Janet E. Brown, the founding director of the UCLA Writing Success Program at the Student Retention Center, died on April 25 at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after a battle with ovarian cancer. She was 64.
Brown created the UCLA Writing Success Program in 2002 as a way for students to improve their writing and critical-thinking skills, said Antonio Sandoval, director of the UCLA Community Programs Office.
He added that the program served several hundred students per quarter, and Brown was preparing to accommodate increased numbers of students who were affected by budget cuts in other writing programs.
Through her extensive work with students in the writing program, Brown gained a reputation as both an effective tutor and a supportive mentor.
“She never criticized, but asked questions and told me to articulate my point,” said Khoi Ta, a former student of the writing program who graduated in 2004.
He added that with her advice, he decided to change his major from biology to political science.
“She said, “˜Do what you love and everything will work out,'” Ta said. “Janet has been with me every step of the way, and she doesn’t give you an answer but helps you find your inner self.”
This nonjudgmental attitude encouraged many students to seek her advice on personal issues.
“She helped me with personal problems that I couldn’t bring to other people,” said Aleksandr Katsnelson, a fourth-year political science student. “It’s important to have people like Janet here to care about you.”
Brown was also known for her commitment to students and often edited essays and graduate school and professional school applications on her own time.
“In UCLA, the people make the programs and she made the (UCLA Writing Success) Program a necessity,” Katsnelson said.
Brown served as an annual guest speaker at the UCLA Law Fellows Program, which helps to prepare undergraduate and graduate students for a career in law.
At the same time, she took an active role in student life on campus as a Community Programs Office adviser and worked with students on various programming efforts, Sandoval said.
“She was a firm believer in our students’ abilities to engage at the same level of previous generations,” he said. “It was not the issue she was passionate about; it was her students.”
Born on Feb. 14, 1945, Brown attended UCLA and graduated with a degree in philosophy. She continued to work at the university after her graduation as a counselor in the writing skills center, which was eliminated in the 1980s.
She later worked at the Center for Student Programming, as well as several nonprofit organizations and the KCET television station, before coming to the Community Programs Office in 1997 and creating the UCLA Writing Success Program.
An avid reader and writer, Brown was writing a book at the time of her death. In this fictional work, the protagonist strives to return art artifacts to Greece after they have been taken by a London museum. Sandoval said that this was Brown’s first attempt to write a book, and she had hoped to use the money from its sales to retire.
As a tribute to her memory, the staff members at the UCLA Writing Success Program are thinking about either completing the book or publishing the few chapters that Brown finished, Sandoval said.
Brown is survived by her mother, Helen; sister, Judy; and nephew, Michael.
No funeral services will be held, in accordance with Brown’s wishes, but a memorial service will be held May 28 on campus for her friends and colleagues.