Mercer Honors Nashville's Brady Banks with 2011 Young Alumnus Award

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Mercer University President William D. Underwood (right) presents Nashville's Brady Banks with the Thomas Sewell Plunkett Young Alumnus Award on Nov. 12 during Mercer’s Homecoming celebration.

MACON, GA (11/22/2011)(readMedia)-- Mercer University honored Brady Banks, of Nashville, Tenn., with the 2011 Thomas Sewell Plunkett Young Alumnus Award on Nov. 12 during the University's Homecoming celebration. The award is given to an alumnus or alumna of Mercer who graduated within the last 10 years and has demonstrated continued support of the Alumni Association and the University through the contribution of time, talents and financial resources.

Banks became one of the youngest people to ever serve on the Metro Council of Nashville and Davidson County when he was elected Sept. 15. He is currently the director of outreach for the state's Books from Birth Foundation and leads projects to sustain Imagination Library programs in all 96 Tennessee counties.

Banks has also been the vice chair of the mayor's anti-poverty initiatives, co-chair of the mayor's Housing Fair and has been a member on the mayor's Creating Livable Communities Task Force. Banks has worked as director of the mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, which helps local government respond to community needs. He was responsible for writing a proposal to help make residential and commercial buildings in Nashville more energy efficient by partnering with the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance and receiving a quarter million dollar grant for the city.

Banks is a Nashville Emerging Leader alumnus and was a recipient of a Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business Nonprofit Bridge Program fellowship. He graduated from Mercer's College of Liberal Arts in 2001 and attended Harvard Divinity School, where he earned a Master of Divinity in religion and public policy.

About Mercer University:

Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University enrolls more than 8,300 students in 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies – on major campuses in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah and at three regional academic centers across the state. Mercer is affiliated with two teaching hospitals - Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah and the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, and has educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta. The University operates an academic press and a performing arts center in Macon and an engineering research center in Warner Robins. Mercer is the only private university in Georgia to field an NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.