<p>Any thoughts about the new university president?</p>
<p>Info: [Economist</a> Christina Hull Paxson elected 19th president of Brown University | Brown University News and Events](<a href=“http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2012/03/paxson]Economist”>Economist Christina Hull Paxson elected 19th president of Brown University | News from Brown)</p>
<p>Looks promising. The fact she has won teaching awards from students multiple times is a good sign. Also think a good fit in the background with health studies, as she has to be president of the Undergrad and Medical schools. Little bit concerned re her primary background centering around grad studies. Do Not Want Brown to become heavily grad student oriented!</p>
<p>A friend of a friend knows her and says she is dynamic and wonderful. She seems to have a wide range of experience. </p>
<p>Proof I’m getting old: One of the first things I thought of was whether she is a good fundraiser.</p>
<p>Brown students are among the top 6-7th in the nation when compared with HPY + Mit + Stanford + CIT, but the school’s ranked around 15th (according to USnews ranking 2011), which is not very impressive to the student parents and alumni.</p>
<p>Hope new president can boost the rank to at least within 10 in very near future, i say within 2-5 years. </p>
<p>Here are my suggestions based on my perception on Brown’s strength and the future priorities. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>make public health program top in the nation. (a new program with new president’s expertise and background)</p></li>
<li><p>make medical school rank climbs up to within 20th in very near future. (with the new school building, facilities, research and faculties)</p></li>
<li><p>establish top-notch finance/MBA program (e.g. finance engineering), so there are more students in the wall street, better for fund-raising. (Based on Brown’s outstanding applied math program and others)</p></li>
<li><p>others input ---- if you have</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Endowment is very important to school, school must have a plan to extend/enhance its fund-raising channels and bases. One of the most effective way is the presence of the students or alumni in wall street. Look at Dartmouth, because its student’s heavy presence in wall street, i believe their fund-raising is much easier than many schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Speak for yourself. I’m an alum and parent of a student, and I couldn’t care less that Brown is ranked 15. As far as I’m concerned, 15 out of 3000 schools is pretty darn good.</p>
<p>And I’m not interested in Brown having an MBA program.</p>
<p>So transform Brown into Harvard Lite? Erm… No.</p>
<p>“I’m an alum and parent of a student, and I couldn’t care less that Brown is ranked 15. As far as I’m concerned, 15 out of 3000 schools is pretty darn good.” – it used to be top 6 or 7 in the nation, now 15, if you are not concerned, i am.</p>
<p>“And I’m not interested in Brown having an MBA program.” – then tell me where to raise more money(channels and bases). Not necessary to have a MBA program, but similar to Princeton univ’s finance program is fine.</p>
<p>Brown isn’t “ranked” 15th. One magazine without any honestly-earned legitimacy brands it 15th once a year. Most of us don’t care about that at all, and there’s no evidence that it cuts into Brown’s ability to attract qualified, appropriate students.</p>
<p>Hey folks, suppose Harvard or Princeton’s rank slip to beyond 5th, would their students parents or alumni care? i believe they care.</p>
<p>“Hey folks, suppose Harvard or Princeton’s rank slip to beyond 5th, would their students parents or alumni care? i believe they care.”</p>
<p>I’m all for the people for whom ranking is everything staying far, far away from Brown.</p>
<p>It’s not just about ranking, it’s about endowment, and others. Brown has its own uniqueness and character, but you want to be the best on every aspects, when compared with HYPS.</p>
<p>But having a huge endowment is not worth the price of sucking the soul out of everything that is Brown. </p>
<p>For the sake of PLME, it would be nice to boost the med school’s rankings, but for exactly that reason I don’t think it ever will get that high. Almost none of the elite medical schools offer 8 year programs because from a pure odds standpoint, applicants picked as high school seniors are more likely to be duds than the ones picked as college seniors (or later) especially since it is so easy to stay in the PLME program (as it should be if the point it to encourage academic freedom).</p>
<p>I don’t want Brown to try to be a wall street factory. Even though it currently doesn’t, my friends from Brown who went that road sure don’t seem to think they got short changed.</p>
<p>If I wanted to go to Harvard for undergrad and play 2nd fiddle to the grad schools I would have. If I wanted to go to MIT and have everyone assume I’m an engineer regardless of my actual interests I would have. Princeton is the only school on your magical list that is anything close to Brown in terms of its undergraduate focus (Yale’s college system helps, and Duke/Stanford have athletics to rally and fundraise around but they’re still quite different from Brown and I assure you that difference does not equal better), why would we want to lose what makes Brown Brown just to pander to the small few who decide their undergraduate experience so heavily on a magazine?</p>
<p>If you go on an endowment per student measurement, don’t we actually have a much larger endowment than it looks?</p>
<p>Brown has a unique educational philosophy, and with so much of the USNWR rankings being based on what other deans think, it’s never going to get to the top because doing so would require every dean acknowledging that they way their school runs is wrong. For the most extreme example: How can Columbia’s ever say that Brown is a better school? The philosophies are basically polar opposites and of course Brown’s peer schools will always look down on it for allowing students to make their own curriculums, not grade with +/-, and not have failing courses on the transcript.</p>
<p>Money can buy resources including new/old building, lure/hire great researchers, fund research, provide better financial aids and enhance stronger student body. </p>
<p>Work in wall street is not a shame, Brown will not become wall street factory, it is one of the career opportunities provide to students. Lots of elite school graduate with high GPA can’t even get a job from wall street.</p>
<p>Stay cool and maintain character is one thing, to compete in the real world is another thing, Ask old alumni, when Brown’s rank fall beyond 15th place, how do they feel?</p>
<p>A world class school must have world class resources, period. Since we all agree that Princeton is a school similar to Brown in terms its character. But how about resources …, there is much room for improvements.</p>
<p>Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t suggesting Brown doesn’t need to change anything or increase endowment, I was just suggesting that your ideas for change (improve/create graduate or other vocational educational programs) were not the way to do it. All i’m saying is that the size of the endowment is not the end-all be all of Brown, and that improving it in ways that are otherwise detrimental to the special character of the university that most alumni know and love is foolish.</p>
<p>I was also saying that no matter what we do or how large our endowment is, I doubt Brown will ever crack the top 10 on USNWR because the personal bias of other schools is the largest part of their ranking system, and the fact that the rest of our peers look down on us as being less rigorous is never going to change as long as we march to the beat of our own very different, curricular drum.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am an “old alumni,” as are many of my friends. I see dozens of Brown alums every year. Never once, ever, in decades, have we discussed Brown’s ranking with concern. The “old” Brown alums I know couldn’t care less that Brown’s rank, according to one source, is 15. And the dozens of “young” alumni I know also couldn’t care less.</p>
<p>I don’t know which “old alums” you hang out with. And given how you write, I am not convinced that you are an “old Brown alum.” And if you aren’t, how can you speak for us?</p>
<p>However, I do believe there is room for improvement – there always is. I was the one who brought up fundraising to begin with – of course Brown needs to boost its endowment. Simmons and Gregorian were expert fundraisers, and I sure hope Paxson is too. TPTB at Brown are aware of the resource issues – it’s been a problem for decades. Is the only way to boost endowment to create an MBA program? I really can’t engage you in that discussion since higher education fundraising is not my field of knowledge.</p>
<p>Brown’s strength has always been its university-college model – where the emphasis is on the undergrad. As an alum, I would be very disappointed if that model were abandoned to create graduate programs for the sole purpose of getting money from Wall Street fat cats to increase endowment. I can assure you that while “old alums” don’t complain about Brown’s ranking, we DO complain about the increased emphasis on graduate programs.</p>
<p>BigFire: it’s very very clear by your posts that you are neither a student, alum or a parent of an Ivy grad. Nor do you probably know any intimately. To suggest that anyone associated with Brown would lose any second of sleep over some superfluous “ranking” belies your lack of real knowledge or association with an Ivy education.</p>
<p>By your imagination, HYP alumni clubs are sitting together upon the release of each annual USNWR report and high fiving each other. Immediately they go out and sneer at their Columbia, Penn and Brown underlings. And of course, they slink away in shame</p>
<p>This is just baloney.</p>
<p>I can assure you that while “old alums” don’t complain about Brown’s ranking, we DO complain about the increased emphasis on graduate programs. – Do you live on another planet or …, why almost every IVY school in wiki has all sorts of rankings posted (like ARWU, Forbes, US. News & World Report, Washington Monthly, GRWU, QS, Times), please see [Brown</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_University]Brown”>Brown University - Wikipedia), [Princeton</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University]Princeton”>Princeton University - Wikipedia). Brown is a private school, it needs to compete with other institutions on research, students, faculties, fund-raising
.<br>
And what’s wrong with graduate/professional program? Do you mean great graduate program cant co-exist with great undergraduate? Please tell me on the fact on Princeton, Harvard … </p>
<p>To me, i don’t complain about its undergraduate education in Brown, it is top on the nation without any doubt. Look how many Rhodes Scholars produced by Brown last year, [Four</a> from Brown receive 2012 Rhodes Scholarships | Brown University News and Events](<a href=“http://news.brown.edu/features/2011/11/rhodes]Four”>Four from Brown receive 2012 Rhodes Scholarships | News from Brown).
How many Brown students has been selected to other elite medical schools each year, i would only pick a couple of med schools i saw yesterday on CC board (not just the admitted number but compare the size of Brown university to other big size schools) - [Who</a> Chooses WU](<a href=“http://medadmissions.wustl.edu/HowtoApply/selectionprocess/Pages/WhoChoosesWU.aspx]Who”>http://medadmissions.wustl.edu/HowtoApply/selectionprocess/Pages/WhoChoosesWU.aspx) [Yale</a> University Bulletin | School of Medicine 2011?2012 | Enrollment for 2010?2011](<a href=“Welcome | Office of the University Printer”>Welcome | Office of the University Printer)
I think the statistics on entering top law and MBA programs are the same. Brown still is one of the very top in the nation in terms undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Point is, do we want to always be the top feeder producer to other elite schools, not/less developing/emphasizing our own graduate/professional programs? We have best students and curriculum in the nation, why we want others to grab the crown; Is it fair to the graduate/medical students and current faculties here?? </p>
<p>For those who attend their graduate/professional schools in other institutions, (because Brown has lower ranking in many graduate/professional studies - see [PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources for scientists and engineers](<a href=“http://www.phds.org/]PhDs.org:”>http://www.phds.org/), so they apply to better ranking schools after graduate.) They naturally have another alma mater. Maybe this is one of the reasons why our endowment is the smallest among IVies. </p>
<p>Since this a college board (lots of high school students and their parents will see/evaluate), I like to share a little on open curriculum, many schools in the world have adopted this philosophy for their first year/second year students, not just Brown. </p>
<p>Each department in Brown has its own core requirements before you can take advanced course and get a degree. You are free to take any course, but it doesnt bring you a degree until you fulfill its requirements. At Brown, if you want to get A in science or engineering, you are mostly on top 1/3 in the class, the competition is rigorous, but learning environment is very enjoyable. Some people may say, other Ivies will laugh at Browns open curriculum, well, until they come to Brown study and feel the rigorousness (During finals, students sleep less than 4-5 hours a day is a norm, very few students slack off (because of the learning environments, you will not and you are not going to choose to do so), dont be fooled!!), they will appreciate how good Brown is. </p>
<p>One thing I would like to continue stand my position is - Wall Street opportunities. For those Brown graduates and entering top elite business school, after they graduate, one of the employment opportunities is wall-street, so whats the difference if Brown has its own top business program.</p>
<p>The fact that rankings are reported consistently throughout wikipedia is the result of a group of wikipedians who have pressed hard for their inclusion and created structures (like the rankings infobox) to reinforce their views. In my opinion, this is the result of a confused application of Wikipedia’s neutrality and notability policies; rankings are seen as objective by those who don’t understand how they are developed, and famous rankings are seen as particularly legitimate, so including the same famous rankings consistently across wikipedia pages of the colleges is seen as supporting both policies. In any case, it has nothing to do with popular opinions or the opinions of alumni about rankings, it has to do with a small number of Wikipedia editors.</p>