Queens University of Charlotte Athletics

Debbie Butler Bryan has been a significant contributor to Queens and to Queens Athletics. A 1968 graduate of Queens College, Debbie moved back to the Northeast after graduation, married and had three children. She received her MBA from the University of Connecticut in 1978. In 1988, at the invitation of President Billy O. Wireman she returned to campus for the first time. Then Alumni Director, Adelaide Davis ’61, likes to say that that was when Debbie “fell in love with Queens again.”

Almost immediately Debbie gave a van to the athletic department for the staff to use for recruiting. In 1997, Bryan endowed the Florence Fox Butler Scholarship to honor her mother. This award is given annually with preference for Queens student athletes. Bryan funded the renovation of the basement of Morrison Hall to create a student grill and game room, the Lion’s Den (2007) which has a strong athletic flavor with its décor.

Bryan, who has served on the Queens Board of Trustees for the past 16 years, has also made possible the new dance floor and air conditioning in the dance studio in Ovens Athletic Center. Most recently she supported our student experience when our men’s and women’s basketball teams took on three local Division I teams. An avid runner, Debbie ran the New York City Marathon four times, from 1998 to 2001.

A resident of New Canaan, Connecticut, Bryan has three children Russell Bryan, Amanda Bryan Briggs and Nathaniel “Than” Bryan and five grandchildren.