Brown University Announces Effort to Double Veteran Enrollment, Continues to Limit ROTC On Campus
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Brown University Announces Effort to Double Veteran Enrollment, Continues to Limit ROTC On Campus
Brown will seek to raise a $25 million endowment to provide funding for a need-blind process and offer full financial support for the initiative on a long-term basis. New gifts will be raised as part of the overall $500 million goal for undergraduate financial aid set in 2015 as part of the $3-billion BrownTogether campaign.
Brown’s policies, however, continue to limit its students from participating in ROTC programs on campus.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe Brown faculty passed a set of resolutions in 1969 that “would permanently limit the authority of the military in matters of instruction.”
The Air Force responded by immediately removing its ROTC detachment from the Brown campus; the Navy program ended a few years later.
Since the early 1970s, Brown students have only been able to participate in the Army ROTC program by traveling to Providence College.
And Brown students receive no credit for the courses while the Providence College students do. Since 1988, about 50 Brown graduates have received a commission through the Providence College program.
New Brown Veteran’s Initiative
To achieve the increase in veteran enrollment goal, Brown said it will extend its need-blind admission policies to include prospective students who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces; increase financial support for veterans; make standardized test scores optional for veterans in the admission process; and strengthen recruiting through a new partnership with the nonprofit organization Service to School.
Paxson announced details on the initiative at the University’s annual Veterans Day ceremony, where more than 100 members of the Brown community gathered near Soldiers Arch, a campus memorial erected in memory of the 42 Brown students, alumni and faculty who lost their lives in World War I.
“We owe an immense debt of gratitude to our veterans for the tremendous sacrifices they make and the uncompromising courage they display in defending the freedoms that we all enjoy,” Paxson said. “Increasingly, Brown has become a home to student veterans earning college degrees. It’s essential to expand support and create new pathways, both to honor their service and to enhance the education of every student who benefits from the unique lived experiences and perspectives that our veterans contribute to campus.”
“Veterans have served our country in such noble and courageous ways, and that unyielding dedication deserves recognition,” Brown Dean of Admission Logan Powell said. “And the perspectives that veterans bring to our broader student body add depth and dimension to how we understand history, conflict, leadership and so many other issues. The more we do to support and enroll student veterans, the stronger we are collectively as an institution of higher learning.”
Flags Trashed on Veterans Day in 2016
The announcement comes just three years after a Brown undergrad ripped American flags out of the ground and trashed them.
Brown University student Nicky Strada, captured the unnamed student on video. The flags had been placed on campus for Brown's November 11 Veterans Day event. Strada posted the video along with the following statement in a public post on his Facebook page after the incident, on November 10: Today was a sad day...Hundreds of flags were set up on the main green of Brown University by 2 VETERANS in honor of Veterans Day tomorrow, and when I got out of class, people had snapped them, ripped them, and threw them aside (see the video here).
According to Brown, a total of 21 student veterans are currently enrolled as Brown undergraduates, a small but growing number as the University has implemented new efforts to recruit veterans and expanded affiliations with Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) programs. With the goal of more than doubling the number of undergraduate student veterans by the 2024-25 academic year, Brown will take a number of actions:
Beginning with applicants seeking admission as undergraduates for the 2020-21 academic year, Brown will consider all prospective student veterans on a need-blind basis, which eliminates from admission decisions any consideration of an applicant’s ability to pay tuition. The University expects the need-blind policy for veterans to result in more transfer applicants, adding to the small number of student veterans who currently come to Brown each year through the Resumed Undergraduate Education program.
The University will increase Brown financial aid available to undergraduate student veterans, replacing all family contributions (previously expected from student veterans and their spouses who earn income) with scholarship funds and boosting Yellow Ribbon scholarship awards (currently capped at $10,000 per student). The result is the full elimination of all out-of-pocket costs toward undergraduate tuition and fees for student-veterans (as well as the dependents of veterans). The full amount now will be covered by a combination of Post-9/11 G.I. Bill educational benefits, Brown’s Yellow Ribbon scholarship funds and matching funds from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Brown said it will make the submission of standardized test scores optional for all undergraduate applicants with U.S. military service, enabling veterans to more easily apply for admission. The shift in requirement eliminates a barrier faced by many veterans, given that most enter the application pool years after having completed high school, when standardized tests are typically taken.
To identify talented, high-achieving military veterans as prospective undergraduates to Brown, the University will partner with Service to School. Founded by three military veterans and an admissions expert, the organization helps transitioning military veterans prepare for their next leadership experiences by counseling them on admission to highly selective colleges and graduate schools.