[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 150 (Tuesday, November 19, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11568-S11569]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DR. MARY JANE BRANNON

 Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, Mary Jane Crump Brannon graduated 
from Huntingdon College in 1937 with majors in biology and English, and 
a minor in French. She received her Master of Arts degree from the 
University of Alabama in 1938 in Parasitology. She did further graduate 
work at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois. She 
completed her Ph.D. in Parasitology at Tulane University in 1943. She 
was the mother of seven children, and taught biology at her alma mater 
for forty years.
  She began teaching at Huntingdon in 1956, and taught full-time until 
1986, and part-time for ten more years. During much of this time and 
during the time I was a student at Huntingdon, she was head of the 
Biology Department. After her retirement she ran an Elderhostel program 
for Huntingdon College and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
  Those are the facts about Dr. Brannon and her career, but they do not 
begin to hint at the many lives she touched while teaching at 
Huntingdon. She was a great teacher, brilliant scientist, and 
incredibly committed to the betterment of her students.
  Every student who studied advanced biology at Huntingdon during those 
40 years knew Dr. Brannon, and she knew them and took an interest in 
them. They overlooked her difficulty with names--``Please answer 
question number seven Joe-Charlie-Sally-whatever your name is, 
child..''--because they knew she cared about them, and because she 
really wanted them to learn biology. She was very demanding of her 
students, but none were afraid of her; they knew she would do her best 
to teach them.
  Pre-med students all looked to her for advice in getting into medical 
school. One student wanted to go to Tulane Medical School, but could 
not afford it. Dr. Brannon and the Chairman of the Tulane Admissions 
Committee were friends, and she called him. After their conversation 
Tulane offered that student a full tuition scholarship. Scholarships to 
medical school were even rarer then than they are now!
  It would be difficult to count the number of students she helped get 
into graduate or professional school, but in 1983 she had taught 56 
Doctors of Medicine or Osteopathy, seven dentists, and dozens of 
biologists. In 1983 alone, eleven Huntingdon graduates were admitted to 
medical school, out of a graduating class of less than 200! Many of 
these owed their acceptance into medical, dental, or graduate school to 
her advice, or to having her ``pull strings'' with directors of 
admission. Huntingdon's 89% acceptance rate to medical school was in 
large part due to her teaching and leadership.
  Dr. Brannon followed the lives of her former students closely, and 
every year she contacted them in person or by mail. They all looked 
forward to the ``Biology Christmas Letter'' to find out what their 
college friends were doing currently. She served as a hub for 
information about classmates and the college. Dr. Brannon, by her 
loyalty to Huntingdon College caused her students to recognize the 
uniqueness of the school, and to be loyal also. When I attended 
Huntingdon College, everyone knew there was no more talented, 
hardworking or loyal student than those in the biology department. They 
were a special group. They reflected her values.
  Students went to Dr. Brannon with their personal problems, too. One 
student, who now has a Ph.D. in chemistry, tells of going to Dr. 
Brannon for advice about her boyfriend, who had proposed. ``I remember 
seeking her advice, which was practical, insightful, and blunt, when a 
guy asked me to marry him my last year at Huntingdon. She told me if I 
were going to get a Ph.D., that particular guy would not be a good 
match intellectually, etc. She told me there would be plenty of guys 
who would want to marry me later on after I received my Ph.D. She 
encouraged me to get my education first, which was a bold statement 
from a teacher to a female student in the 1970s.''
  She was always arranging field trips for her students to take--trips 
to research labs, to the medical and dental schools, or to wilderness 
areas of Alabama. She planned and coordinated an annual trip to Panama 
City, Florida, right after the end of the school year so that students 
could gather biological specimens. It was also so they could have a 
little fun, but she was their chaperone, and nobody dared misbehave! 
She always gave a nighttime lecture and demonstration on 
bioluminescence, showing us the ``things in the Gulf that glow in the 
dark.''
  Every semester, for every class that she taught, Dr. Brannon invited 
the entire class over to her home for dinner. She did this for more 
than 30 years,

[[Page S11569]]

each semester. It was a personal way of telling us that she cared about 
us and wanted to share her home and talents with us.
  She was a superb teacher. She taught students about biology, but 
perhaps more importantly she taught them about living and loving. 
Because of the real interest she had in each student, she was a 
powerful influence for good in each one's life.
  Teachers are very important people. Many have touched my life in 
significant ways. Those special teachers who have a real passion for 
truth and excellence, and who care deeply about their subjects and 
their students are the ones who change lives--and change them for the 
better. Dr. Mary Jane Brannon was one of those. She saw the world 
clearly, spoke quickly and frankly (when one speaks the truth there is 
less need to hesitate), and strongly desired that her students live 
lives dedicated to excellence. Those who studied under her could not be 
unaffected. Indeed, she inspired students who were not her students. 
She was more than a teacher, she was a force for learning and right 
living.
  Her former students remember her with gratitude, admiration and 
love.

                          ____________________