In 1963, Brown initiated a six-year program leading to a Master of Medical Science degree. It had been 136 years since Brown’s short-lived foray into medical education in the 1820s. This time, the program would grow, with clinical training leading to an M.D. starting in the 1970s.

In 1964, first-year student Nancy Schieffelin appeared in a men’s scrimmage disguised as a male player. Inspired by the experience, she organized a women’s team – the Pandas – the first women’s college hockey team in the country. Although obtaining ice time was difficult, the women persevered. Here, Cathie Brady Fernandez ‘76 waits on the bench during the 1973–74 season.

Named in honor of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Class of 1897, Brown’s new library was built to house collections in the humanities and social sciences. The storage capacity was 1,500,000 volumes, nearly twice the number held at the time. A financier and heir to the Standard Oil fortune who gave to a number of causes, including numerous gifts to his alma mater, Rockefeller spoke fondly of his time at Brown: “Only here on the campus did I enjoy a completely independent personality. With you fellows I was hailed as ‘Johnny Rock,’ just one of a hundred others, but at least one who stood on his own feet...There has been nothing in my life since then quite like this kind of comradeship.”

Fifty years ago, with the issues of the Civil Rights Movement confronting both schools, Brown entered into a partnership with historically black Tougaloo College in Mississippi. This “cooperative arrangement,” which continues today, was intended to benefit both schools through an exchange of students and faculty, collaborative research ventures, and administrative initiatives. Here, professor Ned Greene, one of the first Brown faculty members to participate in the Brown-Tougaloo Cooperative Exchange, works with Tougaloo College students in a chemistry lab.

To kick off the 18-month celebration of Brown’s 200^th anniversary, Governor John H. Chaffee delivered the greetings of the State of Rhode Island and a proclamation of Brown’s Bicentennial year. He then assisted the gunners of the Artillery Company of Newport in firing a salute. Later that month, the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, delivered an address on campus. He was the first president to visit Brown since George Washington in 1790.

A scholar of Elizabethan England from an academic background, Ray L. Heffner served as president during a time of tumult. In the late 1960s, Brown, like many other college campuses, was facing protests, walkouts and controversy surrounding the war in Vietnam, the University’s ROTC program and racial equity. The administration was criticized from all sides. After just three years, Heffner resigned saying, “I have simply reached the conclusion that I do not enjoy being a university president.” In the meantime, however, he participated in one of the most noteworthy events in Brown’s history: the adoption of the New Curriculum in 1969.

Artist: Philip Pearlstein

In the Fall of 1967, student enrollment reached 5,062. Of these, 1,368 were women and 3,694 were men.

In 1968, the board of the Brown Daily Herald named Beverly Hodgson editor. Although the BDH announced the new editorial board without fanfare, noting Hodgson’s five semesters of experience, national headlines remarked on the naming of the “First Woman Editor of Ivy League Daily.”

In 1968, 65 of the 85 African American men and women enrolled at Brown marched down College Hill to the Congdon Street Baptist Church to protest the small number of black students admitted to the University as well as a lack of support when they attended. At the time, only 2.3 percent of Brown students were African American; the protestors demanded a path to raise that number to 11 percent, to match the U.S. population overall. After the students had remained at the church for three days, the Heffner administration agreed to take steps to increase African American admissions, staff and financial aid, but the University would face pressure on these same issues again in 1975. Presently, Brown articulates its ongoing commitment to diversity through the Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan, which outlines concrete, achievable actions to make Brown a more fully diverse and inclusive community. That plan includes a timeline of significant milestones in Brown’s journey to become a more diverse and inclusive campus.

Although many years brought a “new curriculum” at Brown, none rivaled the New Curriculum of 1969 in scope and significance of change. The new, open curriculum eliminated all distribution requirements, introduced a credit/no credit grading option and generally encouraged maximum flexibility in each student’s course of study. This radical change brought Francis Wayland’s 1850 vision to full fruition and defined Brown’s place in the landscape of undergraduate education.

The idea for the change came from a report written by undergraduates Elliot Maxwell, Class of 1968, and Ira Magaziner, Class of 1969, as part of a GISP (Group Independent Study Project) that examined education at Brown. The Brown Daily Herald measured “three years and a million student work hours of discussion and planning.” Here, Magaziner is shown with President Heffner during one of their many meetings.

This Spring Weekend poster was designed by Mad Peck Studios (headed by John Peck, Class of 1964). On Janis Joplin’s performance, the Brown Daily Herald reported: “Hunching, jumping, lunging at the microphone, stamping, clawing the air, the Blue-Eyed Soul Sister electrified an audience she huskily called ‘groovy.’”