Brown University - Liber Brunensis Yearbook (Providence, RI)

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ENSCONCED in one of the somber inner sanctums of University Hall is the President, Dr. Barnaby C. Keeney. President Keeney, after completing his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina, went to Harvard where he received both his mater's de- gree in 1937 and his doctor's in 1939. He resigned his teaching position at Harvard in 1942 to enter the United States Army. Released three years la- ter with the rank of Captain, Dr. Keen- ey continued his studies with a Gug- genheim Post-Service Fellowship. Brown undergraduates first learned of Dr. Keeney in 1946 when he arrived to assume his duties as assistant pro- fessor of history. Three years later he became the Dean of the Graduate School. This was followed in 1953 by his appointment as Dean of the College. In 1955 the Brown Univer- sity Corporation elected him twelfth President of the University, succeeding Henry M. Wiriston. President Keen- ey's years at Brown have been inter- rupted only once, when, in 1952, he left temporarily to serve in the Central Intelligence Agency. The President works intimately with the Corporation since, in large meas- ure, it determines the administrative policy of the University. In accordance with the Charter of 1764, the Cor- poration is composed of two bodies: the Board of Fellows and the Board of Trustees. The Fellows, twelve in all, have as their presiding officer the President of the Umiversity; whereas, the Trustees, a somewhat larger group, elect the Chancellor of the University as their chairman. Both Boards have their particular functions; for instance, only the Board of Fellows may award degrees. Yet, fundamentally, the business of the University can only be conducted with the concurrence of both groups. Through the mechanism of the Ad- visory and Executive Committee, whose members are drawn partly from the Fellows and partly from the Trus- tees, a high level of coordination is attained, thus facilitating business pro- cedures, The nature of the problems brought before the Corporation varies consider- ably. They may discuss and attempt to resolve the housing dilemma, as they did during the post-war years. Or they may review the degree requirements and change the curricula. Even the de- cision to appropriate funds for the construction of new buildings rests with the Corporation. Certainly one of the more controver- sial issues lately has been the National Defense Education Act. According to this act, students requiring financial assistance may receive loans from the government providing they take a loy- alty oath and sign a disclaimer affida- vit, disavowing membership in or sup- port of any organization teaching the overthrow of the government. The NDEA was widely attacked both on and off campus because of the dis- claimer affadavit. President Keeney, himself, spoke out against it. Finally the Advisory and Executive Commit- tee of the Corporation voted to with- draw from the program, thereby for- feiting $250,000 annually in govern- ment assistance. Two momentus occurrences, both having propitious portent for Brown's future, were revealed by President Keeney and the Corporation in June of 1961. These were the endowment of Brown with a $7,500,000 challenge grant by the Ford Foundation and the signing of a contract whereby the De- fense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency would provide $3,500;- 000 in the next four years to support materials research by Brown's scientists. Both grants had direct implication for the Bicentennial Development Pro- gram, whose success was henceforth assured. But the Ford Foundation grant had even more immediate import for the Corporation's decision earlier that same month to proceed with the Uni- versity's entry into a six-year program of medical education. In referring to the approval of this report, Dr. Keeney remarked that it marks the start of one more phase in Brown's rapid de- velopment as one of the world's great universities. Involved in the ARPA interdisciplinary laboratory program at Brown will be the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, and Applied Mathematics. Unusually broad in scope and conception, this grant will support a whole spectrum of materials research from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Perhaps most spec- tacular in regard to the Universitys physical plant, however, will be the construction of a new multi-story Phys- ics-Engineering building to dominate Brown's planned physical sciences cen- ter. In the academic structure of Brown, too, President Keeney has taken ac- tion of equal significance. Dr. Keeney, acutely sensitive to trespassers upon the ground of intellectual freedom, again in convocation remarks set forth cer- tain of his standards. A bold statement against Attorney General Joseph Nu- gent's ban on Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, and his decision that the Uni- versity would take action to test the legality of the ban provoked comment on all sides. At the action of the Free- thinkers Society in marking the con- vocation prayer as their target of re- form, President Keeney reasserted the fact that Brown is still a university in the Liberal Protestant tradition, and he successfully encouraged the picke- ters to apply their indignation to is- sues of more relevance, Brown's greatness is, in part, a func- tion of the Corporation's singleminded efforts to achieve greatness. The plans for the Bicentennial Celebration dem- onstrate an awareness of this. It is not by mere chance that the recent period of rapid growth has coincided with President Keeney's tenure in office. His own prodigious efforts to make Brown a superior university have great- ly influenced the Corporation and the entire Brown community.

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SRR, s The President

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Administration ONE OF Dean Watts' current interests is the abrupt transition between secondary school and college. Al- though secondary schools make a genuine effort to liberalize the student, they often fail to prepare him well enough for college. To help gear the late high school years with the early period in college, Dean Watts supports a plan by which students may be per- mitted to enter college when they are ready, and not when they have simply fulfilled certain minimum re- quirements for college entrance. As their secondary education improves, according to Dean Watts, students entering Brown will improve in caliber, though he ad- mits he is impressed by the growing percentage of excellent students at Brown. The students today, he feels, have a greater ambition to learn through their own efforts, without any prodding by a fatherly ad- ministration and faculty. The university must provide a full range of intellectual opportunity and excitement for such ambitious students, while it must also assume a passive role in advising and admonishing them, and thereby encourage them to seek their education ac- tivelv, Dean Watts feels the University's attitude of aca- demic and social non-intervention is one of its most important policies, for it forces the student to experience the pain of making the same value judgments in college that he will be making for the rest of his life.