electric lights, for a concert and book-burning which concluded the festive day.

On Wednesday an academic procession of twelve hundred, including many notable representatives of American and foreign educational institutions, marched to the Meeting House to hear the Historical Address by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes 1881. On Thursday there was an address by William Peterson, principal of McGill University, followed by the conferring of honorary degrees upon thirty-eight distinguished gentlemen. Celebrators could also enjoy three performances of "The Provoked Husband," a play within a play "In Colony Times," by Henry A. Barker and A. E. Thomas, which recalled the first production of "The Provoked Husband" in Providence in 1762, complete with John Brown and his trusty cannon in front of the improvised theatre, ready to ward off colonists who were protesting against the ungodly performance.

All of Providence joined in the celebration on Thursday. There was a pageant by grammar school children followed by relay races for high school students and dinner for four hundred at Churchill House.

The above entry appears in Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell, copyright 1993 by the Brown University Library. It is used here by permission of the author and the University and may not be copied or further distributed without permission.

In preparation for the centennial of women's education at Brown University, the university commissioned a collection of essays. Polly Welts Kaufman (1951) edited and wrote the introduction to the collection of ten articles. Kaufman and Karen Lamoree (then Christine Dunlap Farnham Archivist) distributed surveys to 14 classes of alumnae celebrating reunions in May 1990. Charlotte Lowney Tomas (1957) used the alumnae surveys for "A Wider World: Careers of Brown Alumnae" (309-345). Lamoree used other surveys for her article "A network of Women: Alumnae Volunteerism in Rhode Island" (279-307).

The Search for Equity: Women at Brown University, 1891-1991, was edited by Polly Welts Kaufman and published by the Brown University Press in 1991.

The Baccalaureate sermon is traditionally preached on the Sunday preceding Commencement. Rev. Morgan Edwards may be said to have delivered the first baccalaureate sermon when he preached to the graduates in the evening of the first Commencement day in 1769. President Caswell was asked to deliver a baccalaureate sermon by the Class of 1872, the class which was entering college when he assumed the presidency and was leaving as he retired. It was customary for the president to deliver the baccalaureate sermon until Henry Wriston, the first president who was not a Baptist minister, assumed office. After that, guest preachers were invited. In February 1944, when a winter commencement was held during wartime without the usual ceremony, Mr. Wriston delivered a baccalaureate address at the request of the graduates. He continued to deliver the address at the following wartime commencements. In 1988 another president, Howard Swearer, was the baccalaureate speaker at the last exercises before leaving the presidency.

The above entry appears in Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell, copyright 1993 by the Brown University Library. It is used here by permission of the author and the University and may not be copied or further distributed without permission.

The Graduate School convocation began in 1926, when, because of the large number of degree recipients, it was decided to hold separate exercises for the awarding of advanced degrees on Tuesday, the day after Commencement. In 1928 the ceremony was scheduled for the Saturday preceding Commencement. During World War II the Graduate School Convocation was omitted and advanced degrees were awarded at Commencement. In 1958 the time of the Convocation was changed to take place in Sayles Hall at the same time as the Commencement exercises in the First Baptist Meeting House. In 1989 the site of the Convocation was changed to Lincoln Field. That year for the first time a doctoral candidate, Carole-Anne Tyler, Ph.D 1989., gave an address, and Dean of the Graduate School Phillip J. Stiles delivered the principal address. Many noted persons have been the principal speaker at the Convocation, and some of the addresses have been published in the Brown University Papers series.

In 1978, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Graduate School, citations for distinguished contributions to society through scholarship or related professional activity were awarded to alumni of the Graduate School for the first time. The first citations were received by Joaquin B. Diaz, Ph.D. 1945, Robert W. Morse, Ph.D. 1949, Betty Horenstein Pickett, Ph.D. 1949, Gordon W. Teal, Ph.D. 1931, and Laurence W. Wylie, Ph.D. 1940. Since that time citations have been awarded annually to Graduate School alumni.

A three day convocation, "On the Future of Knowledge," was held on October 29-31, 1989, honoring one hundred years of Ph.D. degrees granted by the University. Speakers included Lauro Cavazos, Hanna Gray, H. Guyford Stever, John Mellon, David Saxon, Joseph Duffey, Carol Guardo, Walter Massey, Gerald Edelman, Eliot Stellar, Ph.D. 1947, Thomas Kuhn, David Black, Mary Maples Dunn, Carlton Alexis, Steven Muller, and David Gardner.

The above entry appears in Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell, copyright 1993 by the Brown University Library. It is used here by permission of the author and the University and may not be copied or further distributed without permission.

The Academic Council was an advisory body that considered issues of academic planning and priorities.

In 2003 the Academic Priorities Committee superseded the Academic Council and the Academic Priorities Subcommittee.