Working on the principle that the shortest way to a Brown man's mind is through his stomach, the huge refectory occupies a central position in the quadrangle. Here over 1600 may feed three times a day. The tradition of fraternity segregation is still maintained, however, with the brothers eating in smaller adjacent dining rooms allotted each house. Although the Brown student is not required to maintain the elegance of coat and tie at meals, he dines on real china and eats food served by real waiters--many of them scholarship job holders.
But if the quadrangle has helped Brown toward its ideal of greater cohesion and an active mixing of ideas, it has not completely solved the problems of the past. Little Brown, like most other universities, is troubled with overcrowding.
The present quadrangle was designed with the current enrollment in mind, allowing for only 65 percent resident students. But like a superhigh-way which creates its own traffic, the new, comparatively luxuries facilities have attracted a large number of local students who would not have lived in the mouldering old fraternity houses. Residence is now up to 80 percent, and the total may still rise.
A Building Pressure
To meet the problem, the College authorities have required returning veterans and students who have been away from Brown to live off campus in the numerous boarding houses nearby.
Freshmen are largely but not completely segregated in older dormitories around the central campus where class and administration buildings are located, and local students are being encouraged--though not required--to live at home. Still, with applications constantly increasing, the problem remains a serious one.
President Wriston, a great advocate of organic growth in all things touching the College, feels that the problem will eventually solve itself when, under increasing pressure, the College will have to raise the money for new buildings and increase its enrollment. In this as in other respects, he wants Brown to develop naturally in its own pattern--not in emulation of or in competition with other Ivy Colleges.
A Sister College
In another respect, Brown already parallels Cambridge. For the simple pleasures of feminine companionship, the Brownie need shuffle only three blocks through the leaves to arrive at the small campus of his sister college--Pembroke. Here, some 800 women enjoy a position similar in all but administrative setup to that of the Radcliffe student in Cambridge. They attend classes with Brown students on the Brown campus and have the same faculty. Their exact relationship to the College is difficult to describe; like so many other things at Brown, it is without pattern or precedent. It just grew.
Another example of natural growth on the Brown campus is the sudden increase of student interest in the educational process. The aims and methods of Wriston's program have captured the undergraduate imagination--perhaps because for the first time the Brown man has been made aware that a college education is more than four years of campus life.
Student interest in the formulation of college policies makes itself felt directly through the Cammarian Club--the Brown student government organization. Its two major projects at present are pushing through an honor system for the College and drawing up a report on all phases of college life, to be completed by 1957.
Agitation for an honor system is not now at Brown. It began over a year ago, as the result of renewed student enthusiasm for integrated spirit in connection with studies as well as, other phases of college.
A working honor agreement was drawn up by the Cammarian Club and submitted to the faculty last winter. Faculty members were not opposed to the idea of an honor system at Brown, but agreed that at least 75 percent of the students would have to approve the plan in an all-College referendum before it could be put into effect. After a short campaign to publicize the honor system, the agreement was put to a student vote in March. Only 62 percent favored its adoption.
A Spirit of Honor
But Cammarian leaders were not deterred. After studying a comment section on the ballots, they discovered that very few who had voted against the system opposed it on principle. Most objections were aimed at certain clauses--such as the reporting clause--which existed in the specific agreement. A special Honor System Committee set up under the Club is now supervising trial applications of the honor system in a few freshman courses whose instructors favor the idea. If these experimental applications of the system meet with student approval, the Club will probably press for another vote. Next time it expects success.
A Squealing Cub
In a day when the general trend is away from the honor system, and when such systems are being reexamined and often discarded all over the country, Brown's enthusiasm may seem strange. Cammarian Club leaders explain it as another manifestation of the students' desire for a unified College spirit extending to and including studies. It has certainly been a natural by-product of the Brown renaissance.
No longer a self conscious cub, but a swiftly-maturing Bear, Brown stands proudly in the midst of the more imposing Ivy group colleges. Gone are the high squeals of protest against accusations of inferiority. In their place have come the benign rumble of individuality.