Former Brown U board member reflects on history of higher ed

What is there to be learned from a collection of more than 250 years’ worth of higher ed resignation letters? Quite a lot, says Lauren Zalaznick, an alumna and former board member of Brown University.

In her new book, Letters From the Corporation of Brown University (Disruption Books), Zalaznick curates a collection of reflective exit memos along with historic photos from the university archives, which together document decades of social, cultural and political evolution in American higher education. 

The letters, ranging from the quill-and-ink missives of Brown’s founders to modern-day emails, yield broadly applicable insights into subjects like student protests, the value of higher education and how controversial decisions of the past can inform the future.

Inside Higher Ed spoke with Zalaznick about the collection and what it reveals about the role of governing boards past, present and future.

The interview, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.

Q: So tell me, where did the idea for the book come from?

A: I was actually voted on to the Corporation of Brown University. At the third meeting of my first year, there was a piece of governance that was extremely arresting: By a mandate, you have to write a letter of resignation.

In the spring of 2015, a letter was read that was so searing from a personal perspective, and I had known this person. He graduated with me in 1984, [but] I did not know his story. He was a kid who could not send in an application fee because his family didn’t have the money; his mother suffered a stroke freshman year and he couldn’t afford to go home to see her, but Brown somehow knew of his mother’s illness and got him home. He went on to say that Brown helped him acquire skills in his undergraduate education that ultimately allowed him to start a business that was successful, enabling him to employ hundreds of people and directly change lives. His life, in the specifics, may or may not have been resonant for the 53 other people in that room, but thinking about his experience called to mind the shared Brown charter mandate of living “lives of usefulness of reputation” that brings the corporation together as one.

It occurred to me, like a light bulb in a cartoon, that this collection should be made public. And, in that moment, it spoke to me that—more often than not—enormous strands of identity are formed, for better or for worse, during the college experience, and that many of these letters reflected that.

These specific letters reflect a much greater mission and more universal impact than just Brown, even though the inspiration for the collection absolutely emanated from the Brown-specific environment. What’s universal for higher ed is the amazing portrayal of governance, of trusteeship, of fellowship and of philanthropy from the formation of the school all the way to the most recent trustee letter, a graduate from 2020.

Q: What did it reveal to you about the history of Brown and its Corporation?

A: It revealed to me that the university’s corporation confronted and appreciated that history in its literal ways—the deliverance of knowledge and mission from the charter to the present, without being at any point nostalgic, treacly, yearning for the past.

If you read the book, you can see the past inform the present.

Tongue in cheek, Joseph Dowling quotes President Howard Swearer (who might have been quoting Chancellor Alva Way) who said, “Today’s peacock is tomorrow’s feather duster.” Right—we can’t rely on the beauty, elegance or success of the past to ride us into the future.

Whether it’s tradition, whether it’s rules, whether it’s the education itself, it’s a forward motion body.

Q: What do those Brown-specific lessons say about how the college experience reflects the social, cultural and political transformation of our country?

A: Well, one thing that Brown confronted and continues to inculcate into its thinking and evolution is that President Ruth Simmons was really the first to confront the heritage of Brown vis-à-vis John Brown, who was a slave owner. The report on slavery and justice that she commissioned is an example of, “Hey, this isn’t about pulling down a statue or not pulling down a statue.”

Those things need to be debated and resolved. But it is more impactful to study the history and to use it to change the way the institution evolves. There was a moment in time when the school realized that something called the Third World Center—a space designed to serve students of color and to promote racial and ethnic pluralism—was not a great vision for how to welcome people who may feel othered. That examination, really brought about by students, faculty and administrators, was an example of not just changing the name, but thinking about why.

The names of similar facilities now are the Undocumented, First Generation and Low Income Student Center, shortened to U-FLi, and the Brown Center for Students of Color. In today’s parlance, it centers the experiences of the students. That’s an example of both important cultural and social reform combined with the fact that you need a lot of resources to completely change the way something is run, and all of the tentacles it involves.

Q: Were there any themes that emerged from the letters that were particularly poignant given the current state of higher education today?

A: The overriding theme in many of the letters is, to quote David Byrne, “How did I get here?” A lot of that had to do with the fact that graduates of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, who made up the bulk of the corporation probably 20 years ago, experienced campus protest in a visceral and important way. This is hearkening back to freedom of expression through the lens of civil rights in the early and mid-1960s, women’s rights, the Vietnam War, and then everything from coal and fossil fuels to apartheid in South Africa. There’s a tremendous amount of photography in the book and self-affirmation around having been a loud protester.

What I’m hopeful about is that this book can build a set of stepping-stones to think about how freedom of expression brought change. This is universal. It’s not specific to Brown. When a set of issues captures the energy of an entire generation, it’s really worth looking at and figuring out how to hear what that generation is thinking about and talking about, and also to understand why.

I think that’s a great example of unanticipated bridge building and generation after generation finding ways to be more alike than more different.

Q: In addition to campus protests, a lot of institutions right now are facing a wave of public doubt in the value of higher education, its mission, the cost of tuition, etc. Did the book include any letters that talked about the role a university has in propelling an individual’s socioeconomic future?

A: It sure did. Letter writers would say, “Brown changed my life, not because I made friends for a lifetime or whatever the common themes are of a college experience, but because my education gave me armament to approach the world in ways that were not available to me after high school.” They’d say, “I learned how to think. I learned how to tackle very big issues.”

There are also quotes from the founders, the incorporators, that speak to the value of a liberal arts education, and it’s reflected for the next 200, 250 years. Almost no one on the corporation is a STEM concentrator. (We call our majors concentrations.) So it just bakes in that the pre-professional route of higher ed—which is a natural reaction to the question “How am I going to earn money back?”—is potentially a red herring. A marketing degree or an undergraduate business degree may teach specific skills, but may not teach what is a long-held belief of higher ed—that learning how to think critically and be challenged over and over again in your coursework is more the key to success.

Q: What do the letters show about the role of university trustees in the midst of challenges like these?

A: It is acknowledged that we are Brown’s highest governing body, and that we will never make quick, pressured decisions. The quote that opens the first chapter of the book says something almost funny, but it’s so eloquent: “The broad, slow process of achieving consensus on issues and actions on the campus lumbers along towards rightness and fitness with a kind of inefficient majesty.”

This corporation probably reflects, writ large, the mission of all university boards and corporations, which is to reach back to an explicitly stated, shared vision and mission of what this college is supposed to do. What are traditions that uphold that mission and vision, and what are traditions that we fall into just because we did it that way all this time?

That’s lofty, but it turns into very realistic paths of decision-making. All of those decisions need to get made with consensus, but not 100 percent unified agreement. And being able to make decisions that way is exceptional. And not every board or member of every board can do it. It takes a certain amount of learning. I think that’s why they are six-year terms.

It takes a while, but we actually come together and make a recommendation that we hope reflects the forward mission of the school based on the past.

Q: And just to close, what do you hope that this book can provide for trustees, not only at Brown but at large in higher education?

A: I hope the book is a tool to build bridges from the people who are in control of these corporations, and thus these colleges and universities, to the current and future students. Be open, talk with but don’t talk over or across. That’s what these letters show.

[Since Inside Higher Ed’s first interview with Zalaznick, the Brown Corporation voted against divestment from companies that have directly or indirectly supported Israel in its war against Hamas. We followed up to ask her thoughts on how the corporation handled this decision.]

A: The corporation was voting to accept or reject the recommendation of a committee composed of students, faculty and the administration. While each of the corporation members may likely have held opinions personally, they respected the process of a group that had spent months gathering information and processing reams of data. As President Paxson and Chancellor [Brian T. Moynihan] said, “Throughout our history, Brown as a community has been guided, even when we disagree with each other, by a deeply held campus culture characterized by mutual respect, support for each other, empathy, understanding of differences and, importantly, a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue regarding these differences.” While the corporation did not itself make “the decision,” each conversation around any issue—from the mundane to the ones of highest consequence—is driven by this ethos.