Brown U. renames center for Ruth Simmons, and appoints HBCU presidential fellow

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Spoiler: About the Center

Brown University renames Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice in honor of Ruth J. Simmons​

March 30, 2023
The University will rename the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice in honor of former University President Ruth Simmons, according to a Thursday press release. The news was announced at an event celebrating the center’s 10th anniversary at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Earlier this year, the center also reached a $10 million fundraising goal to create a dedicated endowment, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 said in the release.


In 2003, President Simmons directed the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice — comprised of students, faculty and staff — to investigate how Brown has historically engaged with slavery and the transatlantic slave trade historically. Those efforts eventually led to the creation of the CSSJ: In 2006, the committee released their findings in a report detailing “the complicity of many of the University’s founders and benefactors in slavery and the slave trade” as well as recommending steps the University could take to address its past actions. According to the press release, Simmons’s initiative led the University to make commitments that confronted the “full truth” of its history, including new academic and community engagement initiatives that aimed to promote “greater diversity, equity and inclusion on College Hill and beyond.” One such commitment was the establishment of the CSSJ in the 2012-13 academic year.


“The thing that is most striking to me about Ruth is that she … is completely unafraid to dig into and answer hard questions,” Paxson told The Herald. “It’s a combination of being really values-driven but also intellectually bold.” Since its founding, the CSSJ — now the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice — has studied slavery from an interdisciplinary lens in addition to leading public programs dedicated to education about slavery, among other initiatives, according to its website.


Simmons said she was “immensely proud” of the work the center has accomplished, and the release noted that she was “surprised and humbled” by the renaming. “The wide array of research, scholarship and public discourse the center has generated has made it a resource for hundreds of individuals, institutions and nations,” Simmons said in the release. “I hope that it will continue to interrogate the many forms of slavery and exploitation, serving as a continuing resource to those seeking to address historic wrongs.”


Simmons told The Herald that the center aims to interrogate how the status of dominant groups has led to the suppression of other groups, and to demonstrate how institutions can avoid “sinking into that quagmire over time.” Since the 2006 report and center’s founding, “hundreds of institutions and countries have followed Brown’s example, because it was done in a way that did not strike fear into people,” Simmons noted. Instead, “it has inspired a lot of scholarly work. It has inspired a lot of civic work. It has inspired a lot of discussion of values, and so on,” she added. “What can be more impactful than that?”


Professor Anthony Bogues, director of the CSSJ, said he was excited to pay tribute to Simmons through the renaming, recognizing her foundational role in the center’s work. “She is a remarkable educator and university administrator,” Bogues said. “She is also a person with very clear ideas — a visionary, in many ways.” Paxson noted in the press release that the renaming is a testament to Simmons’ “high-impact leadership” throughout the years. In her interview with The Herald, Paxson expressed her appreciation for the center, noting how it has both broadened its research and made it more accessible.
“It's grounded in really serious, rigorous, historical research,” Paxson told The Herald. “But they’ve been able to take that grounding and then move it into the present.” As opposed to only orienting the center’s work towards academia, Paxson said aiming toward a wider audience is “a way to take the work of the center and make it publicly visible and accessible.”

 

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With an eye toward expanded HBCU partnerships, Brown appoints first-ever HBCU presidential fellow​

April 11, 2023
Elfred Anthony Pinkard, the outgoing president of Wilberforce University in Ohio, was named Brown’s inaugural HBCU presidential fellow, according to an April 11 University press release. Pinkard will begin at Brown July 1.


In his role, Pinkard will lead efforts to build on the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership and organize a program — set to launch during the 2023-24 academic year — that will expand the University’s collaboration with historically Black colleges and universities in addition to its existing relationship with Tougaloo, Sylvia Carey-Butler, vice president for institutional equity and diversity, said in the release.


“I was really drawn to the idea that an institution with the stature and resources of Brown, with its historic and successful relationship with Tougaloo, can work together through an iterative process to support these institutions,” Pinkard said in the release. “Brown is honoring and expanding its relationship with HBCUs with the goal of partnering with these institutions as they reimagine their futures and build on their noteworthy legacy of achievement against formidable odds,” he continued.


Pinkard’s appointment follows the University’s plans to “create a consortium of partner schools with goals of encouraging collaborative research, promoting faculty development, providing student exchange opportunities, increasing the number of HBCU undergraduates attending graduate school, building infrastructure capacity at participating HBCUs and inspiring leadership in higher education and policy development,” the news release reads.


Before taking his position at Wilberforce, the nation’s oldest private HBCU, Pinkard worked at a variety of other HBCUs including Johnson C. Smith University, Dillard University and Spelman College. He also serves on the board of directors of the Council of Independent Colleges and on the leadership team at the Higher Education Leadership Foundation, which offers opportunities in education and mentorship to “ensure that HBCUs survive and thrive as national models of achievement,” according to the organization’s website. Pinkard received his bachelor’s degree at Morehouse College and a master’s degree from Howard University — both HBCUs — as well as a doctor of education from Harvard.


Pinkard will use his experience as an HBCU president to focus on Brown’s existing partnership with Tougaloo and “how we can engage (in) a mutually beneficial relationship” with other HBCUs, Carey-Butler said in an interview with The Herald. The Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, established in 1964, has created opportunities for student exchange programs and faculty collaborations between the two institutions, according to the program’s website.


In the news release, Carey-Butler noted the importance of collaborating with other institutions of education, including HBCUs, amid declining rates of Black enrollment in higher education. She also cited the University’s work to confront issues of inequality through the 2006 Slavery and Justice Report and its 2021 second edition as an inspiration for continued collaboration. “We aim to build on the legacy of that work by creating a broader HBCU initiative, and I think it’s our responsibility to do that,” Carey-Butler said in the announcement.


“HBCUs are a special sector in the unique mosaic of American higher education,” Pinkard said. “But the historical record is replete with examples of uneven resources, a challenging relationship with the federal government and the inability of many HBCUs to get before the philanthropic community to request the kind of support that builds financial strength. And yet HBCUs have persisted and been successful in graduating very impactful alumni.”

 

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@DrBanneker @Rollie Forbes @BigAggieLean. @DropTopDoc

This ties into discussions sparked by the Rate This HBCU series. Future of the schools and of top Black students. Note that schools mentioned in articles are not the "usual names". Brown had an existing partnership with Tougaloo, and Dr. Pinkard is coming in after leading Wilberforce. And of course Dr. Simmons most recently headed PVAMU.

Moving forward, the selective PWIs will partner with well run, but under funded schools to share resources and establish feeders to their graduate schools. The schools and presidents who are putting in the actual work. The "status symbol pecking order" old school perceptions won't matter. The "shenanigans" that were/are allowed to go on at certain places will hurt them in the future. Interestingly enough, in DrBan's profile of Wilberforce, he put up a decades warning from Dubois about that happening to them.

Will be a very interesting next ten years for HBCUs.

 

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Brown set to launch HBCU partnerships program in 2024​

September 28, 2023

The University will partner with several historically Black colleges and universities across the country in a new college partnership program set to launch in the second half of 2024, according to a project plan from the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity reviewed by The Herald.


Titled the Brown-HBCU Initiative, the project will serve as a “capacity-building, experiential and information-sharing initiative” that leverages the University’s institutional “knowledge base … to assist, support, collaborate and partner with a select group of HBCUs,” according to the project plan.


The plan lists six core programmatic areas for the initiative: faculty and administrative exchange, student exchange, collaborative research, cultural immersion, informational exchange, and “Think Tank: Building Communities of Practice, Dialogue and Goodwill.”


The initiative will build on Brown’s nearly 60-year partnership with Tougaloo College, according to Sylvia Carey-Butler, vice president for institutional equity and diversity.
The Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, which began in 1964, offers students and staff at both institutions the opportunity to engage in “academic and cultural exchanges,” according to the partnership website.


“We believe this is a model for higher education if (universities) want to have a truly equal partnership and collaboration with institutions that are significantly different,” Carey-Butler said in an interview with The Herald.


Now, the developing partnership program is set to extend those opportunities to eight additional schools. While the HBCUs partnering with Brown have not yet been named publicly, partnership discussions with school presidents began in November 2022.

 

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Pioneering Brown-Tougaloo Partnership commemorates 60 years

In celebration of six decades of impact, community members from Brown and Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Mississippi, honored the “historic and unparalleled” partnership’s enduring legacy and future.

www.brown.edu

Brown-Tougaloo partnership celebrates 60th anniversary​

Brown President Christina H. Paxson and Tougaloo President Emerita Beverly Wade Hogan engaged in a president's panel moderated by Brown’s HBCU Presidential Fellow Elfred Anthony Pinkard.


June 14, 2024
Administrators, faculty and alumni from Brown and Tougaloo College, a historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi, gathered on June 6 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership Program.


The daylong event — organized by Brown’s Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity — included a colloquium luncheon with speaker panels, a series of performances by the Tougaloo College Chorale and an evening gala. Panelists and speakers focused on topics of diversity in higher education and asserted the partnership’s importance, especially in maintaining a healthy democracy.


Guest speakers included U.S. Representative Bennie G. Thompson, who graduated from Tougaloo College in 1968, and actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who attended both Tougaloo College and Brown University.


Formed in 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement, the partnership program allows students and faculty at both institutions to engage in “academic and cultural exchanges,” according to the program’s website.


The program offers programs such as semester-long exchange, the Early Identification Program for the Alpert Medical School, the Partnership in Public Health program, the Civil Rights Intensive Experience and opportunities for community engagement through Brown’s Swearer Center for Public Service.


Vice President of Institutional Equity and Diversity Sylvia Carey-Butler said at the event that over 600 students have participated in the partnership program and 60 students have graduated from the exchange program.


“There is no other set of institutions in this country who have had a long relationship like Brown and Tougaloo,” Carey-Butler told The Herald. She emphasized that the partnership has “fostered learning and enriched both campuses.”