Long before Kennard Brown was spearheading transformational projects at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTSHC), he was just a kid in Chicago, being told by his grandmother to do his homework.
A former sharecropper who couldn’t read or write, she understood, as much as anyone, the importance of education. And with Brown’s mother working night shifts, she was the one ensuring that he finished his assignments after school each day. He wouldn’t be playing with his friends — or doing anything — until it was completed.