Just wondering what everyone’s thoughts are if a merger between UA and UAB were to take place. (Pros and Cons) A couple things that come to mind are UA Football program and UAB medical program. Students would have the best of both worlds, while eliminating redundant expenses to the school. It is my belief that a merger between these two schools would make UA a powerhouse university at a national level.
It’s two distinct campuses with separate identities. I don’t see it happening.
Their Board of Directors are shared, but I don’t see any further changes occurring
the med school is NOT part of UAB.
The med school is The University of Alabama School of Medicine that happens to be MOSTLY on the UAB campus…part of the med school is also on UA’s campus.
UA and UAB are different schools…just like UCLA and UCSD and UCI are different schools. They each have their own identity, their own NCAA sports teams, etc. They will never merge.
I don’t see any significant elimination of redundancy possible, anyway. It’s not like there could be English on one campus and not the other…or History on one and not the other.
Well, now that UAB has no football, lets find activities for their marching band!
^^^^
Although the traditional concept of marching band goes hand-in-hand with football, the UAB Marching Blazers recognize that while football games are important venues for performance, they are not the only venues. We plan to continue producing high-quality experiences for our students and fantastic entertainment for our audiences. We will move forward and develop a new concept of what a college marching band can be. Ideas we are considering include performing at professional sporting events; local, regional, and national marching band competitions and parades; and international travel and competitions. We have already been in contact with several organizations and are putting together a performance schedule for the 2015-16 Marching Blazers—including our woodwinds, brass, percussion, and all auxiliaries. Our plan is to grow the program by retaining our current members and recruiting many more who wish to be on the cutting edge of collegiate marching band experiences. Stay tuned for exciting sights and sounds from the UAB Marching Blazers.
The Marching Blazers are headed to Hawaii March 21-28, 2015! Performances include a patriotic tribute at the USS Battleship Missouri at Pearl Harbor!
from the UAB Band website.
It was a joke, m2ck 
They said that with the president’s decision to do away with football, the campus has never been so united… against the decision. They suspect he may be gone and football may be back at some point.
I know! 
I was just showing that despite the (perhaps temporary) demise of football at UAB, the band still has performance events…including an upcoming trip to Hawaii! yay!
It takes nearly an hour to drive from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham. No student is going to routinely make that trip for classes. There is no advantage to a merger.
I must admit, the relationship between the schools is somewhat confusing. You have schools with individual identities governed by a shared board of directors. The majority of these directors being affiliated with UA Tuscaloosa. I was under the impression that UA was the capstone or mother school to its daughters Huntsville and Birmingham.
NROTCGRAD Students might take up residence half way between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa making it a half hour drive either way. Or students might attend class once or twice a week at UAB to take a specialized medical class not offered at UA.
With all due respect, not much to choose from in terms of desirable living off I-59 between the 2 cities.
@12hrssouth
For most college students, even a half hour away is a burden (both in time and money). Remember, this would still be a full hour round trip. An hour of study (or party) time lost – every day! 60 miles of driving every day also soaks up a lot of gasoline. I know, I do it for my job.
Plus, plenty of students do not have cars and would thus be at a major disadvantage compared to the students who do have cars.
Even for those who do have cars, finding parking would be a challenge. Parking lots would need to be expanded at both locations, and this definitely would be difficult at UAB which is in downtown Birmingham.
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I must admit, the relationship between the schools is somewhat confusing. You have schools with individual identities governed by a shared board of directors. The majority of these directors being affiliated with UA Tuscaloosa.
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I was under the impression that UA was the capstone or mother school to its daughters Huntsville and Birmingham.
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UA is not the “mother school” although it is the flagship for the state. UA does not have a relationship with UAH and UAB like Penn State has with its satellite schools.
Like I said earlier, UA, UAB, and UAH are like the UCs in Calif which are governed by a shared Board of Regents.
There are other states that have a similar set up.
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NROTCGRAD Students might take up residence half way between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa making it a half hour drive either way. Or students might attend class once or twice a week at UAB to take a specialized medical class not offered at UA.
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@NROTCgrad gives a great response to this. There would be no reason to do this and it would be a hardship for most students anyway. And what “specialized medical class”???
This is really no different from the CSUs in Calif…many of them are an hour (or less!) apart…(heck UCR and UCI are less than an hour apart). No one thinks that they should merge so that kids can attend both. Pick one and go there. lol
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With all due respect, not much to choose from in terms of desirable living off I-59 between the 2 cities.
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While this is true, even if it weren’t, that still would not be a reason to merge the schools. (I know that @jym626 was not suggesting merging). There are other state schools that are closer, but they aren’t merging, either.
One purpose of having regional state schools dotted around a state is so that the local communities can easily commute.
M2CK I would like to start by thanking you for your replys. I often read your responses to posted questions and have gained a great deal of knowledge from you in regards to UA, as I’m sure others have as well. For your time and dedication to this site in helping others, you have my utmost respect. It was not my intention to ruffle feathers here, but to kick around a hypothetical possibility of two strong and respected schools becoming a powerhouse school. As you are well aware, mergers happen everyday in the business world and schools are of no exception to the rule. To say it will never happen may be comforting, but not realistic.
(See link below for list of closures and mergers of Alabama colleges)
It is my wish that UAB can solve their financial issues and rebuild their football program. Time will tell. However, It is my belief that schools should actively look for creative, efficient and outside of the box ways of operating. Students already take on an enormous amount of debt to obtain an education and continuously raising tuition and taxes should NOT be the answer to cure all problems.
ROLL TIDE!
@12hrssouth
I don’t think you “ruffled feathers” so much as you puzzled people. True, many colleges and universities have merged over the years, but my personal observation is that these mergers were almost always schools which were minutes away from one another in walking distance.
Often such schools were literally across the street. Such was the situation with Case Western Reserve University. Case Institute of Technology was on the south side of the street and Western Reserve University was on the north. Similarly with Carnegie Institute of Technology and Mellon Institute of Industrial Research forming Carnegie Mellon University.
In the Seattle region, the flagship University of Washington in Seattle is only 16 miles (20 minute drive) from University of Washington-Bothell (in the suburbs). University of Washington-Tacoma is also less than an hour away. All are run independently, similar to UA, UAB, and UAH, as well as the California public universities. Apparently UW has reasons for keeping these separate.
Basically, I don’t have any problem with mergers in general. I just don’t see any synergies from merging Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.
I don’t have the actual figures in front of me, but UA has already pretty much doubled in size over the past decade or so; it’s already a “powerhouse” in many ways.
I don’t see any reason for such a merger. A merging of campuses would just result in the same issue…having to have two groups running the campuses, since they’re so far apart.
It wouldn’t eliminate any classes, and I still don’t know what “medical classes” the OP was thinking about.