Carson-Newman recognizes students with Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards

^{During its annual Honors Convocation on Thursday, Carson-Newman University named Hope Adkins and Keiran Braun the 2018 recipients of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. Pictured left to right are C-N Executive Vice President and Provost Paul Percy, Hope Adkins, Kieran Braun, and University President J. Randall O’Brien.}

(April 5, 2018) – Carson-Newman University honored two students with its highest student award during its April 5 Honors Convocation. Hope Marie Adkins and Kieran Braun were each presented the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award before friends, family and the greater campus community.

The New York Southern Society established the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award in 1890 to honor an Indiana native and Manhattan attorney who was considered a living example of genteel spirit and Christian compassion. The awards, which are donated by the foundation that bears his name, are granted at 68 colleges and universities to graduating seniors, one female and one male, who “excel in high ideals of living, in fine spiritual qualities, and in generous and unselfish service to others.”

A resident of Church Hill, Adkins is a Family and Consumer Science Education major. She is a member of Chi Lambda Sigma, the Kappa Omicron Nu Honors Society, Mortar Board and has made the Dean’s List each semester.

Adkins is a Carson-Newman Faith and Justice Scholar, a Niswonger Scholar recipient and the 2017 recipient of the Family and Consumer Sciences Outstanding Service Award and Betty Lamp pin. She is recruitment Chair for the Student Ambassador Association; freshman orientation leader/peer mentor; student liaison to the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences; and has served as the membership chair, recruitment chair and currently the president of Young Women of Promise.

She has volunteered at YOKE, the Youth of Knoxville Evangelism Club of Jefferson City, and at YOKE FOLK at Jefferson County Middle School and Maury Middle School where she prepares devotions for students that pertain to the daily hardships they may face.

In addition, Adkins is the student founder of the WOW! Tutoring Program at First Baptist Church, Jefferson City, where she plans and schedules tutors for math, reading, science and social studies for students in first through fourth grades.

Braun is a graphic design major with a theater minor from Jefferson City. As a Bonner Scholar, he has logged more than 1,800 hours of service at Habitat for Humanity, The Jefferson City Library and the Jefferson County Office on Aging.

During the summer of 2017, Braun piloted a program called ‘The Puppet Project’ at the Jefferson County Public Library which gave many low-income and at-risk students the chance to not only learn how to use puppets but to tell their own stories through puppetry.

In addition to other activities on campus, Braun has spent many hours performing in and working on Carson-Newman theater productions. He helped design the costumes for C-N’s production of “The Chronicles of Narnia” where he was the puppeteer for Aslan the lion. He also helped create the puppets for the production of “Children of Eden,” and has performed on-stage in many other productions.

Matt Bryant Cheney, Bonner Center director, said of Braun, “His impact on his peers and his service sites has been, and no doubt, will continue to be immeasurable. However, I want to make it clear that I don’t think Kieran should be seen as an inspiration because of his achievements while living on the Autism spectrum. Rather, he should be honored justly as an asset to any organization or group who will be lucky to work with him in the future. He is an example of the very best Carson-Newman can hope to produce.”

Braun is the second member of his family to receive the Algernon Sydney Sullivan award. His grandfather, Ernest Howard Massie, was presented the award in 1971.