President of Brown

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
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<p>Athletic Department cuts funding for four varsity teams
Brown University announced today (Monday, April 29, 1991) that it is withdrawing funding for four varsity teams as part of a Universitywide budget reduction process aimed at eliminating a projected $1.6-million deficit in the 1991-92 fiscal year. The four teams are men's water polo, men's golf, women's gymnastics and women's volleyball.
News Release 90-128 04/29/1991</p>

<p>This led to the famous “Title IX” suit, to which Brown responded:</p>

<p>"While we do not yet know why this legal action has been threatened, we suspect it has to do with our difficult decision last year to eliminate funding for four varsity sports, two of them women's. Brown was facing a budget deficit of $1.6 million for the 1991-92 fiscal year and has even more severe financial difficulties ahead. Brown's decision to discontinue funding for four varsity teams--men's water polo, men's golf, women's volleyball and women's gymnastics--was part of a University-wide budget reduction. All departments except the library and student financial aid made budget reductions."</p>

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<p>vartan's great, he made brown the amazing place it is now + completely changed the ny public library</p>

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<p>Then too, there is Brown's chronically underpaid faculty (at least relative to its fellow Ivies. Lowest faculty salaries in the Ivy League, thanks to years of tight budgets. (Would you like a cite to COHE?)</p>

<p>I applaud Ruth Simmons efforts to improve the situation with respect to faculty pay; she has made concrete steps, and I hope her ambitious program succeeds. </p>

<p>But there was a lot of work that needed doing when she walked in the door.</p>

<p>Wriston was the last great President of Brown; I expect Ruth Simmons may be the next.</p>

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<p>first off, nice edit byerly. wise too, but unfortunately, it won't make the grade.</p>

<p>you still have yet to prove that Gregorian's legacy was "of of decline and near financial crisis" (compadre)</p>

<p>that is the statement i object to. that is the statement you made up. that is the statement you can't prove.</p>

<p>though your claim about the endowments of other institutions is blatantly false, this is besides the point. we were discussing brown's financial status. </p>

<p>admit that you wrote something that was untrue.</p>

<p>to do otherwise is irresponsible, because while you may draw satisfaction in your old age from verbal masturbation, there are younger people on these forums who seek important information from which they make critical decisions about college.</p>

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<p>dcircle... its obviously looks like we are talking to a wall. Really doesn't matter what we say. He just has some grudge against this amazing man.</p>

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<p>Don't be silly. I only met him once and he was prefectly pleasant. For all I know, he may be, as you say, personally "amazing", and have done good things for the Library, but I just don't happen to think his tenure at Brown was as steller as friend "dcircle" and others proclaim.</p>

<p>So sue me, denounce me, whatever suits. Friend "dcircle" seems to think that by hurling churlish epithets, obscenities and insults my way he is winning some kind of point. I'll leave that to others to judge, and will not respond in kind. I have written nothing that was "untrue", and I have fond feelings for Brown.</p>

<p>Now Ruth Simmons may be "amazing" indeed. For Brown's sake, lets hope so, for as I have noted, "there was a lot of work that needed doing when she walked in the door", even though friend "dcircle" might like to pretend otherwise.</p>

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<p>I think the fact that you wait around on this forum in order to edit your posts after I've responded to them is not only indicitive of your guilt, but pathetic.</p>

<p>Title IX occured at the very beginning of Gregorian's tenure (1991) as an NCAA precedent. It is hardly a legacy</p>

<p>Verbal masturbation is not an obcenity--it means that your posts are for self-gratification, not to inform or help others. This too, is pathetic.</p>

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<p>Byerly writes:
"Vartan's regime (with all the no grades stuff).."
Byerly, the "New Curriculum" at Brown, which includes the option of taking any and all courses on a S/NC (satisfactory/no credit) basis, was adopted in 1969. Ray Heffner was Brown president at the time. Then Donald Hoenig became president. About 1977 or so, Howard Swearer, then president of Carleton College, became president of Brown. He served for about 13 years before Vartan Gregorian became president...</p>

<p>See full list here: <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Info/Presidents.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Info/Presidents.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>So, I think you've got your chronology more than a little confused since the "no grades stuff" was instituted 20 years before Gregorian became president.</p>

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<p>I understand the chronology very well, having followed Brown's ups and downs very closely for some years.</p>

<p>Poor Hoenig was destroyed by the rioters, etc. The whole "no grades" foolishness was adopted over his objection, and, to his credit, he resigned the next day.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>Hornig resigned as president in 1976, seven years after the S/NC system went into effect. </p>

<ol>
<li>There were no riots at Brown...NONE..NONE...EVER. The closest thing Brown ever had to a riot was the "walk out" by African-American students in 1968.To call it a riot is more than a little silly. It wasn't. (Edited, my memory was faulty..earlier than I remembered.) </li>
</ol></li>
</ol>

<p>Why don't you look at the time line I've posted before you make any more comments?</p>

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<p>I mispoke when I said HORNIG resigned over the "new curriculum"; it was his predecessor, HEFFNER, who resigned on the spot when the faculty gave into the rioters. HORNIG, on the other hand, resigned when the faculty backed down in the face of a "takeover" by "activists" opposing his plans to balance the budget and reverse some of the most extremist "reforms" adopted under pressure earlier.</p>

<p>Brief, sanitized biographies put it all in context:</p>

<p>RAY HEFFNER'S presidency followed thirty years of extraordinary leadership and unprecedented growth and change at Brown. But Heffner inherited two problems: the increasingly volatile climate of the 1960s and a strained financial picture created by Brown’s self-imposed pressure to enhance its reputation.</p>

<p>In light of his abbreviated tenure and his times, more prophetic words are difficult to imagine than Heffner’s own to the faculty on the day his appointment was announced: “These years, I am sure, will not be easy. Institutions of higher learning today are being asked by society to do more than ever before…. Students across the land are restless—uncertain about the values of the society they are entering, and impatient with the universities which are trying both to preserve and to criticize these values.” Later described as “years of turmoil,” Heffner’s reign was a defensive one, as his administration was forced to move from one crisis to another rather than address the University’s long-range needs. Heffner’s last six months included the December 1968 walkout by black students, the approval of coeducational housing, the banning of ROTC, and the passage of the New Curriculum in May 1969. Heffner resigned that month, saying, “I have simply reached the conclusion that I do not enjoy being a university president.”</p>

<p>DONALD HORNIG became Brown’s fourteenth president more than a year after the sudden resignation of Heffner. Hornig, a former Brown professor and a group leader at the Los Alamos Laboratory during the first tests of the atomic bomb, faced an extremely difficult financial picture, which had been developing for a number of years. The budget he inherited, in fact, was projected to be $4.1 million in the red. Hornig’s reductions cut the deficit to $1.25 million in two years, and by 1973 it was projected to be only $750,000. Austerity presidents tend to be unpopular, and Hornig’s threatened elimination of seventy-five faculty jobs did not endear him to that part of the Brown community. Asked to look back on his presidency, he once said, “I would not call it a satisfying experience. It was bittersweet.” Asked what he would change about it, he answered, “The times.”</p>

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<p>First, Heffner did resign after the New Curriculum was voted in...but the reason were a lot more complex than you suggest. In any event, there were NO RIOTS. There just weren't. The New Curriculum grew out of the "Magaziner-Maxwell Report." The whole process of studying the curriculum and suggesting changes was a lengthy one. Eventually, after a lot of study and arguing by the faculty, some, though not all, of the M-M Report's recommendations were voted in. Nobody "rioted" to get the faculty to vote in the curriculum. No buildings were occupied. No one was threatened. (Largely as a result of his work on the M-M Report, Ira Magaziner won a Rhodes Scholarship and, while at Oxford, became close friends with a young man named Bill Clinton.) Only if students and faculty breaking into committees to study various proposals to reform the curriculum over a period of many, many months constitutes a "riot" were there riots. </p>

<p>Nor were there any "riots" in 1975. If you want to read an account of what happened then, see <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/President/past/heffner.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/President/past/heffner.html&lt;/a>
Even in 1975, there were no riots. Demonstrations, yes. Riots...no. </p>

<p>I believe your posts imply both that the New Curriculum was instituted during Gregorian's era and that its introduction lead to a decline in Brown's US News' ranking. The curriculum was introduced many years before Gregorian became president and many years before the rankings you cite.</p>

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<p>You are just peddling the party line.</p>

<p>Don't get defensive; there were riots almost everywhere. I don't care whether you call them "demonstrations", "takeovers". "occupations" or whatever. All were threats and intrusive means by generally leftist elements to pressure administrators, trustees, faculty, etc.</p>

<p>And by-the-by, I certainly <em>do</em> think that the "no grades" thing hurt Brown's USNews standing - and that the effect was cumulative over time as Brown's peer rating by other academics fell in partial consequence.</p>