alumni profiles
MATTERS OF THE MIND ALUMNUS DR. STEPHEN A. BROUGHTON DISCOVERED HIS DIRECTION IN LIFE WHILE ATTENDING UAPB, AND IT CHANGED HIS OUTLOOK FOREVER. by Dr. Ann Y. White
When he stepped onto the campus of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in the fall of 1975, Dr. Stephen A. Broughton, knew it was where he was supposed to be. “It was wonderful,” Broughton, staff psychiatrist at the Southeast Arkansas Behavioral Healthcare System, in Pine Bluff, said recently. “I grew up there. So for me, UAPB was about learning what I wanted to do and how I wanted to be. It was the extra touch I needed.” That extra touch helped propel Broughton into a successful career in mental health care. For the past 11 years, he has been a staff psychiatrist at the Southeast Arkansas Behavioral Healthcare System where he practices general psychiatry for adults. From 1999-2008, he operated the only black-owned private psychiatry practice in Pine Bluff. His success also has brought other prestigious honors, including an appointment to a 10-year term on the Board of Trustees for the University of Arkansas System. The appointment, made by former Governor Mike Beebe, ends in 2022. The board is the governing body for the University of Arkansas System. Broughton currently is the only black member of the board. Born in Pine Bluff in 1958 to parents, Theodis and Delores Broughton, both AM&N (now UAPB) College graduates, Broughton said he had always wanted to study medicine. A 1975 graduate of Pine Bluff High School, his impressive scores on the PSAT and SAT tests helped him gain a National Merit Letter of Recommendation and a spot as a National Achievement Finalist, accomplishments that brought scholarship offers from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Hendrix College in Conway and Rhodes College (formerly Southwestern at Memphis) Broughton said he had decided to accept a scholarship from St. John AME Church, where he was a member, to attend Hendrix College when some members of the church intervened. “Many of the professors at UAPB attended St. John, one of them being Dr. Rufus Caine,” Broughton said. At that time, Caine was chairman of the biology department at UAPB. “Dr. Caine said we can teach you what you need to know to be a physician,” Broughton said.
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UAPB Magazine • University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
