On Valentine’s Day, Brown University became a host site for One Billion Rising, the global movement to end violence against women through the medium of dance. Alexis Aurigemma ‘13, the mtvU correspondent at Brown, reports on the action on campus in this video.
Six of Rhode Island’s nine four-year colleges and universities raised a combined $205.6 million in the 2012 fiscal year, an increase of 6.3 percent compared with 2011, according to a report released Wednesday by the Council for Aid to Education. Charitable contributions and donations to Brown accounted for the majority of Rhode Island’s year-over-year improvement, with $178.1 million raised in 2012
Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science, comments on the lack of urgency in Congress to avoid the March 1 spending cut deadline, noting that March 27 -- the date when the current government funding authority expires -- is an ideal point for Congress to alter its current spending plans.
Brown University President Christina Paxson is among the respondents to the March 2013 issue's The Big Question: What day most changed the course of history? "The day Johannes Gutenberg finished his wooden printing press in 1440, Western civilization turned onto a path toward more efficient, accessible communication of knowledge. The ensuing democratization of ideas had a profound impact on societies in the second half of the second millennium," Paxson said.
A proposed federal effort to map the human brain has drawn both applause and dismay over its ambitious scope and potential costs. "We are right on the edge of finding out really vital information about the brain," says Brown University neuroscientist John Donoghue, who was part of the project team. "There are questions we can now answer that can only be tackled as a collaborative project," not by individual labs.
According to newly released data by US2010, a project funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University that examines changes in American society, more Americans moved during the 2007-09 recession because they couldn't afford to stay where they were. People moved the most in metropolitan areas with the highest unemployment and highest foreclosure rates, particularly in hard-hit parts of the Sun Belt.
Recent research by Rose McDermott, professor of political science, that found that people who have more fearful dispositions were more inclined to be politically conservative is cited in this article on new research that found that conservatives and liberals use different parts of their mind when making risky decisions, and that these differences in brain function can be used to predict party affiliation.
Karen Berlin Ishii, an alumna interviewer for Brown, offers tips for prospective students who plan to go for an interview. She also lists typical questions to anticipate.
Brown is listed among U.S. News & World Report's 64 U.S. colleges and universities that claim to meet 100 percent of financial aid for all students. The article cautions that each school has varying definitions of need, deadlines that must be met to qualify and that for many schools, those who are foreign, late, or waitlisted do not qualify.
The U.S. government is planning a large-scale project that seeks to create the most comprehensive map of the human brain assembled so far, according to scientists involved in the project. The idea "is to organize a national effort to crack the problem" of how the brain functions at its deepest levels, and how various neurological ailments might be better treated, said John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University who is involved in the project.
A profile of Brown alum Nora Fox, who's starring as feisty Mimi Marquez in Ocean State Theatre’s production of “Rent,” which opens Wednesday in previews.
A Politifact check into claims by Rep. Brian Patrick Kennedy that employers and schools have no right to conduct “surveillance of a dorm room or a worker’s cubicle” includes a call to Brown University, where spokesman Mark Nickel said the university’s lawyers are “not aware of any legislation that either permits or forbids surveillance in dorm rooms. As a matter of well-established practice, Brown does not allow surveillance in private areas like dormitory rooms, and the general counsel’s office is unaware of any college or university that does.”
Dean Katherine Bergeron participates in a panel discussion on how the state is retooling the education system from K-12 and beyond to prepare students for 21st Century jobs. Other panelists were David Abbott, Deputy Rhode Island Commissioner of Education, John Hazen White, Jr., President of Taco, Inc., Steven Kitchin, Vice President for Corporate Education and Training at New England Institute of Technology.
When Associate Professor of Pediatrics Leslie Gordon’s son Sam was diagnosed with a rare premature aging disease, the lives of dozens of families changed. As a pediatrician and medical researcher at Brown University, Gordon set out to learn what caused her son’s condition and how to treat it.
On Friday afternoon, an asteroid will whiz past Earth in a truly close encounter — closer than any other such object since scientists began tracking such near-Earth objects a quarter-century ago. Francine Jackson, research associate in physics, hopes to catch a glimpse as it passes by.
More sustainable biofuel crops like perennial grasses and shrub willow are under development, but the sugars in plants like these are locked away behind tough, woody cell walls, and getting at them can be a costly process. Now researchers at Brown University have found a bacteria called Streptomyces, which could be deployed as a microscopic “biorefinery” to get the job done.
Maurice Herlihy, professor of computer science at Brown University, has been named a member of the National Academy of Engineering, which the university described as one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.
Nicole Nugent, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior, comments on the lack of evidence that exists on the best treatments for children affected by trauma, saying that action should be taken regardless. "One thing that we know doesn't work is nothing," she said. "Something horrible happens, and (kids) think 'If I don't think about it, if I don't talk about it, it will go away.' And that absolutely doesn't happen."
Researchers at Brown University have concocted a compound that could restore neural functions in children with the rare genetic disorder Angelman syndrome and potentially lead to therapies for other diseases that affect learning and memory.
Students from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design planned to do something different for Valentine’s Day. In an effort to ensure marriage equality in Rhode Island, students planned a rally on College Hill before a march to the Statehouse, where Representative Frank Ferri was scheduled to speak publicly.
The U.S. Department of Education has released an interactive online College Scorecard as part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to hold colleges accountable for cost, value and quality. Among the stats, Brown is listed as having a 1.5 percent loan default rate, an average annual tuition cost of $22,743 after financial aid and scholarships are factored, the highest graduation rate in the state, at 95.2 percent, and average monthly loan paybacks of $181.01.
Brown University has increased tuition by 4 percent, to $57,232, for fiscal 2014. That includes tuition (rising 4.2 percent to $44,608), room and board (rising 3.2 percent to $7,200 and $4,420 respectively), health fee ($690, an increase of $18), recreation fee ($64, unchanged), and student activities fee ($250, an increase of $36).
Brown University is creating a school of public health, bolstering its science offerings, which include a medical school. The public health school will open July 1, the Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island, said today in a statement. National accreditation is expected to take about two years.
Mindfulness may be so successful in helping with a range of conditions, from depression to pain, by working as a sort of "volume knob" for sensations, according to a new review of studies from Brown University researchers.
Governor Chafee is recommending an “immediate and thorough overhaul” of the programs that enabled the University of Rhode Island and the two state colleges to give $9.2 million in “tuition waivers” last year. The article notes that tuition assistance at Brown requires minimum work requirements and tuition aid for dependents is limited to the children of regular payroll employees who have worked for Brown at least four full years.
Educational endowments to colleges and universities in the Ocean State dropped 6.4 percent in the 2012 fiscal year, with Brown University’s endowment, the state’s largest, dipping 7.3 percent during the fiscal year to $2.46 billion.
In today’s Academic Minute, Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science, explores American society’s ongoing struggle to minimize hate speech while preserving the First Amendment.
No college or university offered such treatment just six years ago, but when Brown University said last week that its student health plan would be extended to cover sex-change surgery beginning in August, advocates for transgender students said Brown would become the 36th college to do so. Quotes Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, who said "Students had been asking about it, so we’d been looking at it for a couple of years, whether our health plan was in line with our nondiscrimination policy.”
A list of 10 recent studies or surveys trying to make sense of matters of the heart includes 2012 research out of Brown that found that brain scans may be able to predict if a relationship will last.
After reviewing the most recent pool of MFA applications, Brian Evenson, professor of literary arts, has posted on Facebook an 11-point list of advice titled "Advice for Future MFA Applicants." Items include "Turn in your very best piece of fiction," and "Don't try to pretend you're something you're not."
