Query: Brown University's main campus is located in the third smallest city in New England.

Relevant passages:
Providence, Rhode Island <=SEP=> Providence is the capital of and most populous city in the U.S. state of Rhode Island , founded in 1636 , and one of the oldest cities in the United States . It is located in Providence County and is the third most populous city in New England , after Boston and Worcester . Providence has a city population of 179,154 ; it is also part of the Providence metropolitan area which extends into southern Massachusetts . The Providence metropolitan area has an estimated population of 1,604,291 , which exceeds that of Rhode Island as a whole by about 60 % . This can be considered , in turn , to be part of the Greater Boston commuting area , which contains 7.6 million people .   Providence was founded by Roger Williams , a religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony . He named the area in honor of `` God 's merciful Providence '' , which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers to settle . The city is situated at the mouth of the Providence River at the head of Narragansett Bay .   Providence was one of the first cities in the country to industrialize and became noted for its textile manufacturing and subsequent machine tool , jewelry , and silverware industries . Today , the city of Providence is home to eight hospitals and seven institutions of higher learning which have shifted the city 's economy into service industries , though it still retains some manufacturing activity . The city was once nicknamed the `` Beehive of Industry '' ; it began rebranding itself as the `` Creative Capital '' in 2009 to emphasize its educational resources and arts community .

Brown University <=SEP=> Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence , Rhode Island , United States , founded in 1764 as `` The College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations . '' Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine Colonial Colleges established before the American Revolution .   At its foundation , Brown was the first college in the United States to accept students regardless of their religious affiliation . Its engineering program was established in 1847 and was the first in the Ivy League . It was one of the early doctoral-granting U.S. institutions in the late 19th century , adding master and doctoral studies in 1887 . Brown 's New Curriculum is sometimes referred to in education theory as the Brown Curriculum and was adopted by faculty vote in 1969 after a period of student lobbying . The New Curriculum eliminated mandatory `` general education '' distribution requirements , made students `` the architects of their own syllabus , '' and allowed them to take any course for a grade of satisfactory or unrecorded no-credit . In 1971 , Brown 's coordinate women 's institution Pembroke College was fully merged into the university . Pembroke Campus now operates as a place for dorms and classrooms .   Undergraduate admissions is very selective , with an acceptance rate of 8.3 percent for the class of 2021 , according to the university . The University comprises The College , the Graduate School , Alpert Medical School , the School of Engineering , the School of Public Health , and the School of Professional Studies ( which includes the IE Brown Executive MBA program ) . Brown 's international programs are organized through the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs , and the university is academically affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Rhode Island School of Design . The Brown/RISD Dual Degree Program , offered in conjunction with the Rhode Island School of Design , is a five-year course that awards degrees from both institutions .   Brown 's main campus is located in the College Hill Historic District in the city of Providence , the third largest city in New England . The University 's neighborhood is a federally listed architectural district with a dense concentration of Colonial-era buildings . On the western edge of the campus , Benefit Street contains `` one of the finest cohesive collections of restored seventeenth - and eighteenth-century architecture in the United States '' .   Brown 's faculty and alumni include eight Nobel Prize laureates , five National Humanities Medalists , and ten National Medal of Science laureates . Other notable alumni include eight billionaire graduates , a U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice , four U.S. Secretaries of State and other Cabinet officials , 54 members of the United States Congress , 55 Rhodes Scholars , 48 Marshall Scholars , 14 MacArthur Genius Fellows , 19 Pulitzer Prize winners , members of royal families , as well as leaders and founders of major companies .