Born in the small Woodruff County town of Augusta, Ann Brown, 56, has come full circle.
A graduate of Augusta High School and of Harding University in Searcy, she has lived and worked internationally but has returned to live in her hometown and work at her alma mater.
Brown is the new director of the McNair Scholars Program at Harding University, which is part of the university’s Center for Student Success. The program is made possible through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and supports undergraduate students’ scholarly activities throughout the academic year and summer. Harding University has been funded at $230,000 annually for the program and will serve 27 students per year. The objective of the program is to provide academically enriching experiences and mentoring to prepare students for graduate-school admission and eventual doctoral study.
Students eligible for the McNair Scholars Program need to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents who have successfully completed at least one year of college with a grade-point average of 2.75 or above, and who are either low-income and first-generation college students or from minority groups underrepresented in graduate schools.
“We’re excited to have Dr. Brown return to us,” said Kevin Kehl, dean for student success. “She returns to Harding with a wealth of domestic and global expertise in both secondary and postsecondary education.”
Brown said she knows “firsthand the challenges and pitfalls students face as they make their way through university and later graduate school, because I am that first-generation, low-income student from a population that is underrepresented in fields requiring a graduate degree that McNair seeks to help.
“My journey to a Ph.D. in English literature was a convoluted one, and I truly wish I had had access to a program like McNair Scholars.”
Brown is the 12th of 15 children (nine boys and six girls) born to the late Richard and Lucy Ann Brown.
Ann Brown grew up in a family that sharecropped for a living.
“We weren’t the only ones born [as] Americans of African descent or Americans of European descent who worked in the fields, picked strawberries,” she said.
“We saw education as a way forward. … It was expected by so many of the families I knew growing up. Most graduated [from high school], but some never came back to Augusta because there were few jobs available there,” Brown said.
“My dad died early and left my mother with many children still at home. My mother retired as a farm laborer. It was just a job,” she said.
“My mother read us the Bible, and my older sister, Lucille, the fifth child, always read to us from her high school literature anthology,” Brown said. “So I grew up knowing ‘Annabel Lee,’ [a poem by Edgar Allan Poe], and ‘Invictus,’ [a poem by William Ernest Henley], or whatever they were studying in high school. We had no children’s books in our home.
“I memorized everything my sister read to us. I remember it was a few weeks into the first grade before my teacher realized I couldn’t read.”
Brown graduated from Augusta High School in 1979 and from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science in Education degree.
“At first I wanted to be a wildlife officer, a game warden,” she said. “I was inspired by [author Henry David] Thoreau, the American transcendentalist author and his book Walden.
“I loved spending time in the woods, meditating … living life simply, … but the more I thought about the reality of an American of African descent … and a female … confronting a group of poachers, alone, in the woods, I soon changed my mind.”
Brown switched her major to education.
“My first teaching job was at Northwood Junior High School in Pulaski County in 1985,” she said. “I taught English for two years. I returned to Augusta in 1987 and taught high school English and speech until 1990. While I was teaching at Augusta, I came to Harding to work on my master’s degree. I attended classes at night and during the summer and received my Master of Science in Education degree in 1990.
“After graduation, I was offered a job here and taught in the education department from 1990 to 1993. I taught English and was a writing coordinator for Student Support Services.”
In fall 1993, at the encouragement of advisers at Harding, Brown entered Howard University in Washington, D.C., to work on her doctorate.
“This is where it gets really convoluted,” she said, smiling.
“I had bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education, but I was working on my Ph.D. in literature and English,” she said. “I should have gotten a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Arts degree. … When I tried to make a lateral move from education to literature, I had to take additional classes in literature, so I didn’t complete my Ph.D. until 2005.”
During that time, Brown, who lived in D.C., said she “took time off and moved away” from pursuing a doctorate; she was later readmitted to Howard University to finish her doctorate. She took a teaching job at Sheridan School, a private school in the upper northwest part of D.C. She taught there from January 1997 until June 2009. During that time, she participated in a Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teaching Program and was among 200 educators who went to Japan for three weeks in 2006.
In 2009, she moved to the Middle East and took a teaching position at the American International School in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where she taught high school English and speech. She was there until 2015.
While in the UAE, she also taught at the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training, which is the commercial, research and training arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology, the largest higher-education institution in the UAE. She taught English-language courses for adults in the workforce and worked with the Emirates armed forces, helping members of the military prepare for the American Language Course Placement Test, which they had to pass in order to come to the United States for additional training. She was also a visiting professor for one semester at United Arab Emirates University.
Brown took time out of her busy teaching schedule in the Middle East to enjoy visiting other places.
“One summer, I hung out with the gorillas in Uganda,” she said. “I was inspired by that movie Gorillas in the Mist.
“One Christmas, I visited Baku in Azerbaijan, the former Russian state near the Caucasus Mountains,” she said. “I also visited Istanbul in nearby Turkey.”
Brown said she had never been out of the United States until 1991.
“That was on a mission trip to Brazil with a team from Harding,” she said, smiling. “That was the first time I ever flew.
“I grew up in Augusta, but because of Harding University, there was always an international presence in this area. When I was a student in high school, there was a student from Finland, one from Brazil and one from Colombia. We had exposure to international students and other cultures.”
Brown moved back to Augusta in 2015.
“I came home and chilled,” she said, adding that she did not teach from 2015-2017.
“I just wanted to breathe. I was 55 and asked myself, ‘What is the best use of your life and career?’” she said.
“I heard about a teaching job in Augusta and took it,” she said. “I taught history for nine weeks, from August until October. Then this position (director of the McNair Scholars Program) came open. I interviewed and was offered the job. My first day was Oct. 23, 2017.
“This is a five-year grant, with this being the first year.”
Brown said 13 of her family’s 15 siblings are still living.
“We get together for Thanksgiving at the oldest sister’s house in Rison,” she said. “There are approximately 75 grandchildren and, at the last count, 40 great-grandchildren. My oldest great-niece is 54; my youngest great-nephew is 14.”
She said someone asked her recently how she managed with such a large extended family.
“I told them: ‘This is my normal,’” she said.