Son of a Baptist minister and a graduate of Union College, Francis Wayland, as president of Brown, would prove to be both a successful fundraiser and an educational reformer. As one of his first orders of business, he dealt decisively with the issue of student unruliness by declaring that instructors must occupy rooms on campus. A strong advocate of broadening the scope of study in higher education, he was the author of Brown’s first “new curriculum” in 1850, which recommended that “every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.”

In a letter to Anatomy and Surgery Professor Usher Parsons, President Wayland announced his intention to end the short-lived medical course. Wayland’s desire to improve discipline at the College drove his insistence that instructors live and work on campus, while his medical professors derived the largest part of their living from their own off-campus medical practices. Although the program suspension was intended to be temporary, a Department of Medical Sciences was not established until 1944, and the first full M.D. class would not graduate until 1975.

Launched in the summer of 1829, the Brunonian was Brown’s first student publication. Before it finally folded in 1918, the publication had evolved from literary magazine to chronicler of campus life to critique and finally, according to Brown historian Martha Mitchell, “tried to change its image by dropping the old departments and adding humor, art, and travel articles.”