A recent letter received from a second-year business student, who was awarded a scholarship by the School of Business, exemplifies how our scholarship donors provide crucial life-changing opportunities for some of our students.
The scholarship recipient has been raised by a single mom and the family, while blessed in many ways, has needed to be a shepherd of very modest financial resources. This scholarship gives some degree of certainty to the student and his mom that he can continue their joint dream for his graduation. Leaving school for a semester to garner tuition dollars will not be his destination in the fall—he will stay in school and thus greatly increase the likelihood of completing his degree. This experience occurs often at UAB, but never fails to bring me back to the reality of our very special core mission to create opportunity for students to seek their life- changing destinations, resulting from an excellent education and a supportive and caring faculty and staff.
Where do we garner these key scholarship dollars? It is provided by our alumni, many of whom contribute to the Dean’s Leadership Fund, the School’s annual gift fund. Donors also include past and present faculty, and friends who understand the need to “pay it forward” – to help provide assistance to the next generation. Each year, I am privileged to interact with many of our scholarship donors. Their most common reason for giving is simply caring —a desire to replicate the life-changing support they received decades ago when they were struggling to complete their education. UAB and the School of Business have a long legacy of being a place where enhanced professional and career destinations are started for students of very modest economic means. As we end the academic year, we will have many year-ending events where we honor next year’s scholarship recipients and their donors. It is so special to see joy and hope in the students. But, I always see greater joy and many tears in the eyes of the donors. The donors almost universally know of no greater joy than being able to pass on the opportunity for a new and better destination for our exceptional students.
Times are still very difficult for many UAB students. We need your help in this great destination-changing effort! I look forward to seeing a special joy in your eyes. Yes, I am with pride asking for your help. Please join me and my wife Phyllis as scholarship donors at UAB by making an investment in our students through the Dean’s Leadership Fund.
If you are a current donor or past scholarship recipient, I welcome any story that you may want to share to help others understand how important this effort is to future generations of UAB School of Business graduates.
