The president of Brown University is a remarkable woman

From the New Yorker, September 12, 2005:

"When [Ruth] Simmons took office at Brown, in July, 2001, the university had gone through almost four years of uncertainty and drift... On her arrival, Simmons conducted a thorough review of the state of the university and discovered that Brown was falling behind its peer institutions in a number of ways... Some months later, Simmons went back to the trustees with the elements of a comprehensive renewal program. The plan eventually included the adoption of need-blind admissions..., the establishment of at least a hundred new faculty positions within eight years, and an increase in faculty salaries; the construction of major new research facilities in the biological sciences and a new building for the medical school; the creation of a series of multidisciplinary centers; the renovation of undergraduate living quarters; and a major investment in library and computing facilities. To fund this program, Simmons proposed a general campaign to raise approximately $1.3 billion... in the next six to eight years... By the spring of 2003, Simmons' program was well under way... [By 2005] Simmons... has raised about half a billion dollars for the capital campaign... She has instituted need-blind admissions, filled forty-one new faculty positions, and increased faculty salaries. A building for molecular-medicine laboratories has been completed, and four other buildings for labs and study centers are under construction... Simmons has replaced the entire top administrative staff of the university and reorganized Brown's fund-raising efforts and the way that the governing boards operate..."