At its weekend meeting, the Brown Corporation officially accepted two major gifts - one, from Brown stalwarts Artemis and Martha Sharp Joukowsky, will fund an archaeology institute, and one, from a trio of trustees, will pay for a new fitness center.
The Corporation officially accepted a "leadership gift" to further the development of the Institute of Archaeology and the Ancient World from Corporation Fellow Artemis A.W. Joukowsky '55 P'87, chancellor emeritus of the University, and Martha Sharp Joukowsky '58 P'87, professor emerita of old world archaeology and art.
The institute, which will coordinate the scattered programs in archaeology now housed in several University departments, was approved by the faculty in the spring, said Russell Carey '91, vice president and secretary for the University.
An additional gift from the Joukowskys will go towards renovating Rhode Island Hall to become the institute's home.
Trustees, who are mostly prominent parents and alumni, approved the placement of the new Jonathan M. Nelson Fitness Center somewhere in the Wendell R. Erickson '19 Athletic Complex. The Hope Street complex already houses most of the University's athletic facilities, including the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center and Pizzitola Sports Center. The exact footprint of the 50,000-square-foot facility has yet to be determined; the Corporation authorized the search for an architect at its Saturday morning meeting.
The fitness center was made possible by a combined $20 million gift from three trustees who President Ruth Simmons announced at Convocation in September.
The weekend meeting was one of three annual meetings of the entire Corporation. Members of the five Corporation committees - facilities and design, investment, academic affairs, budget and finance and campus life - met on Thursday and Friday, then presented their findings in a strategic session on Friday and voted on decisions during Saturday's business meeting, Carey said. The Corporation did not reject any proposals this year, he said.
"My sense of the meetings was that people felt very enthusiastic about the progress under the Plan for Academic Enrichment and about the direction of the university," Carey said.
The meeting included little debate, Carey said. "The October meeting tends to be a little more of a discussion," he said. "In February they decide on the budget, so there isn't the same level of decision-making in the October meeting." Corporation members officially accepted $132.92 million in donations - including $100 million from liquor importer Sidney Frank - and inducted new trustees.
The Department of Computer Science received a significant gift from an unnamed Brown graduate, whose private foundation gave over $2 million to support research, graduate fellowships and undergraduate teaching in computer science. One parent's million-dollar donation included $900,000 to support the creative arts, and an alum gave $670,000 to support an exchange program between Brown and Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge in England, according to a University press release.
Members also approved a change to the fee structure of the graduate school; established a Corporation committee, the Brown Medical School Committee, to oversee the medical school; established the 30-member Biology and Medicine Advisory Council; and approved a new Ph.D. program in computer music and multimedia, which will supersede the current master's program.
The Corporation has often had limited contact with the student body during meetings, although many members are involved in University activities. The campus life committee traditionally has the most contact with students, and this year it held a town hall-style dinner with trustees, coaches and students to discuss issues surrounding athletics, including facilities quality and use, the ongoing search for a new director of athletics and Brown's lack of school spirit.
"The meeting showed a lot of students that the Corporation is willing to talk to students," said Ryan Roth '05, the Undergraduate Council of Students' liaison to the Corporation. "People who went to that meeting expecting to interact with obstinate old white men were really sort of taken aback by the way (chairs Robin Lenhardt '89 and Laura Geller '71) engaged with students."
