The Swearer Center at Brown University

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The Swearer Center at Brown University

The Swearer Center at Brown University serves as a hub for community-engagement in and beyond Providence. About Our Founder
Howard R.

About the Swearer Center

With the creation of the Swearer Center for Public Service in 1986, Brown became one of the first campuses in the nation to establish a formal center for public service. Its founder, President Howard Swearer, believed that community engagement should be a powerful and formative part of a Brown education. Swearer served as the President of Brown University from 1976 to 198

8. Born in Hutchinson, Kansas, Swearer attended public school in Wichita and matriculated in 1950 to Princeton, where he earned his undergraduate degree. He completed his master’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard. After teaching at UCLA, directing Peace Corps training for Africa and Latin America, and working for the international division of the Ford Foundation, Howard Swearer assumed the presidency of Carleton College. In August 1976 he became the fifteenth president of Brown University. Howard Swearer was a modest man who had a broad and deep vision for higher education. He recognized the importance of connecting the university to the outside world, and devoted his presidency to creating programs that realized this vision. Among the many programs and centers he established at Brown were the Center for Public Service and the Center for Teaching and Learning. On a national scale, President Swearer co-founded Campus Compact, a coalition of college and university presidents who affirmed personal and institutional responsibility for serving the communities in which we live. President Swearer stepped down from office in 1988. He died three years later, following a courageous battle with cancer. In 1992, the Center for Public Service was named the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service. In remarks prepared for the Center's dedication, Senator John Chafee stated, “Howard believed that an undergraduate education should include learning the practices of others. By establishing the Center for Public Service in 1987 and forming Campus Compact, Howard helped renew an ethic of public service in students at Brown and at universities across the country.”

06/02/2026

For 30 years, the Royce Fellowship has supported Brown students in pursuing self-designed, community-engaged research projects grounded in curiosity, mentorship and co-learning. Earlier this spring, the Swearer Center welcomed the 2026 cohort of Royce Fellows, 27 undergraduates whose work will take them into communities, archives, laboratories and field sites across the U.S. and around the world.

This year’s induction ceremony also celebrated the Royce fellowship’s 30th anniversary while reflecting on the values that continue to shape the program. Vice President for Community Engagement and Stark Family Executive Director of the Swearer Center, Mary Jo Callan, reminded students that “the questions you ask matter as much as what you uncover,” while Brown President Christina H. Paxson reflected on how Royce projects often evolve in unexpected ways, “Sometimes projects turn out exactly like you planned. And sometimes they don't.”

For donor Chuck Royce, that uncertainty is part of the process. “The journey is never a straight line,” he told students. “You learn how to weave and change and adapt and move on.”

Read more here: https://bit.ly/4eacph5

05/28/2026

Last weekend, Brown University ’s Class of 2026 crossed the Van Wickle Gates and celebrated the close of one chapter and the beginning of another 🎓

Throughout your time at Brown, many of you engaged in community-based research, storytelling, advocacy, teaching and partnership work across Providence and beyond. You built relationships and community and contributed meaningfully to life at Brown.

As you make your next steps, we’re grateful for all the care and thoughtfulness you've brought to this community, and we can’t wait to see where your paths lead next.

Congratulations and have a great summer! 🎉 ☀️ 💛 🤎

📸 First photo by Nick Dentamaro; additional photos by Ashley McCabe

05/21/2026

As Brown prepares to celebrate Commencement this weekend, we’re proud to see Caelle Joseph ’26, a Swearer Center and Liman Program senior, serving as one of this year’s senior orators!

A first-generation college student and Haitian American student leader, Joseph has spent her time at Brown building community across campus through leadership, mentorship and creative work. She served in leadership roles with Students of Caribbean Ancestry, helped foster belonging through Harambee House and supported fellow students through her work at the Center for Career Exploration. During her sophomore year, she also launched Caellestudios, a photography business inspired by a desire to increase representation among Black women photographers on campus.

In her Commencement address, Joseph will reflect on the idea that belonging is something built through participation, care and investment in one another.

“Brown gave me the space to figure out who I am,” Joseph shared. “And now, I want to keep building spaces like that, wherever I go.”

Congratulations to Caelle and to the Class of 2026 🎓

📖 Read more about this year’s senior orators → https://bit.ly/4tUrvfn

05/14/2026

Join us as we celebrate this year’s graduates and 40 years of the Swearer Center!

Graduating seniors are invited to stop by the Swearer Center on Friday, May 22, from 1-3 p.m. to pick up their commencement cords, connect with staff and mark this milestone together. Current students are welcome to celebrate their peers and the community-engaged work we’ve built together. Alumni are warmly invited to return, reconnect and be part of this special anniversary year. Families and guests are encouraged to join us.

We’ll have light snacks and drinks, time to gather and space to reflect on four decades of partnership, learning and impact, while celebrating the class of this year and the future ahead.

We hope you’ll stop in, say hello and celebrate 40 years forward with us.

05/13/2026

Congratulations to our graduating students and Swearer Center award winners!

The Swearer Center team congratulates the Class of 2026. It has been a privilege and a joy to learn with and from you, witness your growth and support your efforts to lead with care and commitment. Your contributions at Brown University and in communities near and far leave a lasting impact. We look forward to seeing all you continue to do.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at our Community & 40th Anniversary Celebration, celebrating our students, engaged faculty and community partners and members!

05/06/2026

Public health, poetry and partnership take different forms across disciplines, but both are grounded in collaboration and community knowledge.

Alexandria (Alex) Macmadu, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, conducts research and teaching on harm reduction and overdose prevention through long-term partnerships with public health practitioners, community organizations and people with lived experience. Guided by the principle “nothing about us without us,” her work centers collaborative approaches to research, teaching and overdose response, including partnerships with organizations and initiatives such as the Rhode Island Governor’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force.

Eleni Sikelianos, Professor of Literary Arts, has spent decades supporting creative expression through poetry and community-engaged arts education. At Brown, her course Writers-in-the-Community Training & Residencies partners with local K-12 schools, including Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, connecting Brown students and young writers through collaborative literary practice.

Macmadu and Sikelianos are the 2026 recipients of the Howard R. Swearer Engaged Faculty Award, which recognizes Brown faculty whose teaching and scholarship reflect sustained, reciprocal community engagement.

📖 Read the full spotlight → https://bit.ly/3RngPbq

04/30/2026

Last Wednesday, more than 200 students, Providence residents and community members gathered at Brown for a student-led Providence Mayoral Candidate Forum hosted by BrownVotes . Organized in partnership with the University, the event brought all four declared mayoral candidates into conversation around housing, immigration, transportation and public education.

Moderated by students and shaped by audience questions, the forum highlighted how Brown University students are helping create spaces for civic dialogue and informed participation ahead of Providence’s September primary. During opening remarks, Brown Votes student organizer Rosie Shultz reflected on the purpose behind the event, sharing, “Candidate forums like this one are an important part of our democratic process as they facilitate open dialogue and provide members of our community an opportunity to learn about the candidates running for office.”

This year’s primary was recently moved and is now scheduled for Wednesday, September 9, 2026. The general election for mayor is on November 3, 2026.

📰 Read the full story about the Providence Mayoral Candidate Forum: https://bit.ly/4t5081O

04/21/2026

🎉 This Friday

Celebrate with us at the Swearer Center’s Annual Celebration & Awards as we mark 40 years of community, partnership and impact.

📅 April 24 | 3–5 p.m.
📍 Pembroke Field

Come by, enjoy local food and celebrate with us as we look ahead to the next 40.

🔗 Learn more about the Community Celebration & Awards → https://events.brown.edu/swearer/event/annualcelebration

04/16/2026

🎉 Congratulations to our 2026 Swearer Center Student Awardees

Each year, we recognize students whose work reflects the depth, care and impact of community-engaged learning at Brown. This year’s awardees have led with curiosity, collaboration and a strong commitment to partnership—across campus, in Providence and around the world.

✨ Perseverance “Percy” Unger ’26 — Derek Canfield Barker Student Leadership Award
Civic Engagement Fellow and leader in Brown Votes, expanding civic engagement across campus and integrating voter education into first-year orientation.

✨ William French ’26 — Derek Canfield Barker Student Leadership Award
CBLR Fellow and member of Swearer’s student communications team, helping launch Amplify: Student Voices and partnering with Women’s Refugee Care.

✨ Yui Miura ’26 — Abelardo Hernández Community Engagement Award
Leader with Health and Education for All (HAEFA), combining research, capacity-building and partnership to support Rohingya refugee communities.

✨ Josué Morales ’26 — Engaged Scholarship Award (Undergraduate)
Royce Fellow and Engaged Scholarship Certificate student, centering Zapotec identity and storytelling through documentary and partnership with Organización Regional de Oaxaca.

✨ Rishika Kartik ’26 — Engaged Scholarship Award (Undergraduate)
Newman Civic Fellow and Royce Fellow, advancing accessible systems through work at the intersection of disability, design and community engagement.

✨ Chase Bryer — Graduate Engaged Scholarship Award
PhD student and leader with NAISI, advancing community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous and Two-Spirit communities.

✨ Lexi Pellegrino ’26 — Derek Canfield Barker Community-Engaged Athletic Award
Student-athlete and SAAC Community Service Chair, expanding community engagement across athletics and beyond.

—

📅 April 24, 3–5 p.m., Pembroke Field
Join us for the Annual Community Celebration & Awards as we honor these students and celebrate 40 years of community-engaged learning.

🔗 Learn more about the April 24 Community Celebration & Awards → events.brown.edu/swearer/event/annualcelebration
📖 Read more about this year’s awardees on our website

Address

2 Stimson Avenue
Providence, RI
02912

Website

http://swearer.brown.edu/

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