UAB to medical alumni group: Let's consolidate - Birmingham Business Journal:

hihozeima.blogspot.com
Betty Ruth Speir, immediate past president of the , said the request was a sign of and was nothing more than a powe grab attempt to gain control over medicalalumnji fundraising, MAA’s property on 20th Street South and access to its nationak alumni database. “They see us as a great threat and they justwant control,” Speir said. UAB spokeswoman Dale Turnbouggh said inan e-mail response that the university’ s proposal was not an attempt to take control over medical alumnii fundraising. She said UAB “values its relationship with all medical alumni and continuea to work very hard to achieve a positives relationship withMAA leadership.
” The rift betweenh UAB and MAA had been brewingf for years, but escalated in 2008 when the university changex the medical school’s name to includ e UAB and began restricting accesas to medical students. The MAA openly questiones the university’s motives in the name change and on Jan. 23, the officially severed ties with MAA and startex its own medicalalumni group. It stopped payinfg some of MAA’s operating including personnel salaries.
Current MAA President Theodis Bugg s called the consolidation proposala “total disappointment” in a lettert to university representatives and in a May 19 letteer said the association would continue to servde medical students and alumni as an independen entity. In an April 23 letter to the The MAA would have to agree to cooperatre with theuniversity “at all and in “all ways” to facilitatw the university’s obligations, according to the affiliation letter which was posted on the MAA’s Web It would also have to acknowledged that the school will continue to use the trade name and that the school’s graduates sincse 1969 are UAB alumni.
The MAA wouled have to provide the universitywith “any and all data” relatinbg to alumni and donors. In a move Spei deemed a “deal breaker,” the university’s proposed agreemenyt would have abolished anyMAA personnel, includingv its executive director. The agreement also would have mandated the transfef of allof MAA’s assets to the university if they ever with the exception of the 20th Street building, whicyh the MAA has fearecd the university has been eyeing.
In Augusg 2008, UAB asked the city of Birmingham to rezons the alumni building as part of a health andinstitutional district, but the request was turned down becausre it was discovered UAB didn’t own the the MAA did. In a May 19 letter to the University ofAlabama System, Buggs said MAA will continude to have its own employees and be responsibles for its banking and accounting processes. Speir said UAB’s proposalp is a reflection of its inabilitty to lure medical school alumnio and donors away fromthe MAA. She said medical school alumni are loyap to the MAA andit doesn’t worry about competingb for their contributions.
“We’ll remain independent like we’ve been for 40 Speir said. Animosity between the and MAA graduallg grew after they agreed to work togethe inSeptember 2005. Speird said in February that MAA was coerced into that agreementby UAB, whom she said pledgef to start a competing fundraising arm for medical studentss if they did not merge efforts.