Brown University - Liber Brunensis Yearbook (Providence, RI)

Page 13 text:

Howard Swearer9

Page 12 text:

N Howard Swearer is saying good-bye to dear, old Brown, but only temporarily. He is leaving the office that he has held for twelve years as our sixteenth president to become the new director of Brown Univer- sity's Institute for International Studies. In his inaugural speech of 1977, Swearer gave Brown one of its first tastes of the decisive and positive thinking that would bring a troubled university back to the forefront of the academic community. He mentioned priorities that he held for Brown such as fostering its college-university concept, and guarding the University's role as the arena where knowledge and ideas are generated and debated. The most pressing issue beleaguering the Brown Uni- versity of 1977 was financial difficulty. And although many will remember Swearer as the president who saved and rebuilt Brown financially, he has also consistently enunci- ated the goals of community and anticipa- tory thinking. Swearer has always been an advocate of community education and the responsibil- ity that Brown holds to the community around it. And he has emphasized the need for recognizing a sense of community with- in the University walls as well. The estab- lishment and growth of peer counseling with the Curricular Advising Program and the Rose Writing Fellows Program were part of a decisive measure to increase op- portunities for collaborative learning. Brown has been changing continuously by way of pooling its many resources of innovators and risk-takers. Swearer sees this as a major advantage that Brown has over many other schools. We are not smug and self-satisfied, but rather lean, and determined and very competitive. Swearer foresees many changes that will be neces- sary in the future. He cites, for example, the Graduate school as being in need of a re- source expansion 'to encourage reforms. Swearer is also looking towards his per- John Foraste Right: Jan, Nick, and Howard Swearer sit in front of Nick's sculpture of the Brown Bear. Below: Howard Swearer, the Brown Bear, and Jan Swearer at the dedication of the Swearer Walkway. sonal future with Brown. He will take up his new directorship of the Institute of In- ternational Studies in July of 1989. Swearer was chosen for the position at the Institute after a year-long, national search. Accord- ing to IIS committee co-chairperson New- ell Stultz, Howard's credentials were so unusual and so compelling that he was the pre-eminent candidate. Swearer was look- ing for a change and a chance, he says, To focus my attention on an area in which I have a long-standing interest and exper- ience. He is glad to return to fields he started out in and to incorporate both his and Brown's interests. Our research and educational mission is not confined to this corner of America but spans the world and y reaches into outerspace. Brown looks forward to seeing a familiar face in a new place. Swearer embodies the balance between individualism and com- munity for which he has so often praised the Brown community. As we understand and celebrate diversity and pluralism, we also look to the cohesive principles of out society and our lives. The shared exper- ience, the interplay of learning and of car- ing here at Brown, is a good place for us tc begin. 8fHoward Swearer

Page 14 text:

ROWN BEAR President Vartan Gregorian takes his place as the most recent component of Brown's enduring and unceasing vision of an innovative and COmpetitive university. The fact that the Brown community has so fully enbraced him and he them, most no- tably through his already famous bear hugs reflects the expectations for his abil- ity to help Brown continue to redefine its role as a college-university. Brown's expectations are, of course, rooted in what it knows about Gregorian's personal history, and a hope that he will bring aspects of that history to the universi- ty. Two of those aspects are his life as a scholar and his life as an administrator. Gregorian recalls having always loved books, and having done well at school. But it was by chance that he left his birthplace, Tabriz, when a French vice consul was re- $ covering from an illness at a friend's house. Gregorian remembers that they had played chess together. Apparently, the French vice consul was very impressed with what he saw in the young boy. Soon after their en- counter, this new acquaintance had written him a letter of introduction, and Gregorian was on his way to the College Armenien in Beirut. This was the beginning of a life that would take him rather far away from his Grandfather's caravansary. As Gregorian himself told the Brown Alumni Monthly: Without exaggeration, I am the first one of my family who left home in several hun- dred years. He continued his studies at Stanford. Once there, Gregorian worked Right: President-elect Vartan Gregorian at a press Conference in Maddock Alumni Center announcing his selection by the Corporation. Below: Bear hugs Vartan Gregorian and Howard Swearer embrace at the : announcement of Gregorian's presidency on August 31, 1988, BROWN UNIVERSITY five jobs and studied through the summer. He stayed at Stanford to receive his Ph.D. and tells stories about how he only needed two hours of sleep a night. It seems that these experiences would have required a great amount of energy as well as a little more than two hours of sleep, and the staff at the New York Public Library will remember the dizzying pace of work that Gregorian set for himself and expected of others. Beyond energy, Grego- rian is also a person of great emotion. He takes great interest in academics and peo- ple. This sincerity of his emotion has helped him in being a successful adminis- trator. Manuel Doxer of the office of the Provost at Penn spoke to the Brown Daily Herald about Gregorian's negotiating skills: T've seen people coming in griping' about something and by the time they walked out of the meeting they have smiles on their faces. He charms them. Brown is excited over the passion for people and academics that Gregorian is bringing to the office of the president. It is with great hope for the future and wishes of good luck that everyone waits for the com- ing years of the Gregorian presidency. 10President Gregorian