Brown: Poor Relation of the Ivy League

Brown has Ivy on the brain. Last year Capitol Records pressed a record album entitled "Songs of the Ivy League" including selections from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and Pennsylvania. Brown alone was excluded and Brown was hurt.

Despite fresh educational ideas and expanded facilities at the university, the Brown man is worried that he is not accepted in the bosom of the Ivy. The Brown Daily Herald asks "Are We Ivy?" The administration feels Brown holds an unjustifiably low position on the Ivy fringe. Self-consciously the 190-year-old Providence university looks at the rest of the League with puppy-dog eyes and asks recognition for its new high academic standards.

Brown has just completed an extended building program, and instituted a revolutionary new study plan. Both have lifted the university by the bootstraps. People at Brown optimistically point to the best dormitories ever build on College Hill. They envision nation-wide acclaim for their high-powered course plan. And they see the traditional prestige of the "Ivy Label" as rightfully theirs.

But whether the new plans will really be a triumph is still a question mark. As President Henry M. Wriston puts it, "That's like asking whether a six month old baby is going to be president of the United States."

The Wriston era--now 17 years strong--started in 1937 when the balding former Lawrence College president came to Brown. Behind him in Appleton, Wisconsin he left today's youngest educational leader, Nathan Pusey. Together they had pampered Pusey's sophomore tutorial into the outstanding feature of the Lawrence curriculum. Though Wriston moved to bigger things, leaving Pusey as his eventual successor, the now Brown president never forgot the Lawrence tutorial. A modified program came to Brown and this fall is the controversial part of the curriculum.

"IC"-Idea Criticism

Founded last January on a $250,000 grant from the Carnegie Institute, the controversial "IC" plan--short for Intelligent Criticism of Ideas--is the key to Brown's future standing in the educational world. If successful it may bring the long-denied national prestige. So far it is working beautifully.

A cross between Harvard's tutorial and St. John's Great Books course, "IC" departs radically from anything ever offered before at Brown. Approximately 200 freshmen with high averages were asked to take the study. After eight weeks they are responding remarkably well.

The substance of the "IC" is a substitution of reason for memorization. Meeting in groups of 20 with a professor, sophomores and freshmen read, discuss, and above all, criticize original great works in the three fields of humanities, social studies, and natural studies.

"The weakness of a university has always been its first two years," Wriston states. "Now with two "IC" courses required in every field we may have the problem licked."

An English professor explains the student's reaction this way. "They are excited, confused, and everything but bored. They are beginning to see that life isn't wrapped in golden packages. They learn you can't sum up centuries of reasoning in one class period."

Put another way, President Wriston calls this study of books and ideas "the shock we needed around here." The president, who doesn't believe students can be given too much work, is delighted the plan is giving sophomores and freshmen a rough time.

"The worst curse of modern education is understanding a student's capabilities," he states. "Great books courses are superficial for they don't teach students to criticize. Old books aren't important as old books but for the light they shed on future years."

Section men quickly land on the courses' weaknesses and freely admit mistakes. "There are too many humanities and not enough sciences," means one. "Sections are alternately boring and delightful," comments another. But all agree the program has challenged the complacent Brown undergraduate as he has never been challenged before.

Behind the "IC's" early success lie years of planning, Wriston has envisaged an integrated building and academic program. Acting on the theory that keen thinking and comfortable living go hand in hand he instigated the "Quadrangle" idea. "The quad is not just building per se, it's really studying and living all rolled in one," the president explains.

But Brown wanted the quadrangle for reasons even more pressing that marks.

Two years ago alumni and undergraduates watched fraternities squabble with the university over liquor and parietal restrictions. They saw houses that leaked and lighting that was inadequate. Besides poor facilities, the frats were scattered over College Hill. All sense of small college unity had seeped away. Independents and commuters had unequal facilities.

"Quad" Cohesion

Wriston envisioned the solution and today the "Quadrangle" stands as a monument to the new Brown cohesion. This eight-acre series of muddled dorms and fraternities houses 60 per cent of the undergraduates. A pale-red brick wall and grass moat surround the labyrinth of closely-packed buildings. No one suffers from clostrophobia and everyone finds they have a new centralized social life.

Symbol of new Brown unity, the low slung "Refectory" serves 3000 meals to faculty and students at lunch and dinner. The reverse of Harvard, where freshman life in the yard, Brown relegates the newcomers to scattered dormitories 100 years old. From there, they all trudge daily to the "Refree." While once the fraternity boys isolated themselves in their own "off-campus" dining room, today they rub elbows with the commuter and independent--if just at meals. Living in houses distinguished only by the greek-lettering over the doorways, the chapter man's one concession from the university is the questionable privilege of eating in a private room which projects off the main dining rectangle.

Senior frat-men fondly remember the old freedoms, which if illegal, were freely practiced and rarely condemned. But they are a minority which will graduate this spring. The new generation, which likes the bright lighting and big windows, eats lunch while music blares from Refrectory loud-speakers, and can't picture a decentralized Brown.

Commuter Isolation

Long popular with the local gentry, the college's Gallup rating has jumped noticeably since the quad's completion. Twenty percent of the undergraduates commute from nearby Providence and many are clamoring to live with the big windows and dinner music. But the quad is already crammed.

With no rooms open, commuters find they are isolated from the centralized social life of the college. Last spring their unrest broke out in demands for a special commuter's center equipped with beds and easy chairs. The center was bought but there are no chairs or beds as yet. It stands today as an empty reminder of Brown's struggle to bind the college into a social and academic unit, a struggle which is so far fairly successful.

Wriston now feels he has some definite points in his favor in the battle for top students. The quadrangle has not only helped raise the college's academic average but it has proved a tangible attraction to parents who want to see their sons situated in pleasant surroundings.

He keeps constant check on his Ivy competitors and their admissions policies. He is willing to battle, but has perhaps taken on more competition than he can hope to conquer.

Wriston's Admissions

The Brown president has radically altered the college's admissions policy to meet competition. The new policy puts primary emphasis on attracting the intellectual. It has replaced the long-held Brown tradition of provincialism with new plans aimed at attracting a widely-distributed student body. Almost half the the cosmopolitan university threads onto College Hill from out of state, particularly from the St. Louis area.

The one section where Brown has been noticeably unsuccessful in attracting students is in the South, once its most fertile out-of-state undergraduate source. In fact, of the Brown alumni killed in the Civil War, almost half were Confederates who had come North to gain a New England Baptist education. But Brown has gradually lost its liberal Baptist tinge, and the Southern hard-shells have grown to mistrust anything north of the Mason-Dixon.

The president has carried on a highly successful drive to revise his entire administrative organization. He now has a top educator and progressive thinker in vice-president Bruce M. Bigelow who administers his stopped-up intellectual program. His drive, pointed toward cutting astronomical student mortality figures, has succeeded in bringing expulsions down to half their former number. But there is a limit to what can be accomplished without capital and facilities to attract top educators.

Small Endowment

Deep down at the bottom of Brown's failure in its quest for Ivy League leadership has been its lack of funds. A small endowment and heavy dependence on yearly gifts will continue to be the largest single stumbling block in the university's future quest for a nationally respected faculty. Without these funds Wriston faces the almost impossible task of offering instruction equal to the best in the Ivy.

Without the money to pay for outstanding professors, Brown has already defaulted in perhaps the major requirement for an international educational reputation. The university still manages to attract a sound faculty, especially in History. Wriston pushes it hard to produce.

Among the Ivy group he offers relatively more freedom from administrative duties to faculty members than do other universities which give them more time for research. But the university does not have a faculty noted for its scholarship, nor for its influence in national affairs. An increase in the size of the "IC" program will mean still additional faculty and extra expense to the university.

The lack of funds goes beyond the faculty. Brown offers as many scholarships as Harvard, but can afford to give only about 60 percent as much to each applicant. Time and again, one of the other Ivy Colleges steals away a prospective top student by offering him considerably more than Brown could. In a typical case Wriston contacted a particularly brilliant student whom he wanted to get into Brown's freshman class this year. He offered the high school senior $700. But the student went to Harvard under the blessing of a $1500 grant. Still, Brown, like Harvard, this year has one of the best freshman classes it has every attracted.

Since the college cannot compete for top students on an equal basis with most of the Ivy, Brown finds itself accepting a greater percentage of lower percentile applicants than do its competitors. Starting with less top grade talent the college--small to begin with--further decreases its chances of producing the intellectual leaders it would like.

In addition, Wriston's insistence upon strict academic standards means that a correspondingly higher percentage of students flunk out every year. Of the present senior class at Brown only 365 remain from an original freshman group of over 600. This sharp drop is a public warning that Brown expects its students to keep their averages up. It also suggests that Wriston may be overdoing his quest for the top. He may be asking for more than his students are intellectually capable of producing.

The Brown man is fighting a reputation of middle-class mediocrity. He wants to be Ivy but he has nothing distinctively Ivy to offer, He Cannot be typed beyond "urban" and "conservative." He passes his drinking tradition on to Dartmouth, his "second-choice college" reputation to U. Va. and he dares not rest on the small college theme of friendliness.

There could be one distinctive characteristic of a Brown man. It's a combination of pluckiness and warmth, found no where else in the League. Since the days of Roger Williams, this friendly atmosphere has hung about the nation's tenth oldest college. Even before the unifying influence of quadrangle, generations of Brown men opened their college careers on a note of class cohesion and Brown loyalty.

Vigilance and Unity

The Vigilance Committee, dating from the college's earliest history, assumes the job of instilling in each incoming class Brown's friendly tradition. The "V. C," meets the freshmen armed with 600 odd beanies, a list of college rules, and a collection of Brown songs.

For two hectic weeks they persecute the freshman into avoiding forbidden gates, scrupulously wearing their beanies to bed, and serenading Pembroke at two in the morning. The climax of this hazing comes in a "greased-pole fight," when freshmen battle sophomores for a little white flag perched on a tall greasy pole. The sophomores have lost the trophy only twice in the V. C.'s history. But regardless of outcome, the freshmen have legally earned the right to toss off their beanies.

Out of it all comes the Brown man... whose major social faux pas is to walk past a classmate without saying hello. In the confines of the Quadrangle, the ultimate law is friendliness.

Within these same confines, fraternity "Rush Week" starts 30 per cent of the freshman class toward a set of contradictory attitudes. Fraternities are the social life of the college. Denied these social advantages for six months, the freshman at "Rush Week" discards his class loyalties and submerges himself in fraternity life.

Loyalty Clash

The result is a clash between college and fraternity loyalties.

The friendly atmosphere suffers. Though it remains strong on the surface, as is evidenced by the "hello" tradition, it only covers an upperclass apathy pre-vading half of Brown. But the junior year, every class office is held by a non-fraternity man. Among the college's 69 organizations only the Brown key has a strong fraternity representation. While seeking to satisfy social desires, the fraternities have actually weakened the cohesion of the undergraduate body.

The Brown student council--The Camarion Club--works to offset this split. Drawing its membership largely from the independents, the C.C. has a strong influence on the Brown campus. All organizations must submit constitutions to the club before they organize and the faculty is eager to listen to C.C. recomendations. Recently, after a two year absence, keg beer was returned to College Hill at the council's petition. The Camarion is now considering a plan to place Brown under an honor system. Side by side with the student council, the independent, commutor, and fraternity councils attempt to weld the college into one.

Compulsory Chapel

Petty undergraduate restrictions are a further device toward college unity, but most are poorly enforced, Freshmen and sophomores easily flaunt the restrictions on automobiles, and are only caught by having an accident. Though eight o'clock parietal rules are in effect, the quadrangle has three entrances. And Pembroke's is easily accessible. Chapel is compulsory, to be attended once a week, between the final morning class and 12:30 p.m. Refrectory lunch. Most students find it convenient to attend, and, if unable to, can use one of several cuts permitted each term.

Brown stages two "all-college" blasts, one at homecoming in the fall, and the other in the spring. To a man, fraternity member and independent drink together. The quadrangle echoes with the Brown songs that were once scattered over the West side of Providence. At such times the lid is off, Somehow the quad effectively confines and unifies the merrymaking.

There is no question that Brown has risen in inner Ivy circles. With its new building and educational systems, it has established itself as worthy of the Ivy League's respect. Perhaps with the expected success of its "IC" will also come some of the prestige that goes with the Ivy label.

So far, however, 190 years have not yet produced an intellectual product consistently challenging the Ivy's best. Under Wriston's prodding, the Brown man may someday be known as a scholar, but today he is known for nothing specific. Until that hoped-for day of prestige descends up Providence's College Hill Brown will be known as the Ivy's poor relation.PRESIDENT HENRY M. WRISTON, former Lawrence College President, now in his 17th year at Brown developed the "IC" courses and new "Quadrangle.