HHP professor honored as faculty scholar

Dr. Laura Brown of the Department of Health and Human Performance was honored as UTM’s Featured Faculty Scholar.

The Featured Faculty Scholar award moves between colleges each year, and this year the Department of Health and Human Performance decided to nominate Brown for all of her research and scholarship in the field of Health & Human Performance.

This year, Brown received the Cunningham Outstanding Scholar award alongside the Featured Faculty Scholar.

“It’s been a stellar year for me, and it probably won’t ever happen again.” said Brown, laughing.

According to Department Chair Todd Sherman, the decision to honor Brown came in part based on her winning the Pinnacle Award last year.

“Dean West started the Pinnacle award two years ago to honor a faculty member who is outstanding in research, teaching, and service to give incentive to the faculty and to recognize faculty who are doing high-quality work,” Sherman said.

For the past two years, members of the Department of Health and Human Performance received the Pinnacle award.

Brown said of all her research, she was most proud of a recent study she conducted on the correlation with impoverished African-American children not being able to swim, which she turned into a community project.

As a result of her research, Brown started a program where she teaches children from the Martin Housing Authority swimming lessons at the Elam Center swimming pool.

Brown said that by starting this program, she can see her impact on an individual and the community as a whole.

“I wrote a journal article about swimming perceptions of African-American students, and while working on the article, I discovered that African-American boys ages 8-12 have the highest drowning rates,” Brown explained. “Nobody was setting forth public service announcements, and I thought that I can make a difference. It’s the research that came to life, and I’m so excited about that.”

Born in Canada and raised in Nashville, Brown said she fell in love with UTM on a weekend college tour with her parents. She’s lived in the area ever since.

“My dad said just give it a try, and you can leave after a year and I said okay, I’ll try it for a year and I’m still here. I went to school in this building as an undergraduate student, and I’m still in this building as a doctorate professor.”

At the end of all her classes, Brown always reminds her students to make wise choices.

“When they leave, I want them to hear something important.”

Brown said this is inspired by watching the television series Hill Street Blues when she was younger.

“The detective would end each meeting by telling everyone to be careful out there, and while watching one night I decided I wanted to say something encouraging and inspiring, and that’s what I ended up with.”

An assortment of Brown’s work and research is displayed on the first floor of the Paul Meek Library.