In 1982, Deborah Brown graduated from the University of Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. She would go on to become one of the first women of color employed at Honeywell and a tutor for hundreds of high school and college students in math-heavy subjects. 

“What I loved about Deborah was the fact that, in addition to being an absolutely exceptional engineer, she had a gift for sharing her talents with others,” said LaConnie Taylor-Jones, who met Brown when they were both attending UT.  

Brown stayed involved with UT’s alumni community, serving as a board member of the UT Alliance of Women Philanthropists for many years and helping redesign the Summer Engineering Advancement (SEA) Program, a college preparatory experience for underprivileged incoming Tickle College of Engineering (TCE) students. 

“She had the biggest heart,” said Travis Griffin, who directs the Dwight Hutchins Engineering Diversity Programs, TCE’s access and engagement department. “She cared an immense amount about student academic success.” 

Last winter, Brown died after a nine-year battle with breast cancer. She left behind an energizing legacy as well as a more than $1.5 million contribution to TCE’s Hutchins Engineering Diversity Program Excellence Endowment. 

In recognition of this gift and her lifelong devotion to helping others achieve their academic goals, TCE has announced that it will rename the SEA Program in honor of Brown. 

“Deborah embodied the Volunteer spirit by using her gift of knowledge to help others,” said Phyllis Moore, UT’s senior director of alumni relations. “Soon after graduation, she made it a priority to reach back and help students. Renaming the SEA Program after her is a testament to the desire she had to help students succeed.” 

A Lifetime of Service and Leadership 

Brown dedicated herself to engineering before she graduated from high school, but she was not purely motivated by her love of math. 

“Somebody told her that women could not be engineers,” Taylor-Jones said, “and that little 125-pound spitfire decided to prove them wrong. She took that challenge and never, ever looked back.” 

Before starting her degree at UT, Brown participated in the fifth cohort of the Minority Engineering Scholarship Program (MESP), now called the Multicultural Engineering Program, an on-campus bridge program designed to assist minority students in the transition from high school to college. 

“Deborah stressed to me that her bridge program taught her how to study,” said Griffin. “She said that had an impact not only on her success at UT, but also was why she became an academic tutor.” 

After she graduated, Brown became one of the first Black engineers at Honeywell in Arizona. She later moved to Georgia to work at Motorola. Throughout her career, she also tutored students in high school and college, sharing her love of math and making sure they were well prepared for important tests like Advanced Placement exams. 

“Deborah’s relationship with students didn’t end when they no longer needed her help,” Moore said. “Students kept in touch with her after high school and college graduation. She attended their weddings. She tutored the grandchildren of her former pupils.” 

In 2014, Brown was diagnosed with breast cancer. While she stopped working at Motorola, she remained a committed tutor to students in her neighborhood and continued working with Griffin to improve TCE’s academic support for incoming students from underprivileged backgrounds.

Brown Helped Upgrade SEA Program 

TCE has long used incoming first-year students’ ACT math scores to determine whether they are ready to take precalculus or calculus classes. However, in 2018, only about 38 percent of TCE first-year students who were considered precalculus ready went on to complete their degrees. For students who had attended bridge programs, the success rate was much higher—around 60 percent—but Griffin still saw room for improvement. 

After learning of the profound impact that learning study skills had had on Brown’s education and career, Griffin began integrating those and other life skills into the curriculum along with more advanced math. 

“A lot of SEA students are first-generation students from historically underrepresented minorities,” said Griffin. “They might not have had the best academic instruction available or have people who can tell them what living on a college campus is like.” 

The new SEA Program welcomed its inaugural cohort in 2019. SEA students go through math and engineering fundamentals curricula, receive mentorship from current Vols, and learn how to communicate with advisors and professors. The entire program is free to attend, and students who earn a GPA of 3.0 or higher during the course also qualify for a $1,000 scholarship. 

“After their first couple of weeks of classes, a lot of these students have said to me, ‘I’m so glad that I did the SEA program. If it wasn’t for my understanding of the fundamentals, I don’t think I would be flowing through the program like I am right now,’” Griffin said. 

Griffin, Moore, and Taylor-Jones all agree that renaming this program after Brown is a fitting way to preserve her legacy. 

“The engineering program is hard enough. Deborah wanted to be able to give students who want to go into engineering, and particularly students of color, a head start,” Taylor-Jones said. “I was extremely proud that she was able to gift the amount that she did to UT, and I am exceptionally proud that this program is going to be in her name.” 

Contact 

Izzie Gall (865-974-7203, egall4@utk.edu)