Alton Brown was already a promising young karate athlete with his heart set on becoming the best in the world when he started thinking about university. If he went, he’d be the second person in his family to do so – his aunt Sasha had studied nursing – but he wasn’t sure what to study and where. Eventually, he settled on business administration after enjoying business studies at college, and chose London South Bank University (LSBU), particularly because of its sports scholarship programme.
“I loved sports and drama at school but didn’t quite have the confidence to go down the performing arts route,” he says. “I had already started competing as an athlete for the English national team, so it was important for me to be somewhere that gave me the flexibility to do that alongside getting my degree. LSBU offered a lot of support. I did my undergraduate there and then went on to do a master’s degree in international development a few years later.”
Fast-forward a decade and Brown has retired from international competition, after narrowly missing out on a place at the Olympics in Tokyo 2021. But over the years he’s been able to combine his love of sport with a career working in arts education, giving him a sense of purpose that is enabling him to have a huge impact on society. His career has spanned some of the country’s greatest institutions – from the National Theatre, Southbank Centre, Roundhouse, and the Royal Opera House, to the Commonwealth Games, where he worked as head of youth programmes and policy. “I have always had a burning desire to make a positive impact on the world, particularly for young people who have faced significant challenges in their lives,” he says.
His master’s degree in international development gave him “a window into a world that I really wanted to understand”, he says. “It was amazing being in a space with people who were talking knowledgeably, passionately about some of the developmental issues going on around the world. I was fascinated.” Today, alongside his professional role, he’s also a trustee for Art Against Knives, a creative charity that works with communities to inspire social change, and an ambassador for FairFight, a Dutch non-profit that aims to empower girls and women from challenging backgrounds through martial arts training.
It’s an age-old myth that graduates in arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS) aren’t as employable as their peers who study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subjects. But research by the British Academy has found that eight of the 10 fastest growing sectors in the UK – including the financial, legal and professional services, information and communication, and the creative industries – employ more AHSS graduates than other disciplines. In 2020, LinkedIn found that the most in-demand soft skills according to employers were creativity, collaboration, persuasion and emotional intelligence.
“Those with the ideas and insights to change society wield considerable power to change the world for the better,” wrote Prof Sir David Cannadine in an open letter to graduates last year, as his stint as president of the British Academy came to a close. “That is why you will find historians, philosophers, psychologists and social scientists in the corridors of power, in the boardrooms of business and even in such unlikely places as the laboratories of Silicon Valley. As the problems we face become increasingly global and our social worlds become ever more complex, we need more people than ever before who understand society and humanity.”
That sentiment was shared by Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, who once said: “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough – it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”
For Brown, his passion to make a difference came from his experience of working with young people in arts education. While an administrator for the directors’ office of the National Theatre, he “got to see first-hand how incredibly inspired school pupils were when they stepped out of their comfort zones to perform on the main stage. Just seeing the joy on their faces made me realise I wanted to create some of those moments for other people,” he says. He’s since worked with schools and community groups across the country, and with young people from a variety of circumstances – refugee families, those with special educational needs and disabilities, and those who have come into contact with the criminal justice system.
That sense of purpose has continued to drive Brown throughout his career. At the Commonwealth Games, he headed up a nationwide programme for children and young people aged five to 25, alongside collaborating with 10 Commonwealth countries and the British Council. Recently, his team organised an event for 700 primary school children in Birmingham, and he was reminded again of the impact such work can have. “It’s about how we use sport and the arts to create meaningful moments for young people that allow them to excel,” he says. “[The event] was incredible, especially knowing that the teachers had chosen children that wouldn’t usually see themselves as sporty. It’s so valuable for young people to have these moments and create little sparks for them. Who knows where it will go?”
His advice to other students would be to follow their passions. “My degree was such a valuable experience, not just for the course but also for the people I met along the way. It really opened my eyes to how I could go about making the difference that I wanted to make.”
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