Brant House, a 271 room student residence, opened on Lower Albert Street in September 2015.
Brant House is named in recognition of the accomplishments and services of the Brants, a prominent Indigenous family with strong Queen’s ties. Dr. Marlene Brant Castellano and her brother Dr. Clare Clifton Brant, Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, are Queen’s graduates.
Dr. Marlene Brant Castellano (Arts’55, LLD’91) is a leader in Indigenous education and research who has dedicated her life to the rights and well-being of Indigenous students. She has taught in the Queen’s Faculty of Education and has served as the co-chair of the Indigenous Council of Queen’s University. An Officer of the Order of Canada, Dr. Brant Castellano has also been awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award.
Her late brother, Dr. Clare Clifton Brant (MD’65), was Canada’s first Aboriginal psychiatrist and worked to advance Aboriginal mental health issues. He founded the Native Mental Health Association and was an Aboriginal health policy advisor to provincial and national health ministries. His seminal work, Native Ethics and Rules of Behaviour, continues to be extensively quoted in psychiatry, medical anthropology and sociological circles.
“The Brant family in its many generations is honoured to have the new student residence, built on traditional Haudenosaunee territory, carry our name,” said Dr. Brant Castellano in 2014. “We hope that it will become known as a welcoming place, where young people put their minds together to see what they will do for the good of people here on campus and further abroad to the four directions.”