Howard R. Swearer served as the President of Brown University from 1976 to 1988. 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 1991, 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.”

Susan Stroud is a national and global leader in public service, civic engagement and higher education. From 1985 to 1992, she served as assistant to Brown University President Howard R. Swearer and as the founding director of the Swearer Center for Public Service, helping establish Brown as one of the first universities in the nation with a formal center dedicated to public service.

Her work at Brown helped shape a broader movement for civic engagement across higher education. Stroud and President Swearer went on to co-found Campus Compact as “a national challenge to universities to catalyze public service on their campuses.”

That legacy of public service also extended beyond Brown. “We did some things that I think few know about today,” Stroud said. “The Senate legislative hearings that led to the creation of AmeriCorps happened here on the Brown campus.” Stroud later served in national leadership roles in Washington, D.C., including as senior advisor to the director of the White House Office of National Service, where she contributed to the creation of AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Across her career, Stroud has helped build programs, partnerships and institutions rooted in the belief that education and public service are essential to a strong democracy.