Last Thursday President Garrison was kind enough to sit down with iloveuab.com and talk about anything and everything. We delved into everything from music taste to school spirit and even the on campus football stadium Check it folks-

How long have you been President of UAB?
I’m going on my 9th year here.

What kind of music do you like? Have a favorite band?
Believe it or not I love coffee house music. I like everything from James Taylor to Carol king. I know this is showing my age but I really enjoy it haha.

Do you have a favorite restaurant or place to really enjoy eating at?
First of all I love eating out, its hard to find a restaurant that I don’t like. So depending on a particular mood I like everything from Indian, to Italian, to Oriental to really high end, Birmingham has so many great restaurants we’re very lucky about all that. But you can find me down at the Urban Standard for Saturday lunch time, you might find me with Frank Stint or Chris Hastings, or you might find me in Mountain Brook with Daniel George or Nabeels, I love Nabeels, I love Mexican food. The list goes on and on.

Looking back at you time at UAB is there a particular memory that stands out as something that made you fall in love with UAB? Or was it the experience as a whole that made you love UAB?
I think my experience was from day one that the faculty in the school of nursing (this was back in 1981) were so caring, they were really connected to the students, they really worked hard to tutor us. Probably my first memory was actually coming in for the interview and it was with Dr. Hale, everybody called her “Chick” (I didn’t call her Chick during the interview though) and being just terrified about whether I was gonna get accepted. That was maybe at the beginning, but like you I worked my way through school so I had lots of Professors that would work with me and balance out the demands of my schedule with the demands of being a student.

I put up a poll on my facebook and asked readers for ideas on what to ask you in the interview. The winner by a long shot was what the down low is on the on campus football stadium.Any time frame for ground being broke or an announcement? Because I know we’ve done so many things already with the softball stadium and the weight room construction…
You know as we move forward into this next decade its one of those things that we’re involved in is looking at facility needs across the University. Everything from hospital buildings to research buildings to classroom room buildings and lab space to student centers and athletic facilities. You’re absolutely correct we have made some great improvements in our athletic facilities and we’ll be looking as we go through our planning to say what’s next and on what timeline.

Speaking of on campus projects do we have anything big in the works on the academic side that you’d like to let us know about or any plans?
Again I think we just finished couple of projects in the past couple of years, matter of fact if we look back over the last 8 years it is kind of amazing the things we’ve done, Campus Rec Center, Blazer Hall, the Dining facility, Heritage Hall the Shelby Building, the north pavilion, the women’s and infants facility, what you all call the UBOB (University Boulevard Office Building) and the Campus Green itself. So again where we are I think we’ve marched through those plans and now we’re to the point where we’re asking what’s next? And part of that process will be reaching out to the students and faculty and say, what’s out highest priority and what should be next?

In your eyes why should students support UAB? not just in athletics but in student pride as a whole? Like when you think of UAB what makes you proud to be a Blazer?
I think it’s the sense of community, its an academic community its a group of scholars and when I say scholars I’m not just talking about the academic community, I’m talking about the students as well. I think students choose UAB for very unique reasons. Each year for the freshmen book reading and freshmen move in I talk with students and ask them, “Tell me why you’ve chosen UAB?” and invariably they say because of the strength of the academic program. Because when they interviewed here they got the real sense that they weren’t going to be another number, that we were going to be concerned about them as an individual and work very hard to make sure that this experience was a great one for them not just academically but in every way possible.

Talk a little about your vision for UAB. Where do you see UAB a year from now? 5 years from now? 10?
Well you know it’s a shared vision and we have said all along that we want to be a first choice institute, first choice for education, a first choice faculty who are pursuing research, a first choice for health care when people need health care, a first choice as we look out as trying to partner with the community as we look out at UAB being a community University we talk a lot about UAB really being a communiversity in other words knowing that Birmingham as a community is so important to us. So where I see UAB in the next year, 5 years, 10 years is really building on those strengths and recognizing the fact that we’re  such a diverse institution and that diversity is such a core value and strength for this institution that we’re going to continue to build on that.

Every year UAB grows to look more like a traditional campus. With this growth student housing has experienced a bit of crowding. What is UAB planning on doing in the future to help alleviate this? Dorm expansions? New dorms?
This year we have 1,00 of our 1,500 freshmen living on campus. Blazer Hall is full and a good part of Camp is also full of freshmen. We’ve had to move a lot of our graduate students off campus to 2 brand new apartment complexes. One is on the medical center side. One is on by the business building complete with RAs. But I think its fair to say that one of the things we’re looking very close at is our student housing needs and how do we create either more space on campus or adjacent to campus with the broad array of options because quite honest upperclassmen don;t wanna live in the same set up that a freshmen might wanna live in. That’s even accentuated more with graduate students so we’re trying to make sure that the full variety of options is there for everyone.

For students like myself who are graduating soon but love UAB and wanna stay involved after college is over what can they do to support the Blazers after school?
Join the alumni association! That is an important thing. stay connected to us, come back and be part of the events that are occurring on campus and not just the athletic ones, visit the Alys Stevens Center, get on an advisory board here at UAB. Be involved in the kind of activities for the departments that you graduated from that are still working to push forward. We have a place for everybody!

In the past we’ve held a student forum where students are given the chance to talk to you and other faculty and voice their ideas, concerns, questions etc… Are we doing it again this fall?
We generally do that once a semester and it is put on by Student Government and they invite the entire administrative team to come over and I really look forward to it because it’s really a good chance for me to hear firsthand what the concerns are that students have and then we work very hard to address them.
Is there a date set yet?
I don’t think so but contact USGA and they can tell you.
Hint..hint USGA. Shameless plug opportunity-CJ

Any last message you’d like to give to students about this upcoming fall?
I’m just excited about UAB, delighted about the students who have chosen to come here whether they’re graduate or undergraduate, we have a lot of professional students as well. I want everyone to work hard but have a good time as well. And look forward to moving forward as a community of scholars

I want to deeply thank President Garrison for taking the time out of her super busy schedule to sit down and chat with us. And I can honestly say Dr. Garrison is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. She’s really down to earth and definitely loves her Green and Gold through and through. We’ll keep everyone updated on the student forum date so if anyone has any questions they wanna ask that I didn’t they have a chance.
After the meeting I am so pumped for this upcoming semester and to bleed Green.
GO BLAZERS!
-CJ OUT

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