Brown University is well known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which allows students to study without any course requirements outside of their chosen concentration (major).^[1][2][3] To graduate from Brown's College, students need only have taken 30 courses, completed a concentration, and demonstrated fluency in the writing of English. Adopted in 1969 after the circulation of a report by Brown undergraduate students Ira C. Magaziner and Elliott E. Maxwell.^[4][5][6][7] The open curriculum distinguishes Brown from peer schools—particularly those with core curricula, like Columbia University and the University of Chicago—and has become one of the university's best-known attributes.^[8]

From its founding in 1764 as one of America's nine Colonial colleges, Brown (originally called Rhode Island College) was characterized by a spirit of openness: it became the first college in the United States to accept students regardless of their religious background, a practice dating from its founding charter.^[9][10][11]

While in early years Brown's curriculum was similar to that of Princeton (where Brown's first president, James Manning, had studied), with its emphasis on the Classics, President Francis Wayland instituted a series of curricular reforms in the 1850s, aimed at modernizing and diversifying Brown's offerings.^[12] With Wayland's reforms, students could now study modern languages, and applied sciences.^[13] Another important influence on the development of the Open Curriculum was the institution of "University Courses" in 1958: these were intimate discussion-style classes that were interdisciplinary in their nature, and therefore affiliated with no single department.

In 1966, seventy Brown undergraduates formed a Group Independent Study Program to scrutinize Brown's curriculum, and propose reforms. By 1968, the group comprised twenty-five students, two of whom, Ira Magaziner and Elliott Maxwell, wrote a substantive 400-page report, "Draft of a Working Paper for Education at Brown."^[14][5][15] The report called for the institution of several reforms, including:

• The elimination of all distribution requirements in favor of an "Open Curriculum"
• The elimination of pluses and minuses when grading
• The option to take courses on a Satisfactory/No Credit basis rather than receiving traditional grades
• The introduction of "Modes of Thought" courses for freshmen

Though Brown's administration was at first reluctant to entertain the report, eventually a faculty meeting was called after Maxwell and Magaziner personally visited every Brown professor. After a two-day faculty meeting, Brown's faculty agreed to implement the New Curriculum.^[16]

• The Magaziner-Maxwell Report is available here.