It’s a ‘no’ to divestment. Protesters react. Brown University elects 7 to its governing body.

As Brown University summarily refused a student group’s proposal to divest of perceived investments that support Israel, the Corporation has added 7 individuals to its governing body. The October meeting at Brown met with demonstrations from the persistent Brown group, including acts of violence directed at travelers in cars, and in one case, the vehicle transporting some Brown Trustees. The Brown Divest Coalition is an umbrella organization for pro-divestment groups that includes Students for Justice in Palestine. Brown University President Christina Paxson and university leadership are considering actions to be taken. In a community-wide email sent out Sunday morning, Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey wrote that some of the students’ behavior at the protest was “deeply concerning” and “entirely unacceptable.” Carey cited reports of protesters “banging on a vehicle,” “screaming profanities at individuals” and at one point using a “racial epithet directed toward a person of color.”

What will you do to keep Jewish students safe?

Brown was one of six universities whose Presidents received a letter from a member of Congress marking the one year of October 7th attack on Israel, and the following school anti-Semitic demonstrations, asking them to respond with a “detailed plan to ensure the safety of Jewish students”.

___

Brown’s Corporation

Brown’s governing body elected each new member based on their commitment to the University and its mission of education and research.

During its annual spring meeting in May, the Corporation of Brown University elected one new member to its Board of Fellows and six new members to its Board of Trustees. Each was invited to serve on Brown’s governing body based on their commitment to the University and its mission of education and research.

Samuel M. Mencoff, a 1978 Brown graduate who has served as Chancellor of Brown from 2016 to 2024 and has been a member of the Corporation since 2003, was elected to the Board of Fellows. Six new trustees — Anne Beal, Kwame Campbell, David Cicilline, Claire Hughes Johnson, Margaret Munzer and Zach Schreiber — were elected by the Corporation. Members of the Board of Trustees customarily serve six-year terms.

Members are formally engaged in October at the first Corporation meeting of the academic year.

All members are dedicated to ensuring that their work will produce an intellectual environment that will shape the careers and lives of future generations. The roles and responsibilities of Corporation members are outlined in detail on the Corporation website.

New Trustees

Dr. Anne Beal, a Class of 1984 Brown graduate, is founder and chief executive officer of AbsoluteJOI Skincare, a science-based clean beauty company for women over 35. Prior to co-founding AbsoluteJOI in 2019, Beal was chief patient officer and senior vice president of patient solutions with Sanofi, a global health care company headquartered in Paris. Previously, she was deputy executive director and chief officer for engagement with the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, president of the Aetna Foundation, assistant vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, and a health services researcher at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. She began her career as an attending physician with Montefiore Medical Center, where she cared for homeless families on mobile medical units throughout New York City. She is a member of the board of directors for GlaxoSmithKline and Prolacta Biosciences. Beal earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown, an M.D. from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and an MPH from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. At Brown, she is a former member and committee chair of the Brown Alumni Association Board of Governors, an advisory board member of the Executive Master in Healthcare Leadership program, a member of the advisory council for the School of Public Health, and a former judge and mentor for the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship.

Kwame Campbell, a Class of 1992 Brown graduate, is a senior investor relations and program manager at Markets Group, where he is responsible for the production and program management of real estate events in the United States and Canada.  Prior to joining Markets Group, he oversaw the staging and production of real estate events at several media firms. A longtime volunteer for Brown, Campbell has been a leader for the Brown Club in New York for 20 years, a popular speaker and moderator for Brown University and Brown Alumni Association career and volunteer leadership events, and an expert in networking whose acumen is frequently shared with students and young alumni. Additionally, Campbell founded the Brown University Real Estate Group in 2014 to showcase alumni talent, create networking opportunities and pay it forward to the next generation. The group currently has chapters in New York and San Francisco and boasts an impressive advisory board featuring many of the industry’s biggest names. Campbell also serves as a trustee on the board of Brown RISD Hillel, and he is a member of the steering committee for the New York chapter of the Urban Land Institute.

David Cicilline, a Class of 1983 graduate, is president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, one of America’s oldest and largest community foundations. Previously, he served as the U.S. Representative for Rhode Island’s first congressional district from 2011 to 2023 and was a member of the House Democratic leadership as chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. He was also a leader in Congress on issues of core American values, serving as chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus and vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Prior to his Congressional service, Cicilline served as mayor of Providence for two terms and in the state legislature in Rhode Island. He also served on the board of the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Rhode Island. He is a senior fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a member of the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Council, the United States Global Leadership National Advisory Council, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Georgetown University Law Center and resides today in Providence.

Claire Hughes Johnson, a Class of 1994 Brown graduate, is a corporate officer and adviser for Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Johnson previously served as Stripe’s chief operating officer from 2014 to 2021, where she helped the company grow from less than 200 employees to more than 6,000. At various times, she led business operations, sales, marketing, customer support, risk, real estate and all of the people functions, including recruiting and human resources. She is the author of the Wall Street Journal best-seller “Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building,” published in 2023, and recently served as a visiting faculty member (executive fellow) at Harvard Business School. Prior to Stripe, Johnson spent 10 years at Google leading a number of business teams including overseeing consumer operations and serving as a vice president for Adwords online sales and operations, Google Offers and Google’s self-driving car project. Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature from Brown and an MBA from Yale University. She currently serves on the boards of Hubspot, the Atlantic, Aurora Innovation, and Ameresco, and is president of the Board of Trustees at Milton Academy.

Margaret Munzer, a Class of 1994 Brown graduate, is founder of MML Productions and Lismore Road, a nonprofit educational production company. Recent film credits include “Plan C”(2023), “Ron Delsener Presents” (2023), “Found” (2021), “Driving While Black” (2020) and “Chasing Childhood” (2020). She earned a bachelor’s degree in history and visual arts from Brown and a master of social work degree from New York University. She is a vice president of the board of Prep for Prep and a trustee of PEN America. She previously served on the boards of the National Institute for Reproductive Health and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Zach Schreiber, a Class of 1995 Brown graduate, co-founded PointState Capital in 2011 and serves as chairman, chief executive officer and chief investment officer. In that capacity, he is responsible for portfolio management and construction of investments across a variety of asset classes and sectors. Previously, beginning in 2002, Schreiber was a managing director with Duquesne Capital Management, where he was responsible for investments in power, utilities, commodities and commodities-related industries. Before joining Duquesne, he was a senior analyst at SILCAP/Bass Brothers Trading from 1996 to 2002. He has served on the President’s Leadership Council and on the Brown Corporation for a previous term as a trustee from 2016 to 2022. He has also served as a member of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Board of Governors since 2018. As an undergraduate at Brown, he played on the varsity lacrosse team, which he continues to actively support. Away from the University, Schreiber is a long-standing board member and passionate advocate for the Harlem Children’s Zone.