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re: UAB to AAU status. How does that affect UA?
Posted on 10/31/26 at 9:53 am to RollTide4Ever
Posted on 10/31/26 at 9:53 am to RollTide4Ever
According to Reddit (grain of salt), by the 1960s, there was a growing concern the country was becoming oversaturated with medical schools. New ones popped across the country post-WW2 almost every year and there were fears that America would eventually produce more doctors than it needed. So the BOT had no idea how rare med schools would become as back then, they weren't nearly as prestigious or sought after as they are today.
Like I said, it's Reddit, so take it with a grain of salt but it's literally the only explanation I've come across that makes such an unbelievably shortsighted decision by the BOT make any sense.
Like I said, it's Reddit, so take it with a grain of salt but it's literally the only explanation I've come across that makes such an unbelievably shortsighted decision by the BOT make any sense.
Posted on 10/31/26 at 9:53 am to PuertoRicanBlaze
quote:
Not saying you're wrong here (because you're not) but I'll never understand why this is such a stain on the university's legacy when riots broke out on Georgia's campus leading to their first minority students to be suspended for their own safety, Vandy suspended a black student due to pressure from pro-segregationist board members and wealthy donors, SC was the last SEC school to accept blacks and they had to lock down campus due to cross burnings and threats, Wallace sent troopers to block Auburn's first black student who was also swarmed by white students and they even tried to plant a gun on him in order to frame him, etc. It makes no sense why that same dark cloud has dissipated over other institutions (including Ole Miss) yet will forever linger over UA.
Doesn’t help that one of the most infamous examples of state power resisting integration happened there; Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse door.”
Kicker is that Wallace knew it was ultimately symbolic but he didn’t care. The national attention was entirely his goal, consummate politician that he was and whatever reputational damage the university had to suffer.
To give you an idea of how much of a political creature he was, he was initially pretty moderate on race in the mold of Big Jim Folsom, his political mentor. He whiplashed on that hard when he got beaten in the 1958 democratic primary for governor by a fire breathing KKK endorsed segregationist. After that he became the “segregation forever” guy.
I don’t think he believed a word of it. Think all he wanted was to keep climbing, damn the consequences.
This post was edited on 10/31/26 at 12:20 pm
Posted on 10/31/26 at 10:33 am to Bigbens42
I’ve heard from some oldheads around here that Wallace may have made UAB its own 4yr institution as payback for UA admin not playing along with his segregation baiting stunt.
Posted on 10/31/26 at 10:45 am to Diego Ricardo
quote:
I’ve heard from some oldheads around here that Wallace may have made UAB its own 4yr institution as payback for UA admin not playing along with his segregation baiting stunt.
I don’t personally believe that. Think the university was just collateral damage in his attempted climb to national politics.
Alabama got the shaft as a result for dealing with what everyone else was at the time because of his grandstanding. See the aforementioned examples. Auburn would be in the same boat if he’d made his little show there instead of in Tuscaloosa.
Posted on 10/31/26 at 1:58 pm to Bigbens42
That’s the simplest answer so it is likely the truest.
Posted on 10/31/26 at 2:57 pm to PuertoRicanBlaze
Makes sense as AMA push to restrict the number of medical schools available. Free market and all.
Posted on 10/31/26 at 7:57 pm to Amarillo Tide
quote:Half the undergrads are from New Jersey. I was just in Philly and Jersey/NY for work. Had dozens of conversations with people about kids going to school in the South, including Bama.
I think eventually, people will finally stop thinking that way but it may take decades longer.
RTR
Posted on 10/31/26 at 10:50 pm to tide06
quote:
They took the most valuable academic asset the school had along with tens of billions in research money over a few generations and gave it away to a commuter offshoot school. Madness.
Meh.....it needed to go to Birmingham the state's largest city with its infrastructure.
Posted on 10/31/26 at 10:53 pm to 14&Counting
It’s fine to have been in Birmingham but they never should have relinquished so much control over the medical system
Posted on 11/1/26 at 9:56 am to 14&Counting
quote:
Meh.....it needed to go to Birmingham the state's largest city with its infrastructure.
Absolutely, no argument there.
It should’ve just been as a research hospital location for the University of Alabama med school rather than UAB.
Many states now have hospital systems with branch locations.
For example if you go to North Carolina you can find smaller regional hospitals or practices that are part of the UNC health system network.
Alabama could’ve done the same and it would’ve branded the entire state as UA Tuscaloosa “territory”. There could’ve been a University of Alabama hospital in Auburn for example but the decision makers either lacked the vision or were intentionally trying to limit the scope of the flagship school in their system.
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