Giving Back and Paying Forward

Tammy Briant, J.D. ’06

Tammy Briant, J.D. ’06, has departed from her full-time role at Stetson University College of Law. Yet, Briant certainly won’t be forgotten.

The former Stetson Law assistant dean for student affairs has been tapped for a position with The NCHERM Group, LLC (TNG), one of the largest education-specific law and consulting practices nationwide. Briant will continue to teach the Law and the Civil Rights Movement course at Stetson as an adjunct professor. Even more notably, in the spirit of paying forward and as a way of saying thank you to the College of Law, Briant has endowed a scholarship to benefit future students in her popular course.

“Stetson Law is a special place,” Briant said. “While her beauty is evident the moment you drive onto campus, it is her people that make her a home for learning and growing as a professional and as a human. I’d like to think I helped students find their professional identity in a physical space that cultivated belonging, safety and a sense of being at home.”   

During her decade of service to Stetson as a student affairs leader, Briant expanded the Office of Student Affairs to include Title IX and mental health counseling services as well as residential life. She spearheaded efforts to implement a food pantry and sexual health resource center and developed new orientation programming to include an introduction to the concept of implicit bias. She served on the part-time student taskforce, represented the College of Law on the university-wide Inclusive Implementation Strategy Group, was deputy Title IX coordinator for students, chaired the Student Support and Emergency Team, and was part of a university-wide response to Department of Education guidance for universities on Title IX. Also, she assisted with policy development and served on several councils, teams and various committees to formulate campus and university-wide responses at Stetson.

Briant has made an impact in the classroom — such as with her Law and the Civil Rights Movement course — across the Stetson Law campus and throughout the local community.

Further, Briant represented Stetson at Leadership Tampa as part of the class of 2014. And she provided creative input for Constitution Hall, which Stetson developed as a civics lesson for K-12 students who visit Pinellas County’s Stavros Center.

In 2017, Briant was recognized as an Outstanding Young Lawyer by the Hillsborough County Bar Association. In 2015, she was selected as an Outstanding Professional in Graduate and Professional Student Services by the National Association of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and was recognized as one of the Business Observer’s “40 under 40.”

Across the United States, Briant has taught and presented on implicit bias, diversity and inclusion, and civil rights history.

In the local arena, Briant is president-elect of the Gasparilla International Film Festival and has played a role in bringing legal films to the greater community, including the documentaries “The Loving Story” and “RBG.” With Stetson Law’s manager of video production Stan Arthur, Briant and a small group of lawyers produced the documentary, “Before the Law Was Equal,” outlining the oral history of local lawyers who broke down the barriers of segregation in the legal profession.

While she was pursuing her law degree at Stetson, Briant was an active student leader. She was elected president of the Calvin A. Kuenzel Student Bar Association and served as a member of Stetson’s Leadership Development Committee, Hispanic Bar Association, Equal Justice Works and as a Public Service Fellow.