Brown Medical School and the Plan for Academic Enrichment
In February 2004, the Brown University Corporation approved an ambitious 10-
year plan for the Division of Biology and Medicine, including Brown Medical
School and the Program in Public Health, as part of the Plan for Academic
Enrichment. Key elements of the plans are outlined below.
Enrich Academic Programs
Brown has forged new partnership agreements with its seven teaching hospital partners to give Dean Adashi a stronger role as the chief academic officer at each, with the ability to develop strategic plans to stimulate new academic and research programs and to help implement these plans with dedicated funds from the hospitals and the University.
The size of the faculty in the biological sciences will increase by 40 positions, 19 of which were filled by the end of the 2006 academic year. These strategic appointments will strengthen Brown’s centers of teaching and research excellence in biology, brain sciences, molecular medicine, environmental sciences, public health, and other fields.
Support Research for Strategic Growth
The University is investing $130 million in new research facilities – including the 168,000-square-foot Sidney E. Frank Hall for Life Sciences and the 105,000-square-foot Laboratories for Molecular Medicine – that have already increased research space by 70 percent.
With the investments in new faculty and facilities, Brown will support a growing, dynamic enterprise of cutting-edge research with collaborative and multidisciplinary initiatives in cancer biology, diabetes, clinical psychiatry, neuroscience, Alzheimer’s disease, genomics, and liver research that will lead to new discoveries in the life sciences and clinical research.
Promote Success of Public Health
Over the next five years, the number of tenure track faculty in public health will have grown to 27, totaling more than 50 new faculty including research faculty. These targeted recruitments will strengthen academic leadership in health disparities, HIV/AIDS, translational research, international health, bioterrorism and domestic preparedness, health care systems, and biostatistics and bioinformatics among other areas.
The number of students earning graduate degrees – an MPH, a new MS in biostatistics, and as other masters and doctoral programs – will double over the next 10 years.
A dedicated building for the Program in Public Health was recently purchased and renovated to co-locate the Brown-based public health centers and the Department of Community Health.
Heighten Visibility and Strengthen Programs
The recently launched standard route of admission is open to qualified graduates of any college or university from across the country and provides more visibility nationally for the Medical School.
The graduate student body in the biological sciences will grow by as much as 50 percent over the next five years.