One for the Books

The right to remain silent

One of the worst-kept secrets in Atlanta during the 1960s and ’70s was the identity of the anonymous donor who always stepped up with huge contributions when the city needed a new performing arts center or a multi-acre downtown park on the most expensive real estate in the Southeast. This charitable soul truly believed what […]

Sandra Greniewicki: Pliable Heart

Sandra Greniewicki, Anne Warren Thomas Professor of Nursing & Health Policy, poses for a photo inside the Lockett-Mitchell Parlour. (AJ Reynolds/Brenau University)

In May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy tapped into that nascent mother lode of good old American faith and chutzpah when he declared that the veritable global laughing stock of a U.S. space program would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. A year earlier, a group of Gainesville, […]

Cora Anderson Hill: Stepping Up for Women in Word and Deed

Cora Anderson Hill, WC '16, pictured in the 1916 Bubbles.

At every Women’s College spring commencement since the 1980s, the almost liturgical reading by Brenau’s top academic officer goes something like this: The university presents to the graduating senior with the highest academic average the Cora Anderson Hill Award, named for a Brenau alumna from Gainesville with a distinguished career in journalism and public service. […]

Fun Makes the Difference for Trustee Pete Miller

Cathy and Pete Miller pose for a portrait on the front lawn of Brenau's Historic Gainesville Campus. (AJ Reynolds/Brenau University)

Peter D. Miller, the 13-year veteran chair of the Brenau Board of Trustees, started his career in the Georgia banking world in the early 1970s when it was a relationships-based, person-to-person business. Bankers did deals with people they knew virtually on handshakes and promises – letting all the paperwork catch up later. Like the saying […]

Actually, Four for the Books

1945 Alpha Chi Omega sisters
Betty Rose Hutson, WC ’45, experienced one of those bittersweet moments that certainly included some sadness but also bubbled with joy. She told how she and her three closest Brenau sorority sisters and classmates enjoyed the gift of best friends who actually communicated regularly for more than 70 years. “I just think it is great [...]

Early Adopters

Margaret May Franklin House

One interesting aspect of higher education philanthropy lore is that married couples historically tended to give more to the husband’s alma mater than the wife’s. It has been said that the couple may donate a set of encyclopedias in the wife’s honor to the library at the school she attended, then donate millions of dollars to build the library at […]

Let’s Do The Numbers

John Cleveland spends his days examining troves of data, which he applies to his studied economic principles to make decisions managing his family investments. He knows from firsthand experience that investments in a community and a university pay big dividends. By David Morrison A few days before the Federal Reserve Bank would make its long-awaited […]

Heavy Hitter

When you read about 2014 Brenau Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Antonina Grib Lerch’s days as the top U.S. collegiate singles tennis player, her competitors share one common denominator. Whether they played on NAIA or NCAA Division II or III players, she generally beat them all. Since then the tennis champ has continuously moved up […]

Exit Strategy: Wayne Wright Dempsey Sr., 1948-2014

Wayne Dempsey

For almost 66 years Wayne Dempsey provided a practical illustration of how to live well. In the last three of those years, he taught us how to die well, too.  The remarkable life ended May 2, 2014, where it began, in the northwest Georgia community at the confluence of three rivers surrounded by seven hills […]

What’s the Big Idea?

On a fall day a couple of years ago, a group of Brenau students found themselves on a long car ride to North Carolina with one of the university deans, Bill Lightfoot. En route to participating in the social entrepreneurship session with representatives from other colleges and universities in the Appalachian region, they brainstormed things they […]