Brown University and its athletic department have a rich history of utilizing athletics as part of the University’s overall goal of developing the entire person. One of the finer examples of this approach to collegiate athletics is the Royce Fellowship for Sport and Society.

Last weekend, sixteen students packed into University vans with sleeping bags and boxes of cereal for an evening away from campus to learn each other’s names and how they all plan to change the world.

For 11 years, the Swearer Center's Winter Break Projects have brought students back to Providence early for an intensive week-long immersion in social issues affecting the local community. Living together in a downtown church, the students spend their days visiting local organizations and talking to community members about how they might effect change.

The National College Advising Corps (NCAC) at Brown University seeks to increase the number of low-income, first-generation college and underrepresented students who enter and complete higher education. The College Guide Position is a full-time AmeriCorps position. College Guides are placed at partner schools to serve students and their families by providing college application and financial aid guidance, while fostering a culture of college attendance and higher education in Rhode Island’s urban communities.

As an economist and newcomer to the state, Brown University President Christina H. Paxson has a dose of advice that might surprise Rhode Islanders frustrated by the ailing economy: “Give yourselves a break.”