UAB supporters.JPG

UAB OT Steve Pickern embraced UAB supporter Justin Craft. UAB President Ray Watts announced the shut down of the UAB Football program. Angry students and UAB supporters marched to the football building to support the players. (Joe Songer/jsonger@al.com).

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We, the undersigned, are medical students at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Some of us completed our undergraduate years here at UAB. Some of us came from other schools in Alabama or even out of state. Today, we are all Blazers. We are here because we believe in this university and we believe in dreaming big. Just last month, our researchers announced a possible cure for diabetes. UAB dreams big, and UAB achieves big.

We received an email with the results of a strategic plan that did not include input from UAB students as part of its development. It cuts scholarships and slashes athletics in the name of fiscal responsibility. We cannot help but see a parallel in the chronic underfunding of medical research in recent years -- also done in the name of fiscal responsibility. We trust that there is a more nuanced rationale behind the decision to cut UAB athletics today than simply a balance sheet. We do not believe that a balance sheet captures the true investment of the UAB football program. We do not believe that the president of the university, who represents the best interests of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, would cut the UAB football program, and by extension the entirety of UAB athletics in one form or another, because of a balance sheet. If it were an issue of a balance sheet, UAB would do what UAB has always done -- fight to find the funding and fight to find the will to move forward to dream big and to achieve big.

As medical students, we are taught that communication is key -- communication between our interdisciplinary teams, communication with our patients, and communication with each other. We saw a lack of communication this week, and that lack of communication and transparency left us as an angry Blazer community questioning the motives of the UAB administrative leadership.

The discontinuation of the UAB football program has been presented chiefly as being an issue for the undergraduate side of campus. We respectfully disagree. It's true that we might be unable to participate the way the undergraduates can on a regular basis, but we still follow Blazer athletics and reap the benefits that a full athletics program supplies.

We cannot in good conscience support a strategic plan that does not include input from UAB students. We cannot support a strategic plan that cuts scholarships and programs in the name of a better vision for UAB. We cannot stand idly by while this short-sighted vision calls the UAB football program -- that by every measure was starting to achieve the impossible -- irresponsible to support. We came to a medical school and a university that dreams big and achieves big. We will accept nothing less.

"We would do Birmingham a great disservice if we dreamed too little dreams." Dr. Joseph Volker

Sincerely,

Kristin Olson, UASOM Class of 2017

Tim Fernandez, UASOM Class of 2017

Dhruv Patel, UASOM Class of 2018

Tushar Ramesh, UASOM Class of 2018

Amanda Shaw, UASOM Class of 2017

Jit Patel, UASOM Class of 2017

J. Heath Pelham, UASOM Class of 2017

Devanshu Kaushik, UASOM Class of 2017

Roshni Sheth, UASOM Class of 2017

Jonathan Antonetti, UASOM Class of 2017

Justin Evans, UASOM Class of 2017

Tripp Ference, UASOM Class of 2017

Jaskirat Singh Sethi, UASOM Class of 2017

Andrew Watson, UASOM Class of 2017

Jesse Faulk, UASOM Class of 2017

Matthew Beidleman, UASOM Class of 2017

Ynhi Thai, UASOM Class of 2017

Steven Allon, UASOM Class of 2017

Emily Wesson, UASOM Class of 2017

Jozef Pavnica, UASOM Class of 2017

Drew Buie, UASOM Class of 2017

Rebecca Shuford, UASOM Class of 2018

Heather Moore, UASOM Class of 2018

Briley Black, UASOM Class of 2018

Ashley J Pettaway, UASOM Class of 2018

Laura Crocker, UASOM Class of 2018

Raj Vachhani, UASOM Class of 2017

Adam Lam, UASOM Class of 2017

Nick Scanlon, UASOM Class of 2016

Rob Wians, UASOM Class of 2018

Mingchun Liu, UASOM Class of 2017

Bobby Sistani, UASOM Class of 2016

Winston Hong, UASOM Class of 2017

Nico Herrera, UASOM Class of 2017

Suzanne Wallace, UASOM Class of 2017

Anna Worth, UASOM Class of 2017

Jaya Madhav, UASOM Class of 2015

Raymond Oldham, UASOM Class of 2015

Michelle Chang, UASOM Class of 2017

Kayla Kebbel, UASOM Class of 2015

Mahmoud Mansour Elsayed, UASOM Class of 2018

Jason Miller, UASOM Class of 2018

Jeff Harper, UASOM Class of 2015

Ryne Black, UASOM Class of 2018

Charles Fryberger, UASOM Class of 2016

Katherine Shelton, UASOM Class of 2018

Hilary Flippo, UASOM Class of 2018

Hannah Turner, UASOM Class of 2018

Lauren Gibson, UASOM Class of 2016

John Thomas, UASOM Class of 2016

Claire Bourgeois, UASOM Class of 2018

Brandon Sherrod, UASOM Class of 2018

Jacob Fletcher, UASOM Class of 2017

Samuel Hand, UASOM Class of 2018

Cody Meyers, UASOM Class of 2018

Salmaan Kamal, UASOM Class of 2018

Xavier Baldwin, UASOM Class of 2017

Kevin Jiang, UASOM Class of 2018

Kaci Larsen, UASOM Class of 2016

Rucker Staggers, UASOM Class of 2017

Stephen Gragg, UASOM Class of 2021

Camli Al Sadek, UASOM Class of 2017

Christopher Ray, UASOM Class of 2018

Madeline Morgan, UASOM Class of 2018

Samantha Ashley, UASOM Class of 2018

Tooba Anwer, UASOM Class of 2017

Clark Alves, UASOM Class of 2017

Erin Williams, UASOM Class of 2018

Bonnie Gillis, UASOM Class of 2018

Kyle Cichos, UASOM Class of 2018

Ryan Densmore, UASOM Class of 2018, Former UAB Football Player

Deepa Etikala, UASOM Class of 2018

Bhavika Patel, UASOM Class of 2018

Danielle Fincher, UASOM Class of 2017

William Riley, UASOM Class of 2018

Katherine L Mascia, Class of 2017

Erica Young, Class of 2015

Nathan Haywood, UASOM Class of 2017