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’99
Ross Gower
was presented with a
2014 Grammy Award by the National
Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences
for his recording engineering work on
the Mike Farris album
Shine For All
The People
, the 2014 winner of the Best
Roots Gospel Album award.
’01
Florence
Sunette
Culpepper
was appointed
principal of
Lincoln Middle
School in the
Santa Monica-
Malibu Unified
School District
in 2015. Culpepper, who earned
a master’s degree in educational
leadership from California State
University-Northridge, also has
credentials in single subject teaching
and administrative services and is a
doctoral candidate at the University
of California in Los Angeles.
Jennifer Harris Henderson
was
appointed U.S. bankruptcy judge for
the Western Division of the Northern
District of Alabama in 2015. She
previously served at the Birmingham
law firm of Bradley Arant Boult
Cummings LLP.
’02
Dr. Mark Berry (MPPM)
has
been named vice president of
Environmental Affairs for Georgia
Power. He previously served as
a director at the Electric Power
Research Institute and spent nearly
two decades with Southern Co. He
also holds
multiple
patents
related to
power plant
emission
control.
Rev. Hill Carmichael
is executive
director of Urban Ministry in
Birmingham. He succeeded
Rev.
Melissa Self Patrick ’87
. (See her
note on p. 47).
Dr. Jonathan Malone
completed
a diagnostic radiology residency
in 2014 and a musculoskeletal
radiology fellowship in 2015 at the
Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. He
is currently in private practice at
Radiology Associates in association
with Lady of the Lake Regional
Medical Center in Baton Rouge, La.
Ryanne Duffie Saucier
was a 2015
Broadcast Leadership Training
graduate. The 10-month MBA-style
program in Washington, D.C.,
targets senior broadcast executives;
she delivered the commencement
address on behalf of her class. In
August of 2015, she was selected
as one of the Top 50 Leading
Business Women in Mississippi by
Mississippi Business Journal. She
is now a corporate counsel for
Cumulus Media in Atlanta.
’04
Carrie Comer
is the permanent
representative to the International
Criminal Court for the International
Federation for Human Rights, based
in the Netherlands. Previously,
she worked documenting and
investigating war crimes, human
rights abuses, and corruption—
primarily in Guatemala and
Honduras. She holds a master’s
in international human rights
law (with distinction) from the
University of Oxford.
Alum profile ’89
Joelle James Phillips
uses skills she learned at BSC’s
theatre every day—even though she’s playing a role she
hadn’t expected. In her position today as president of AT&T
Tennessee, the theatre graduate continues to find her college
studies relevant.
“Managing a team feels a little like directing, orchestrating
individual performances into something that works as a
whole,” she said.
Though Phillips was preparing to be an actress, she said the
Birmingham-Southern curriculum prepared her for things she
hadn’t yet realized she wanted to pursue. She first recognized
how useful her dramatic training would be when she decided
to study law.
At Washington and Lee University School of Law (she
graduated
summa cum laude
),
she found that memorizing lines
easily translated into memorizing case names and new Latin
terms. And while the Socratic method paralyzed many of her
classmates, she was able to listen and learn in class.
“Answering questions in class was not likely to be the
most embarrassing thing I’d ever done in front of an
audience,” said Phillips.
Today, she has a confidence about the possibility of creating
something from nothing, and she believes that comes from
her theatre experience of seeing a blank stage become a jungle
clearing, or a skid row florist shop, or a school for the deaf.
Her inclination to pursue new and creative ideas is a trait
she shares with the innovators at AT&T. It’s also a trait she
admired in her father, an electrical engineer who was in the
audience every time Phillips took the stage at BSC.
Because education has made such an impact in her own
life, Phillips is eager to support education-focused policy
initiatives in her community. A resident of Nashville, she
serves on the boards of Martin Methodist College and the State
Collaborative on Reforming Education.
Phillips also chairs the Drive to 55 Alliance, a group
of Tennessee’s largest employers who are working with
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam on strategies to equip more
Tennesseans with college degrees or technical certifications
beyond high school. The goal is to drive attainment up to at
least 55 percent by the year 2025.
“My BSC theatre training and legal background seem
custom made for my current leadership roles,” said Phillips,
who is the wife of
W. Brantley Phillips ’91
.
Phillips with Gov. Haslam.
Photo courtesy of Tennessee
Photographic Services.