Six CEHHS Alums Recognized for Outstanding Achievements

September 27, 2024 by Douglas Edlund

Six alums from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences received recognition for their extraordinary achievements at the annual Alumni Awards. The ceremony, held in September, singles out alums who have made significant contributions to their professions, service to UT, and future promise.

This year’s recipients include: Mary Cayten Brakefield, Bryan Coker, Brain Lee, Linda Lee, Monica Onwuka, and Sparky Rucker.

2024 Alumni Promise Winner: Mary Cayten Brakefield (’20)

Mary Cayten Brakefield is the co-founder of Brakefields, a mother/daughter founded fashion label that brings joyful comfort to women of all ages, sizes, and abilities. Designed with care in Nashville and produced on demand in Phoenix, Arizona, garments from Brakefields are available in sizes XXXS-6X with multiple hem lengths and optional accessibility adaptations. With elevated functionality at the core of the brand, each piece is created to ensure women of all bodies and lifestyles have a closet that equips them, not restricts them, for all the opportunities their day holds.

As a member of UT’s swim team, Brakefield’s passion for functional design largely originated from her time in VOLeaders, a leadership program for student-athletes at UT that exposed her to the frustrations of many disabled athletes she met. Soon after, the effects of a genetic condition changed her own ability levels which further intensified her passion for accessible products.

After beginning to explore adaptive design, Brakefield realized that the same approach resulted in better designed clothes for a multitude of women who have been historically frustrated by the garments available to them, such as postpartum moms, those feeling the effects of growing older, and simply particularly tall or short women. This realization inspired a brand that takes a different approach to inclusion where all needs are considered and addressed without creating more separation between groups in the final shopping experience. The education Brakefield received through UT’s retail and consumer sciences program, coupled with a master’s in marketing from Vanderbilt University, helped turn her desire for a more inclusive world into a platform for change to help make that desire a reality.

2024 Alumni Professional Achievement Award: Bryan F. Coker (’10)

Bryan F. Coker, PhD serves as the 12th President of Maryville College, a 205-year-old liberal arts institution of 1,200 undergraduate students, located in East Tennessee. Coker has served as Maryville’s president since July 2020 and has focused heavily on connections between the college and surrounding region, especially the Great Smoky Mountains. During Coker’s time as president, the college has experienced a 15 percent increase in student enrollment, addition of its first graduate program, opening of a new alumni center, construction of a new track and field facility, substantial increases in major gifts, and creation of the Maryville College Downtown Center. Several new academic and athletic programs have been introduced or are in progress.

Coker is the founding chair of the Collegiate Conference of the South athletic conference and a member of the NCAA Division III Presidents Council. He serves on the boards of the Appalachian College Association and the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities. He is an affiliated faculty member at UT and previously taught at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to Maryville, Coker was vice president and dean of students, as well as acting president, for Goucher College in Maryland. He previously served for 10 years as dean of students at Jacksonville University and as director of student judicial affairs for UT. He has also served as an accreditation evaluator for both the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Coker is a graduate of both Leadership Tennessee and Leadership Knoxville. He is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church USA and has served in various church leadership roles.

Originally from North Carolina, Coker received his BA from Rhodes College, is a member of the college’s Hall of Fame and was previously recognized as Rhodes’s first-ever Young Alumnus of the Year. He holds an MEd from the University of South Carolina, and a PhD from UT (’10). Coker is married to Rhodes classmate Sara Barnette Coker, and they have four children.

2024 Alumni Service Award: Brian Lee (’92)

Brian Lee has always believed that it is a true privilege to serve others and so having a career in hospitality came naturally for him. His roots are deeply planted in East Tennessee, and he is proud to share this special corner of the world with others. Lee’s life began on a dairy farm in Monroe County, Tennessee, before his family settled in Seymour. He attended Heritage High School in Blount County and graduated from UT with a major in Hotel and Restaurant Management. His love of travel has taken him around the world, and he returns home each time with a refreshed perspective and inspired by the people and cultures experienced.

As Director of Guest Relations at Blackberry Farm, Lee focuses on the quality of the guest experience and ensures that the company’s mission of legendary hospitality, memorable experiences, and generational sustainability is fulfilled each day. For Lee, the company’s mission is all about creating lasting relationships with guests and team members. He believes that ‘yes’ should always be the attitude and that leaders should encourage their teams to live their best lives and create an environment where that is possible. He is in his 29th year at Blackberry Farm and continues to strive for each guest’s experience to be the best it can be. Service is noble work, and Lee knows that his time studying at UT was the cornerstone for a great career.

Lee is proud to give back to UT as a Chancellor’s Associate; member of the Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Management Advisory Board; commencement speaker; instructor in the classroom; and mentor to students. He affirms every day that it is great to be a Tennessee Vol!

2024 Alumni Service Award: Linda S. Lee, PhD (’72)

A native of Hendersonville, North Carolina, Linda S. Lee enrolled at UT in 1968, initially majoring in journalism. After an introductory course in child development, she changed majors and graduated with honors in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in home economics. While at UT, Lee was active in the Clement Hall Residents’ Association, Usher Corps, Phi Mu Fraternity, and Student Government Association.

After graduation, Lee taught in two upstate South Carolina school districts in Comprehensive Child Development Centers. After leaving public school education, Lee directed training programs in South Carolina for parents and childcare providers through the Mobile Child Development Training Program of the South Carolina Appalachian Health Commission, and the Greenville County Library’s Project LITTLE KIDS, which received special recognition from the Southeastern Library Association and the then US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. After earning her master’s in early childhood education from the University of South Carolina, she established an academic child development training program at Greenville Technical College. She then served as Dean of Allied Health Sciences at Greenville Technical College for three years before enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where she earned her PhD in Education in 1991.

Her studies at UNC exposed Lee to a new career path for advanced degree educators: medical education. She joined the Duke University School of Medicine faculty as an Education Specialist in 1991 and retired from Duke in 2017 as Associate Professor Emerita of Medical Education. Since 2018, Duke’s Master of Biomedical Sciences program has awarded a graduating student each year with the Dr. Linda S. Lee Professionalism Award.

Lee has promoted student engagement with UT Libraries by providing incoming freshmen from the Research Triangle area of North Caroline with student memberships in the John C. Hodges Society and distributing materials about the libraries to students and their parents at freshman “send-off” parties sponsored by the Triangle UT Alumni Chapter. Lee served on the Advisory Board of the John C. Hodges Society for ten years and was chair from 2019 to 2021. Remotely, she transitioned the board to a virtual working group when on-campus activities were curtailed due to pandemic restrictions. In addition, Lee has provided ongoing gift support to the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and UT Libraries.

2024 Alumni Promise Winner: Monica Onwuka (’16,’21)

Monica grew up in Memphis, Tennessee,  Monica earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and later earned her Master of Science degree in Higher Education Administration.

As a student, Monica was a member of the Minority Mentoring Program where she participated in the Miss Freshman Scholarship Pageant and was crowned Miss Freshman during the spring 2013 semester. Monica dedicated her time to UT, giving campus tours and working admissions events as a student ambassador for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and as a member of the Student Alumni Associates. Upon graduation, Monica started her higher education career with UT, recruiting future Vols as the Houston-based regional admissions counselor for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and went on to serve in the Office of Diversity and Community Engagement in the Haslam College of Business as the coordinator of pre-collegiate programs and outreach. As Associate Director of Academic Success under the office of Student Success, she continues her career with UT Health Science Center, where she has worked in community engagement, academic coaching, recruitment, and student engagement.

As president and vice president of Grind City Cares, husband Chima and Monica serve the greater Memphis community and have worked with a multitude of companies and organizations to provide a wide variety of community services.

2024 Alumni Professional Achievement Award: Sparky Rucker (’71)

James “Sparky” Rucker has been singing songs and telling stories from the American tradition for over 50 years. Internationally recognized as a leading musician, author, storyteller, and historian, he has released 16 music recordings, including a variety of old-time blues, Appalachian music, slave songs, Civil War music, spirituals, work songs, ballads, civil rights music, and originals.

Rucker has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and has also been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, and Morning Edition. His recording, Treasures & Tears, was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award, and his music is also included on the Grammy-nominated anthology, Singing Through the Hard Times. He has played at major folk festivals, including two American Folk Blues Festivals in Europe, the Gurten-Bern International Festival in Switzerland, and the National Folk Festival in Australia. In 2022, he was honored with the Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship. As an author, Rucker was included in anthologies such as Breathing the Same Air, More Ready-To-Tell Tales, and The August House Book of Scary Stories. He also contributed entries for the Encyclopedia of Appalachia and co-wrote a chapter for the storytelling book, Team Up! Tell In Tandem!

While growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee, Rucker began playing guitar at age eleven. He graduated from UT with a bachelor’s in art education from the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. He has been involved with the civil rights movement since the 1950s and participated in workshops at the Highlander Center with many prominent people, including Rosa Parks, Myles Horton, and Bernice Reagon. As an activist, he worked with the Poor People’s Campaign and several civil rights organizations. He marched shoulder-to-shoulder with SNCC Freedom Singers Matthew and Marshall Jones and sang at rallies, marches, and sit-ins alongside other folk singers such as Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger. He additionally worked to win recognition and benefits for white Southern Appalachian coal miners as a staff member of the Council of the Southern Mountains in the 1970s.