United Voices: An Interview with Board Member Dr. Rhett Brown

By: Taylor Mabrey, Content Manager

United Voices is a series of interviews with community leaders sharing their expertise, passion and involvement across the greater Charlotte region.

This month, I sat down with United Way of Greater Charlotte’s Union County Representative on the Board of Directors, Dr. Rhett Brown, to talk about his background, his passion for community service and his relationship with United Way.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Brown: I transferred here [Wingate University] as a student in 1986 and was offered a position just for a couple of years until I figured out what I was going to do with my life. Being an English major, I was thinking about all of the normal things that English majors think about; I was thinking about law school, about the Peace Corps and I was thinking about the Marine Corps because I had served in the Navy to help pay for college with the GI Bill. I was considering those things, and I was invited to start a student community service organization here at Wingate. It was called UCAN – University and Community Assistance Network. I think that probably explains some of why I continue to stay close to United Way and the work done in our community because I got my start as something of a community organizer here in Wingate and in Union County in general. Through that job, I worked with Council on Aging, The Community Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, various children’s programs and more. I worked in all of those areas and helped mobilize students in support of that work beyond the campus.

One thing led to another, and I kept changing jobs and moving up and moving around in the University. At some point I thought, ‘I think I like working at a college or university.’ I got some advanced degrees, and then about 10 years ago or so, Dr. McGee, my predecessor, had been here 23 years and decided he was retiring. I don’t know that I had ever imagined being a college president, but this place means a lot to me, and I thought I wouldn’t mind being the president of this college. 

I was the first in my family to go to college, and I was a Federal Pell Grant recipient. I tell people all the time that Wingate literally changed the trajectory of my life. Playing a small part in that going forward, in some ways, feels like an indebtedness that I’m still trying to pay off to this place.

How did you get involved with United Way of Greater Charlotte?

Brown: Locally, I’ve served in a number of areas for the county’s United Way operation. I’ve done a little bit of everything, from having been a volunteer on the Day of Caring, all the way to serving on the county’s board. I chaired the board’s United Way campaign, and I’ve also run the campaign for the university. So over the years, I have done different things. I knew some of the leadership well and I was asked to get involved. 

I think that our institutional association with United Way is a part of our mission, and our actual mission on the University seal is three words – faith, knowledge and service. For us, it’s a knowledge that both informs and incorporates our faith, but ultimately leads us to lives of service. It’s an important part of what we see as our mission here, and it is one of the reasons why I’m involved locally.

Why is serving the community key to your mission at Wingate?

Brown: I tell people who will listen to me that in some ways, colleges and universities have become almost too preoccupied with the individual benefit that it conveys to a student. I just described what it did for me personally, and I talk about it a lot – the economic benefit – that is transferred to a student for getting a college degree, and I think sometimes we get a little obsessed with that, and even worse, we get obsessed sometimes with university’s reputation, right? I think we sometimes forget why we were founded, and it’s almost always to serve the communities where we were founded. We take that mission very seriously here at Wingate. We have a phrase we use; we talk about the university as a “lab of difference-making.” People usually ask, ‘what do you mean by that?’ and I explain that we have talented people and resources, we have the university and its assets, and the community has needs and opportunities. When our talent, resources and assets can meet community needs and opportunities at that intersection, there’s this rich possibility for teaching, learning and study and for maturation and for service.

What about United Way’s mission excites you?

Brown: I’ve been really impressed with the change in focus – to concentrate resources where they are needed and wanted in our communities – has been a nice move for United Way. I love the comprehensive efforts with A Home For All and how it is not just targeting housing insecurity, but improving temporary housing and finding solutions for individuals experiencing homelessness, in order to move upstream and improve the lives of people in greater Charlotte. That’s meaningful work.

The other thing I appreciate about United Way is the way it convenes partners from all areas, whether it’s the corporate community, the philanthropic community, the nonprofit community or the neighborhoods that are in need, United Way is in the center of them, making sure that everybody’s voice is present and heard and that our efforts are in the best interest of those who are directly impacted. I think United Way plays such an important role in strengthening the community.

Meet the rest of United Way’s Board of Directors.