Summer 1999 Emory Magazine


Commencement 1999

"May we here today be exhilarated"

Five Receive Honorary Degrees
154th Commencement Facts

Student Awards
Brittain Award: Cameron N. Welborn '99L
McMullan Award: Brant D. Brown '99C

Ones to Watch
Brian M. Oubre'99C
Katrina R. Samuels '99C
Stephanie M. Denton '99C

Kenya K. Hansford '99B
Jason R. Howard '99B

Oxford College Commencement
Millennial musings
"You have given us yourself"



Lucius Lamar McMullin Award:

Brant D. Brown '99C

Major: Biology and German literature
Post-graduation plan: Continue genetic research with Professor of Biology Gray F. Crouse; enter an M.D./Ph.D. program in the fall of 2000
Career and life plan: Work with children in need

Brant Brown's bootstraps should be stretched thin by now.

A self-supporting transfer student from Arizona State University (ASU) who waited tables to make ends meet, Brown can forget about his boots and focus on his future since being named the 1999 winner of the Lucius Lamar McMullan Award. The $20,000 award annually recognizes an Emory College graduate demonstrating rare potential for service to the global community and extraordinary promise of becoming a future leader.

"I am especially grateful for this award," says Brown, also a Goodrich C. White Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa member, and a recipient of one of the UniversityÕs Humanitarian Awards, "because it will allow me to dedicate this next year to developing the Emory Grady Connection, which I envision as an intense, hands-on internship for Emory College studentsÑgiving them the chance to work with children who have been victimized by violence."

Grady Memorial Hospital exposes students to one of America's busiest hospitals, as well as some of the neediest and most victimized patients, he says. "In seeing that side of life, students will truly come to understand the challenges that lie ahead of them as future physicians, nurses, psychologists, and social workers."

"In a number of ways, Brant has been a surprisingly atypical student," wrote his nominators, a group of eight that included deans, faculty, and staff. "At the same time, however, he embodies in his academic career and in his life those qualities of intelligence, insight, perseverance, service, humility, and compassion that we value most highly in this community."

During his time at ASU, Brown was awarded a highly competitive Ciba-Geigy Gene Research Internship in Basel, Switzerland. Later, he accepted a position in a lab at the Heidelberg University School of Medicine. Also in Europe, Brown served in a child transport unit in the Bosnian war relief effort of the German Red Cross. He describes the experience as "one of the most formative and painful" of his life.



 


Emory Magazine is published quarterly by the Office of University Periodicals of Emory University,
1655 North Decatur Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30322,
and is distributred free to all alumni and to parents of undergraduates,
as well as to other friends of the University.
Send address changes to Emory Magazine c/o
Alumni Fund Office, 795 Gatewood Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30322.
©1999, Emory University.