Dr. 弗雷德里克·P. 惠登1963 - 1998

弗雷德里克·P. Whiddon: A Visionary Leader 帮助s Transform A Region

在30岁的时候. 弗雷德里克·Palmer Whiddon arrived in Mobile to head a small outpost 阿拉巴马大学的教授.  Just three years later, he helped launch an institution that would become the region’s dominant force in higher education, forever transforming the education, healthcare, economy and quality of life of the people of the upper 墨西哥湾沿岸.

A native of Newville in southeast Alabama, Whiddon came to Mobile from Athens College at a time of rising concern in the area about the vacuum in public higher education.

The upper 墨西哥湾沿岸 region was fertile ground — an area with a large population on the brink of industrial expansion and less than stellar per capita higher educational achievement, mostly due to a lack of access to a public four-year university. Whiddon wasted little time in working with community leadership to attempt to expand the University of Alabama Mobile Center into a full-scale branch of the university.

When he was unable to gain traction with the contemporary powers in place at the University of Alabama, despite enthusiastic local support, Whiddon put his energy toward the creation of a new state university, the first new public university in Alabama in 将近70年.

The path to the 十大彩票网投平台 was strewn with numerous opportunities 放弃事业. Invariably, the hurdles involved money. 但惠登下定了决心， and his shared vision with the community led to the creation of the University of 南 Alabama by an act of the Alabama Legislature in May 1963.

10月. 18, he was unanimously selected as USA’s first president by the 校董会, becoming the youngest university president in the country at age 33.

“I had my briefcase, some legal pads, a few pencils and a borrowed desk, walked around town looking for office space, put an ad in the paper for a secretary, rented an old 商业街办公楼. 路易斯街

According to Stewart’s account, a citizen leadership group — the Mobile County Foundation for Public Higher Education — laid the groundwork for USA, but someone with a special vision and determination, such as Whiddon, was needed for such a bold undertaking 成功.

Whiddon, who majored in English and philosophy at Birmingham-南ern College before 接收Ph值.D. in philosophy and a degree in theology at Emory University, was not from Mobile, noted Stewart, and “perhaps that is just what Mobile needed most, 有眼光的新人. Whiddon possessed the ability to reach out and make friends with and recruit a substantial cross section of the business, industrial, professional and civic leadership of this old, rather 保守的城市.”

Though there were naysayers along the way regarding the likelihood of a four-year public university in Mobile, Whiddon and his able allies within the city’s business and political hierarchy prevailed, securing an initial state appropriation of $509,000. From that modest first appropriation and a single building, within 15 years, the University had an annual state appropriation of $20 million to support numerous colleges on a 600-acre campus, a second campus at Brookley Field and a medical school.

A common theme throughout the early days was the young president’s tenacity, which, time and again, paid dividends for the 十大彩票网投平台 and the citizens 它.

For instance, USA reached a critical juncture in its history in 1965, when the University was allocated a paltry $1 million from a $116 million state education bond issue. Some $50 million was designated for higher education, with two-thirds going to the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Whiddon refused to sign the proposal, believing to do so would forever “doom USA to insignificance.” Whiddon and area legislators were able to negotiate USA’s take up to $3.500万年. 或许同样重要的是， gumption to do battle paid dividends in future legislative sessions.

Mobile’s need for a medical school was always in Whiddon’s mind. 再次,社区 领导人集会. The University acquired Mobile General Hospital, and with a teaching facility secured, the first class of 25 medical students began its studies in January 1973.

USA may have begun small, but its growth under the first president was explosive.

By the time Whiddon retired in 1998, USA was a major teaching, research and healthcare force with nine schools and colleges, a hospital system and an enrollment that topped 12,000. During Whiddon’s tenure, the University awarded 40,000 degrees, transforming the region’s economy and workforce and attaining its founders’ goal of expanding access 接受高等教育.

And, a pledge from Whiddon’s Oct. 18, 1964, University dedication speech had been 见过. 

“We dedicate our efforts to those high purposes for which it is founded: to the banishment of ignorance, to the enrichment of personal life, to the development of those individual talents and skills that will enable each person who studies within these walls of our University to serve to the fullest the needs of his fellow man,” Whiddon said. “This, then, is our pledge to the citizens of this state, of this country, indeed 对人类. Less than this we cannot do, if we are to realize the hopes and faith of those who worked without stint to establish the 十大彩票网投平台.”