Emory Report

May 18, 1999

Volume 51, No. 31

'Dropout' Brant Brown distinguishes himself as McMullan awardee Brant Brown is not your typical college senior. He turns 25 next week, but his host of experiences before entering Emory and during his tenure here would shame many people twice his age. Already the recipient of a Humanitarian Award earlier this year, Brown received the McMullan Award at commencement. Its $20,000 cash prize is presented--no strings attached--to the graduating Emory senior whose "qualities of intelligence, insight, perseverance, service, humility and compassion" are valued most highly in the Emory community. Before he takes his Emory degree and parlays it into the joint MD/PhD that will prepare him to become a physician and med school professor, Brown plans to use his McMullan prize money to develop a curriculum for a new volunteer and internship program he founded this year, through which Emory premed students will work with abused children at Grady Hospital. "So many premed students have no idea what it's really like working in a hospital, and this will provide an eye-opening experience," he said. Maybe like the one Brown had during his 10-month stint in 1994 with a child transport unit of the German Red Cross during the Bosnian war relief effort. Afterwards he came to Emory-working nights as a waiter at Houston's to help pay his way-and has since distinguished himself by maintaining a 3.9 GPA in his joint majors of biology and German studies, volunteering for the Georgia Council on Child Abuse and the Atlanta Homeless Shelter, and serving on the college honor council, the admissions and scholarship committee, and the Emory Scholars advisory committee, among others. All this for a guy who didn't manage to graduate from high school. Because Brown took early admission to college, he lacked the requisite health class for graduation. His high school administrators refused to let him graduate. Their loss was clearly Emory's gain. --Deb Hammacher Return to May 18, 1999, contents page