BrownTogether gifts and grants have raised more than $20 million since the start of the last academic year to support priorities outlined in the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, the University announced in a Feb. 26 news release.
The University has committed more than $157 million to DIAP priorities over the past five years with a combination of donor contributions and operational funds, according to the release. Phase II of DIAP is expected to launch this year.
“We have all experienced a year unlike any other, and I believe donors understand that what is happening in the nation and world impacts our campus,” Shontay Delalue, vice president for institutional equity and diversity, wrote in an email to The Herald. “These funds allow us to further our work in research, teaching and supporting the (diverse) constituents that live, study and work at Brown.”
The BrownTogether gifts and grants will complement other University diversity and inclusion initiatives, including the Task Force on Anti-Black Racism and the Brown Corporation Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
The $20 million raised will support centers and scholarships focused on priorities outlined in DIAP at Brown, which seeks to improve diversity and inclusion in areas that include people, academics and community.
Of this amount, a new five million dollar endowment established by Perri A. Peltz ’82 will provide financial support for the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.
“This generous gift is transformational,” CSREA Director Tricia Rose wrote in an email to The Herald. “Endowed gifts of this size provide a strong foundation for the Center's longevity and stability.”
These funds will allow for new curricula, programs and research to be established at the center. The CSREA will host a Humanities Lab that will support studies of race in connection to Brown courses and The Mass Incarceration Lab @ CSREA that will collect the stories of individuals who have been incarcerated, Rose wrote. Another lab will examine the role of mutual aid organizations in Rhode Island.
“I want Brown students to be able to learn about the central role race plays in the world,” Rose wrote. “Imagine how powerful and transformational it would be if we all played a part in offering a deeper critical engagement with race in our classrooms.”
In addition to the BrownTogether funds, a four million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded in December 2019 has enabled a collaboration between the CSREA and academic centers at Yale, Stanford University and the University of Chicago, The Herald previously reported. The grant aims to expand the study of race in the humanities across the four campuses.
The $20 million will also support the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. At the recommendation of David Haas ’78, the Wyncote Foundation and the Waterman II Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation established a five million dollar endowment to support the CSSJ, “a lead gift in an effort to establish a $10 million endowment for the center." Another $1 million from Jerome Vascellaro ’74 and Mary Vascellaro ’74 will also support the CSSJ.
The CSSJ received a separate $4.9 million Mellon Foundation grant in February 2021, which funds a partnership with Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum, The Herald previously reported. The three institutions will explore the relationship between European colonization, Indigenous dispossession and racial slavery through maritime history.
The BrownTogether gifts and grants will also offer financial support for students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, according to the news release. Financial support for the Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion Impact Fund — which supports student-driven initiatives such as the Minority Peer Counselors program — have quintupled in the last year.
Furthermore, donations to the Inman Page Black Alumni Council Brown Annual Fund Scholarship quadrupled in fiscal year 2020, according to the news release. The scholarship, which was launched in 2018 to support the education of Black students on campus, is now able to benefit seven students.
Zakiyah Whitaker ’23, a recipient of the scholarship, has found that it has given her more freedom to focus on her educational opportunities, she said.
“I have a lot of financial needs, so … I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do without it,” Whitaker said. “It’s definitely helped me focus on my grades more.”
The creation of scholarships like these that support diversity and inclusion allows students to find representation and community on campus, she said, adding that scholarships that promote a diverse study body help students from historically underrepresented groups feel more comfortable on campus.
As a result, campus can become a place “where students will probably feel more comfortable rather than being that one-in-a-million minority person on campus,” Whitaker said. “I feel very supported.”
ADVERTISEMENT
