AUSTIN, Texas—Funeral arrangements have been announced for Dr. Ronald Miles Brown, a former vice president at The University of Texas at Austin who retired there in 2001 as a professor in higher education administration. He died July 2 in his home in Austin.
Services will be at 1 p.m., Saturday, July 9, in the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 3201 Windsor Rd. in Austin under direction of Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home.
Survivors include his wife, Marilou of Austin; sons Robert Brown of Austin and Patrick Brown of Lubbock; and five grandchildren.
Brown began his career at The University of Texas at Austin as vice president for student affairs in 1971 and became vice president for administrative services in 1976. He again served as vice president for student affairs from 1981 until 1989, when he returned to teaching.
Brown was born March 19, 1931 in Riley, Kansas, the only child of the late Margaret Beninga (Brown) Armitage and James L. Brown. Educated in small-town and one-room rural schools, he entered the University of Colorado in 1947 and after graduation in 1951 became a secondary school teacher, barely older than many of his students. He received his master’s degree in 1957, and was appointed to a position that eventually became director of financial aid at his alma mater. He achieved a national reputation in the financial aid field as it evolved in the 1960s.
Brown and his family served with the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies from 1964-65 and returned to Colorado briefly before he undertook doctoral study at the University of Michigan, only for him to become involved in financial aid administration again. He received his doctor of philosophy degree in 1971 and shortly thereafter became vice president for student affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He served the university as a senior administrator for 18 years before resigning those responsibilities to be a full-time professor of higher education administration, retiring in 2001.
Active in church work at many levels throughout his life, Brown was three times vestry member and twice senior warden of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd and was a trustee of the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest. He was a member of the Headliners Club and Tarry House and served on numerous public service committees, boards and foundations at the local and national levels. The later years of his life were devoted to bringing outstanding organ music to his church and the Austin community.
Brown worked for several endeavors and his family would be honored with contributions made in his name to:
- Ronald M. and Marilou D. Brown Scholarship Fund, Office of the Vice President for Development, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Mail Stop A3000, Austin, TX 78712, 512-471-5424.
- The Organ Fund, c/o The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, P.O. Box 5176, Austin, Texas 78763, 512-476-3523.
For more information contact: Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-471-3151.
