Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice members, left to right, Ross Cheit, Nita Crawford, Brenda Allen, Jim Campbell (panel chairman) and Arlene Keizer.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — Inspired by last October’s report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, the university yesterday announced it will pour millions of dollars into improving public education in the Providence area, including a $10-million permanent endowment to create The Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence.

Revising Brown’s official history “so that it presents a more complete picture of the origins of Brown,” including its involvement with the slave trade, was another key commitment Brown president Ruth J. Simmons announced yesterday in response to the committee’s report.

Overall, the university’s plan casts a moral tone that attempts to take the lessons of slavery and move beyond for the better good. As Brown’s response to the Slavery and Justice Report states, “The greatest impact of the Report could ultimately be its powerful assertion of our ongoing duty to address some of the ills of our time.”

“Another way to see that, is what a tremendous opportunity to think about how meaningful our responses can be,” Simmons said in a phone interview last night. “The idea is to set the tone. The report is really a summons to us. It’s a summons. It calls to us to remember that in any given time, moral acts can have an enormous impact …”

Brown’s course of action — adopted from the report’s recommendations — will include: creating a slave trade memorial; creating a center for continuing research on slavery and justice at Brown; and expanding opportunities at Brown “for those disadvantaged by the legacies of slavery and the slave trade.”

Simmons presented Brown’s response to the Slavery and Justice Report at a meeting of the Corporation of Brown University. The Corporation endorsed it and immediately made it public.

The corporation also announced the election of Thomas J. Tisch as the University’s 20th chancellor and elected Jerome C. Vascellaro as vice chancellor; and announced that undergraduate tuition will rise 5 percent to $45,948 a year. The Slavery and Justice Report, a three-year research and public affairs project, details the history of slavery and slave-trading in New England. It found that some of the school’s early benefactors were involved in the slave trade and that the university benefited from their involvement.

The steering committee chose not to recommend actual reparations for Brown’s role in the slave trade, but rather, to recommend a course of action. Several months of sifting through, reflecting on and debating the committee’s observations and recommendations preceded the university’s response.

In summary, Brown has pledged:

•To commission a revision of its official history “so that it presents a more complete picture of the origins of Brown.”

•Distribute the report and make it accessible, for free, through media including Web, print, and CD/DVD.

•Hold the relevant materials used to prepare the report in the university’s archives, make them available to scholars and exhibit them.

•Through existing departments, centers and institutes or through creation of a new academic entity, undertake a major research and teaching initiative on slavery and justice.

•Strengthen and expand the department of African studies.

•Strengthen and expand its program with Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss.

•Continue its program of providing technical assistance to historically black colleges and universities.

•Join with city and state officials in determining how the history and role of slavery in Providence, Rhode Island and at the university should be memorialized in the state, city and on College Hill.

•Raise a permanent $10-million endowment to establish the Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence, starting immediately.

•Provide free tuition to Brown to as many as 10 admitted graduate students per year. After completing a master’s degree in either teaching or urban education policy, they must agree to serve in Providence-area schools or surrounding area schools for at least three years.

•Continue its support of Providence public schools through programs that include a position in the office of the superintendent, professional development of teachers, curriculum development and mentoring and tutoring programs.

•Engage an outside consultant to evaluate the effectiveness of new and ongoing support programs for the schools.

“One of the clearest messages in the Slavery and Justice Report is that institutions of higher education must take a greater interest in the health of their local communities, especially kindergarten through 12th-grade education,” Simmons said.

“Lack of access to a good education, particularly for urban schoolchildren, is one of the most pervasive and pernicious social problems of our time,” she added. “Colleges and universities are uniquely able to improve the quality of urban schools. Brown is committed to undertaking that work.”

Simmons said, “Given that we are a very old university and supported by endowments, we thought it would be wonderful if the children of Providence would benefit from a fund that will continue to grow through additional gifts and investments. You could conceive of that fund as similar to the Brown Endowment.”

Providence Schools Supt. Donnie Evans could not be reached for comment.

Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline said the Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence and the urban education fellowships “will benefit the young people of Providence who need it most and will do so for generations.”

Cicilline said that as both the mayor of Providence and a Brown University alumnus, “I want to acknowledge the great courage and extraordinary leadership of President Simmons and the university for relentlessly pursuing the truth about the role of slavery in Brown’s history, and for responding boldly and affirmatively with this major commitment.”

He said Brown’s initiative establishes the university as “a national pioneer in developing innovative approaches to strengthening the relationship between universities and their host communities.”

The Slavery and Justice Report received substantial response when it was issued last October.

Much of it was positive and congratulated the steering committee for its diligence, according to Brown’s response issued yesterday.

Some readers “responded less enthusiastically,” portraying the report “as an example of politics cloaked in academic respectability.” But while some who commented “would urge that these ills be forgotten,” as the response points out, “it is the acknowledgment rather than the forgetting of these factors that can impel us to improve society.”

Simmons said, “I think rather than take the recommendations [of the committee] as the end point, I think we thought what the committee was trying to do was encourage us to think about our relationship to our past and our opportunities for actions today that might help the community understand that past.”

She added, “What we’re encouraging is a more complete telling of our history and making that available to both our community and beyond — a whole series to make sure we are telling the complete story. We will do explanations and exhibitions including explorations of our past, aspects of our founding as related to our history of slavery. It will go beyond slavery per se and just be more inclusive.

“The point I think the committee’s trying to make and that the university endorses, is that we have a lot to learn from our past and a way to do that is not run from any aspect of it but try to learn it fully. Because we, as educators and in teaching, we offer examples, not just in how to solve problems … but we also like to believe we offer lessons for people’s lives. Those are often lessons about how to make moral choices.”

(The full text of Brown University’s response to the report of the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice is available at the university’s Web site, www.brown.edu/slaveryjustice).

kziner@projo.com

CORRECTION: The name of Jerome C. Vascellaro was incorrect in the original version of this report.