No place for a Steel Magnolia: known for her bold appointments and steadfast support of diversity, Dr. Ann Reynolds is forced out of UAB - Faculty Club - Special Report: Recruitment & Retention - Cover Story - University of Alabama - Statistical Data Included

Black Issues in Higher Education, Oct 25, 2001 by Kendra Hamilton

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

A vocal throng of 350 students, faculty, physicians from the health center, politicians, business executives and religious leaders crowded into a special meeting of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's board of trustees Aug. 31. A large banner reading "Save the Queen, Ban the Board" hung outside the venue.

THE MAKING OF A CONTROVERSY

Events appear to have moved with startling swiftness in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. At the beginning of August, Dr. Ann Reynolds, who came to the UAB presidency after seven years as chancellor of the City University of New York system, was still being lauded as the "queen" and the "woman warrior," a tireless champion of UAB whom everyone agreed "bled gold and green," the university's colors.

Under her leadership, the school, which had begun as an extension center of the much older University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, strengthened its already outstanding medical center, gained national recognition for its research capability and became the cash cow of the UA system. Its budget accounted for 74 percent of the system's total. Reynolds' vast network of corporate contacts had helped her to raise more than $263 million toward a $350 million goal in the university's first capital campaign. In fact, she and her husband donated $2.4 million in both outright and planned gifts themselves, though her salary as president is close to $225,000.

Meanwhile, her star-studded New York friendships had brought a new luster to Birmingham and to UAB's cultural scene. A board member for the Lincoln Center Institute, Reynolds helped broker a partnership to bring innovative instruction techniques and teachers from New York into the Birmingham City Schools, which are 95 percent Black. In addition, her personal relationship with the president of The Juilliard School had resulted in joint productions with UAB's Opera Workshop -- Cosi fan Tutte in 1999 and Don Giovanni in 2000.

There were problems, to be sure. The tragic downward spiral of a 15-year-old female freshman -- a whiz kid -- who won a university scholarship amid high expectations and who left at the end of the fall 2000 term amid allegations of drag and alcohol abuse and sexual exploitation by athletes, generated negative press and threats of a lawsuit. Those threats came to fruition with a $20 million "Jane Doe" filing on Aug. 30.

Local gossip suggested that the board's actions against Reynolds stemmed from the suit's allegations that university officials had failed to monitor the underage girl's activities and failed to protect her against sexual exploitation by athletes. Sid McDonald, president pro tempore of the board of trustees, denied that rumor -- and six other rumored reasons for Reynolds' ouster -- in a prepared statement that opened the board's Aug. 31 special meeting to consider Reynolds' status.

There were grumblings, too, according to Reynolds supporters, that the hard-charging president had been too successful, that her efforts on behalf of UAB were undermining the flagship campus of the UA system at Tuscaloosa.

But Alabamians were left reeling by events at a mid-August board of trustees meeting, where Dr. Thomas C. Meredith, chancellor of the three-campus system, presented Reynolds with a plan for her forced retirement in summer 2002 that had apparently been worked out in a series of secret -- and thus illegal board meetings.

When she rejected that plan, citing in part a desire to bring her fund-raising efforts to fruition, the board offered to let her spend one more year completing the campaign for UAB -- but without the title of president.

Reynolds never responded to that proposal, according to Sid McDonald, president pro tem of the board. And she seemed girded for a lengthy battle -- as were her supporters.

At the Aug. 31 meeting, not a single person spoke against Reynolds though the trustees claimed there were "serious allegations" against her. That meeting concluded with the board's going into executive session -- a move that, on the heels of the revelations of secret meetings in violation of the state's "sunshine" law, prompted groans and protests from observers. The board then decided to delay a final vote until its regular meeting in Tuscaloosa.

Newspaper editorials derided the board's conduct as "shabby" and "shameful" and thundered that the "undisclosed allegations" were undermining "the moral integrity" of the board. Other published reports claimed letters of support were pouring in from faculty, alumni and concerned members of the community. University donors were said to be threatening to withhold pledged contributions to the capital campaign.

And then just as quickly as the controversy had burst into public awareness, it was over.

At the regular board of trustees meeting on Sept. 13, Meredith announced that Reynolds had accepted the board's first offer. She would step down from the presidency in the summer of 2002, returning as a member of the biology faculty in 2003 after a yearlong sabbatical.

"This is not an `us against them' situation," Meredith told the board. "It's time to put the name calling aside. It's time to quit choosing sides. It's time to focus on the positives."