Abstract
Morayo Akande grew up in Illinois with her three siblings. Her father is a Nigerian immigrant, and her mother is American. During her first year of high school, Akande moved with her father to Indiana where he was attending law school. During her high school career, Akande was extremely active in extracurricular activities, as well as an extraordinarily successful student. She was on the cross-country team, participated in theatre, and received exemplary grades.
In this interview, Morayo Akande, Brown University class of 2016, begins by discussing her path to Brown, and the pressure she felt from her parents to attend an Ivy League institution. She recalls being especially impressed by the warmth of the campus during her visit in high school and narrates her correspondence with the Brown Track and Field team that recruited her. She then goes on to talk about her first memory at Brown, as well as her experience directing The Who’s Tommy. Committed to questions and problems of mental health on campus, Akande talks about the value and concerns she has with services provided on campus, and how that related to her decision both to pursue a concentration in Public Health, as well as her involvement in Brown Opera Productions. Akande also describes the consequences of suffering a serious concussion in her undergraduate years that impacted her own mental health. During this same period, Akande recalls struggling with the long-term effects of trauma she suffered during high school when her father started travelling back to his native country, Nigeria, leaving her to live alone. Akande discusses the difficulty of living nearly completely independently as a teen, struggling with housing and food instability. The interview ends with Akande describing her professional life after graduating from Brown, her intentions to join the Peace Corps and that organization’s refusal to allow applicants who have received mental health treatment to serve, and how she came to her position as a project coordinator for the Brown School of Public Health.
Recorded on October 11, 2018 in Alumnae Hall, Brown University, Providence, RI
Interviewed by Mary Murphy, Nancy L. Buc ’65 LLD‘94 hon Pembroke Center Archivist
Suggested Chicago style citation: Akande, Morayo. Interview. By Mary Murphy. Pembroke Center Oral History Project, Brown University. October 11, 2018.
Biography
Morayo Akande grew up in Illinois with her three siblings. Her father is a Nigerian immigrant, and her mother is American. During her first year of high school, Akande moved with her father to Indiana where he was attending law school. During her high school career, Akande was extremely active in extracurricular activities, as well as an extraordinarily successful student. She was on the cross-country team, participated in theatre, and received exemplary grades. At her father’s insistence, Akande applied to several Ivy League schools, and chose Brown University because of the rigorous academics and kind, open environment. She concentrated in Public Health, participated in several clubs including Track and Field and Brown Opera Productions, and graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in 2016. Thanks to a new dual-degree program, she received a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Brown University in 2017. Upon graduating, Akande had the intention to join the Peace Corps, but found herself returning to Providence, where she began working at Seven Stars Bakery and Lifespan as a researcher. Now Akande is working as a project coordinator for the Brown University School of Public Health, where she “work[s] with South African teams on creating novel behavioral economic programs to improve treatment for teenagers living with HIV, testing ways to integrate prevention of HIV with prevention of rape and sexual assault, and the creation of the South Africa Addiction Technology Transfer Center, a SAMHSA-funded center that provides training and technical assistance support to front-line addiction treatment providers.”