December 14, 1998
Time Warner to Contribute $1.25
Million to Honor Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown
Donations to Create Endowments at
Middlebury College, Howard University and to Benefit Ronald H.
Brown Foundation
Time Warner Inc. will contribute a
total of $1.25 million to honor the memory and support the legacy
of Ronald H. Brown, the former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, it
was announced jointly today by The Ronald H. Brown Foundation,
Howard University and Middlebury College, the late Secretary’s
alma mater.
Time Warner will contribute $500,000
each to Howard University and Middlebury College over a four-year
period to create a Ronald H. Brown/Time Warner Endowment Fund
at each institution. Income from the endowment funds will be used
to support initiatives that reflect Secretary Brown’s commitment
to global awareness and his understanding of the important relationships
of history, language, politics, economics and diplomacy.
Time Warner recently contributed $100,000
to The Ronald H. Brown Foundation in support of the Foundation’s
Center for Politics and Commercial Diplomacy in Washington, D.C.,
and will contribute an additional $150,000 to the Foundation over
the next three years.
Gerald M. Levin, chairman and chief
executive officer of Time Warner Inc., said: “We are pleased
to have the opportunity to honor the extraordinary life and career
of Ron Brown and to advance the values of public service, education
and global awareness that he fostered. Time Warner has a longstanding
commitment to enhance the quality of education in the communities
we serve, so we are particularly pleased that our contributions
will be used to support the important educational mission of The
Ronald H. Brown Foundation, and to provide a unique learning experience
for students and executives at Howard University and Middlebury
College.”
Michael Brown, president and chief
executive officer of The Ronald H. Brown Foundation, said: “One
of the greatest lessons my father taught me was the importance
of giving back to the community. Through the generous and early
support of Gerald Levin and Time Warner, the inaugural class of
Ron Brown Fellows is living that lesson by taking their Washington
education in political and community activism back to their own
communities to make a difference. My family is grateful that Time
Warner, Howard University, and Middlebury College are continuing
my father’s legacy by supporting tomorrow’s leaders through this
new gift to the foundation and in the creation of the endowment
funds.”
H. Patrick Swygert, president of Howard
University, said: “Ron Brown was a great friend of Howard
University and all of higher education. One of his last public
appearances before his untimely death was at the Howard University
School of Business where he encouraged students to pursue careers
in international commerce. Howard University is grateful to Time
Warner, its chairman and chief executive officer, Gerald M. Levin,
and its president, Howard University Trustee Richard D. Parsons,
for making this grant possible.”
John M. McCardell, Jr., president of
Middlebury College, said: “Middlebury College is pleased
and grateful to have the opportunity, with Time Warner’s generous
donation, to give memorial and perpetual substance to Ron Brown’s
belief, stated in College publications: ‘I support international
study and the doors of opportunity that study will open.’ The
endowment funds will enable our students to broaden the reach
of their own understanding and thus become better prepared to
assume roles of leadership in a new century.” Ronald H. Brown
graduated from Middlebury College in 1962, and was a trustee of
the College at the time of his death.
Among the specific initiatives to be
supported by the endowment funds are:
The Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs
Center and School of Business of Howard University and the Geonomics
Institute of Middlebury College will invite leaders of business
and international affairs to visit each campus as Executives-in-Residence.
These individuals will spend three or four days on campus, meeting
with students and faculty, attending classes, and delivering a
public lecture.
Howard University and Middlebury College
will also use a portion of the endowment funds to support internships
that offer students hands-on experience in an international setting
or in a business or institution that deals with international
issues. As members of the board of governing schools of the Brown
Foundation’s Center for Politics and Commercial Diplomacy, both
Howard University and Middlebury College are home to members of
the inaugural class of Ron Brown Fellows.
The Ronald H. Brown Foundation was
founded in June 1996 to carry on the legacy of the late Commerce
Secretary’s vision. The foundation’s mission includes running
an educational center that offers a curriculum of international
business and non-partisan political development courses.
The Ronald H. Brown Foundation’s Center
for Politics and Commercial Diplomacy offers undergraduate education
programs in political skills development and commercial diplomacy
that are unique in their combination of classroom instruction
and experiential learning. Students selected to participate are
awarded Ron Brown Fellowships, which provide for students’ expenses
while in Washington. The Center also offers a seminar series,
begun in 1996, that brings together recognized authorities to
discuss and debate current topics in politics and commercial diplomacy.
Howard University, a private, coeducational
Research I institution located in Washington, D.C., has provided
leadership for America and the global community since 1867. The
University is comprised of 12 schools and offers undergraduate,
graduate and professional degrees through more than 180 areas
of academic concentration. Its 11,000 students come from all 50
states and more than 100 foreign countries. Howard University
continues to attract the nation’s top students and produces more
African-American Ph.D.s than any other college or university.
Notable Howard University alumni include:
Debbie Allen, producer and choreographer; Vernon Jordan, attorney
and civil rights leader; Dr. LaSalle Leffall Jr., the first African-American
president of the American College of Surgeons; the late U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author; Diva Jessye Norman; Frank Savage,
chairman of Alliance Capital Management International and chairman
of the Howard University Board of Trustees; Howard University
President H. Patrick Swygert; and The Honorable Andrew Young,
the first African-American United Nations ambassador.
Middlebury College was founded in 1800
to train young men for the ministry. It has developed from “the
town’s college” into an institution of international stature
that provides its 2,160 undergraduates with a liberal arts education
adapted to the needs of the 21st century. The Middlebury Language
Schools, the Bread Loaf School of English, and the Bread Loaf
Writers’ Conference offer a variety of programs in language and
literature during the summer. Middlebury began accepting women
as students in 1883. The first African-American to graduate from
an American college earned his degree at Middlebury in 1823. Middlebury’s
student body comes from 50 states and more than 70 foreign countries.
International students-10 percent of the total-contribute significantly
to the global atmosphere of the College’s Vermont campus.
Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), the world’s
leading media company, consists of four businesses: cable networks,
publishing, entertainment and cable.
Contacts:
Edward Adler, Time Warner Inc., (212)
484-6630
Scott Miller, Time Warner Inc, (212)
484-8736
Kelly Anne Gallagher, Ronald H. Brown
Foundation, (202) 835-0700 ext. 157
Donna Brock, Howard University, (202)
238-2338
Will Melton, Middlebury College, (802)
443-3177