PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University]
— In a series of events, tours and receptions held at 450
Brook St. in Providence on Thursday, Oct. 21, and Saturday, Oct.
23, Brown University leaders, generous donors and community
members gathered to dedicate a unique residence hall and student services hub devoted entirely to promoting health, happiness and
well-being for Brown’s full student population.
The events offered the opportunity to celebrate Sternlicht Commons
and Brown University Health & Wellness Center and the impact
of everyone who enabled its creation.
The idyllic autumn weather added festivity to the celebrations:
Golden light shone down the center’s wide, neutral-toned
corridors, streamed through walls of windows and beamed on
relaxing rooftop and ground-floor green spaces. It provided a
reminder, Brown President Christina H. Paxson said, that there is
a strong connection between happiness and environment, a key
motivator in constructing Sternlicht Commons and Brown University
Health & Wellness Center.
“This building is more than a building,” Paxson said at the
Thursday event. “It’s the representation of a core principle: that
students thrive academically and socially when they’re healthy,
when they’re supported, and when they’re connected to communities
in meaningful ways. That’s the principle we had in mind when the
vision for this wonderful space was conceived.”
The new facility, Paxson said, is “wildly innovative” in the way
it embeds health and wellness within a residence hall. First opened in May 2021, the bright and airy complex is now home not only to 162 Brown
students, but also to numerous programs and services instrumental
to students’ physical and emotional well-being,
including Health Services, Counseling and Psychological
Services, Brown Emergency Medical
Services and BWell, the University’s health promotion
program.
The building, between Cushing and Meeting streets, is directly
adjacent to green space on Pembroke Field, a short walk to Brown’s
Erickson Athletic Complex, and just a block away from College
Hill’s bustling commercial district on Thayer Street. The
residence hall — the first campus residence to be newly opened in
30 years — boasts suites with single rooms and standalone
singles, single bathrooms, and open common areas that feature
bright natural daylight and views of Pembroke Field. It also
includes state-of-the-art common kitchen areas.
The project was enabled by generous financial support from
two lead gifts — a donation from the family of the late Duncan MacMillan, and a gift from Barry Sternlicht and Mimi Reichert Sternlicht —
which enabled Brown to advance the concept from a vision into a
completed building.