This is a guest opinion column

The faculty of Birmingham-Southern College, with unanimous voice, call on the Alabama State Legislature to expeditiously amend the Distressed Institutions of Higher Learning Revolving Loan Fund Act. We call on the Legislature to fulfill its stated intent to loan BSC the requested bridge funds that will ensure its continuation.

Let us put our request in terms of the people affected by the Treasurer’s denial.

This is one story of many:

“As a 1971 graduate of Birmingham-Southern, the father of a son who graduated in 2020, and a member of the faculty since 2002, I have witnessed the continued exceptional level of education and commitment to nurturing students BSC provides. And in those years, I have found no other institutions like it.

“Birmingham-Southern College, the 167-year-old institution that sits on the northwestern slopes of Jones Valley, has educated thousands who now work and excel in the fields of medicine and law, elementary, secondary and higher education, the clergy, music, theater, dance and art, business and finance and the social sciences, and public service and the fourth estate.

“It is a place where students, faculty and staff become family, a campus we all call home. It is a place that I have personally called home since I was 17 years old and, in the 58 years since, my admiration for the BSC community of scholars and students has never diminished.

“It is a small place geographically, but its borders of influence are vast, its impact on the lives of the citizens of Alabama and the world immeasurable. If forced to close, there will never be another. It is irreplaceable. The time for action and rescue is imminent.

“My story is not unique. Just this week, a classmate of mine spoke to my senior class of majors. He is the former Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Natural History in New York. This highly accomplished alum gave credit to his education at BSC for his success. Birmingham-Southern and its faculty saved my life, he told us. Professional relationships and friendships developed here are lifelong. The two of us spoke about our mutual admiration for and our continued relationship with our faculty advisor. We are all still in touch at least once a week. He is still our advisor.”

Our faculty is diverse. We come from all sorts of backgrounds and beginnings and have melded into a cohesive whole. We are made up of people from all corners of the globe, who make contributions to the community, local, state and international.

One of us speaks seven languages. One has fled a home country because of its repressive regime and found a home here. One professor from Alabama, who is currently working on an international team of paleontologists, is the first person in his family to graduate from college. One professor is working on research that will help improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of children with disabilities. Another is an artist who speaks four different languages and is called upon to restore historic frescos, locally and in Venice, Italy. Another is a playwright whose works have been staged in Alabama and Edinburgh, Scotland.

We work in groups with our students through service learning projects in our neighborhood, in underserved areas in the Black Belt, and internationally in countries that need our help. This is not an ivory tower of privilege: We come from every corner of the state, we represent every stratum of our society, and every level of economic gain, and we are willing to work in service of fellows.

We are faculty and students who have come to Alabama from afar, and we are native Alabamians who have returned to our place of beginning, all of us here to carry on the high expectations and tradition of quality education at Birmingham-Southern College. And to give back, to pay forward to another generation the gifts we received.

As Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin opined in a recent AL.com article, “the City of Birmingham cannot afford to lose Birmingham-Southern College.” Treasurer Boozer’s devastating denial would leave our students abandoned in the middle of the school year, as well as the nearly 1,500 people who directly or indirectly work with them.

Birmingham-Southern contributes an estimated $100 million to the state’s economy each year – $70.5 million in Jefferson County alone. A $294 million investment of federal and city funds in the neighborhoods surrounding the College will lose its anchor and the school’s social and economic impact. It has taken 23 years for the city to begin restoration of the neighborhoods surrounding the closed Carraway Hospital site, and as Mayor Woodfin states, “the city nor its west-side neighborhoods can afford to wait twenty years to bring something back” to the one hundred ninety-two acres of Birmingham-Southern.

And so, for these reasons, we, the faculty of Birmingham-Southern College, are of one voice in our demand that the State Legislature act immediately to right this egregious wrong, to make law its stated intent to loan bridge funds to the school. To restore the people’s faith in elected governance is a simple task.

The politics of the situation are simple. One man’s opinion should not trump the will of the Legislature. The economic math is simple. Alabama cannot afford to lose Birmingham-Southern College.

Time is short. Act now.

The United Faculty of Birmingham-Southern College