New admission welcome center named in honor of the late Dr. Galen V. Henderson MD’93

A fitting tribute to Galen V. Henderson

To the colleagues, friends, loved ones and mentees of the late Dr. Galen V. Henderson, there is no better place to bear his name than a space dedicated to welcoming people to Brown.

Henderson was a 1993 Warren Alpert Medical School graduate who came to Brown via the University’s longstanding partnership with Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Mississippi.

“His spirit, his brilliance, his compassion, his calling — they’re all here,” said his widow, Dr. Vanessa Britto, who is Brown’s associate vice president for campus life and executive director of student health and wellness. “When I look around at this really beautiful building… I can’t help but consider all that it represents, and I can’t help but be humbled.”

Britto, who consulted with the project team as the space took shape, offered remarks during a private ceremony a few weeks ahead of the public opening of the center, sharing reflections on her husband, who died in 2023.

“One of his missions in life [was] to create and support foundational moments for others, opportunities for others to learn from and to build on,” Britto said. “And if you knew Galen, you knew that he embodied a welcoming spirit — he had a way of making everyone feel like they belonged, whether it was a patient sitting in an exam room, a student searching for direction, a colleague finding their footing in the neurointensive care unit, or introducing someone to a new jazz artist.”

Vice Chancellor Pamela R. Reeves, a friend who served with Henderson on the Corporation of Brown University, recalled his signature bowties and the way he welcomed and aided her transition when she became a trustee, describing him as “an arms-wide-open-with-welcome” kind of person.

“Galen was so very smart — and combine that with his being so thoughtful and analytical, it made him an excellent, excellent Corporation member,” Reeves said. “And he did it all with that fierce dedication, that twinkly smile and his signature warmth.”

In Henderson’s decorated medical career, he became the country’s first Black neurointensivist and first Black fellow to be inducted into the Neurocritical Care Society. He served as director of neurocritical care in the Department of Neurology and chief diversity and inclusion officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Always dedicated to Brown, he was the first medical school graduate to become president of the Brown Alumni Association and to be appointed to Brown’s Corporation.

“He supported Brown in myriad ways,” Reeves said. “And he did all of that the way he did his service in other areas — the way he served his patients, and his students, and the hospital and everybody around him — with a full-on commitment to the way things might be now, but more important, how they could be and maybe how they should be.”

Now the building that bears his name on its doors and a plaque near the welcome desk will usher in future generations of Brunonians.

“The Galen V. Henderson Admission Welcome Center will be… the first place many encounter Brown University, and how fitting that the first thing they experience will be a spirit of welcome, a space that invites the curious, the courageous, the seekers [and] the scholars to step forward and find their place here,” Britto said. “That’s who Galen was: a man who opened doors, a man who built bridges, and a man who said to the world, ‘Come in, there’s room for you here.’”

This story was adapted from a News From Brown release.