ANN ARBOR—Donald Brown, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Michigan, and his wife, June, have given $100,000 to the Residential College for need-based undergraduate scholarships.

“When I started as an assistant professor many years ago, I made $3,600 per year,” Brown said. “We were about to have our second child, so I complained and got a raise—making $3,700 per year. June and I never imagined we’d have the resources that we do today through careful saving. We are not wealthy, by any means, but we do want others to have the chance to learn and experience what the RC has to offer.”

Brown’s research in the early 1960s motivated him to consider alternative educational models, which led him to help create the Residential College where students’ interests and educational experiences could be shaped by their environment.

The Residential College, a four-year interdisciplinary liberal arts program within the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, was founded in 1967 as a community where students live and learn in the same physical space. A hallmark of the RC experience is participation by the entire RC community, including staff, students, faculty, friends, and alumni. he curriculum enables student residents to take classes in the humanities, social and natural sciences, foreign languages, and the visual and performing arts.

Brown’s teaching career is an example of the type of interdisciplinary scholarship the RC stresses. In the 1990s, Brown came out of retirement to teach history, not psychology. As a soldier and survivor of World War II, Brown made it his mission to educate students so the war and its consequences would never be forgotten. He is uniquely qualified because, on April 29, 1945, his U.S. Army troop took part in the liberation of the death camp at Dachau. The seminar he teaches uses videos, written accounts and visits from veterans to illustrate this history. Some of Brown’s guest speakers are relatives of his students who come to the classroom to “make history come alive.”

The Browns have given small gifts in the past, but the concept of giving took hold when they made a gift of $5,000 for the Faculty Undergraduate Scholarship Fund earlier this year. Giving felt so good that they immediately decided they wanted to do more and established the Donald and June Brown Scholarship Fund for students in the Residential College. The 40th anniversary of the RC was the opportune time for such a gift, as was the dollar for dollar match offered by the University President’s Challenge for need based undergraduate support. The Browns hope their example will encourage others to give as well.

The Browns’ gift contributes to the more than $120 million raised so far through the Faculty and Staff component of the $2.5 billion The Michigan Difference campaign.