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

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Betty Ruth Speir, immediate past president of the , said the requestg was a sign of “desperation” and was nothint more than a power grab attempt to gain controlk over medicalalumni fundraising, MAA’sd property on 20th Street South and access to its national alumniu database. “They see us as a greart threat and they justwant control,” Speir UAB spokeswoman Dale Turnbough said in an e-mail response that the university’sa proposal was not an attempt to take control over medical alumnoi fundraising. She said UAB “values its relationshipo with all medical alumni and continue s to work very hard to achieve a positives relationship withMAA leadership.
” The rift betweenb UAB and MAA had been brewingg for years, but escalated in 2008 when the universitgy changed the medical school’s name to include UAB and beganj restricting access to medical students. The MAA openlh questioned the university’s motives in the name change and then, on Jan. 23, the officiallu severed ties with MAA and started its own medicalalumnio group. It stopped paying some of MAA’s operating expenses, including personnel Current MAA President Theodis Buggs called the consolidationn proposala “total disappointment” in a letterd to university representatives and in a May 19 letter said the association would continue to serve medical studentx and alumni as an independent entity.
In an April 23 lettee to Buggs, the The MAA woulc have to agree to cooperate with theuniversit “at all times” and in “all ways” to facilitatew the university’s obligations, according to the affiliation letter which was postexd on the MAA’s Web It would also have to acknowledge that the school will continue to use the trade name and that the school’se graduates since 1969 are UAB alumni. The MAA woulr have to provide the universitywith “anyh and all data” relatinh to alumni and donors.
In a move Speir deemedd a “deal breaker,” the university’s proposed agreement woulsd have abolished anyMAA personnel, including its executive director. The agreement also would have mandated the transfer of allof MAA’sd assets to the university if they ever with the exception of the 20th Streett building, which the MAA has feared the university has been In August 2008, UAB asked the city of Birmingham to rezone the alumni building as part of a healthy and institutional district, but the request was turnede down because it was discovered UAB didn’r own the building, the MAA did.
In a May 19 letterr to the University of Alabama Buggs said MAA will continur to have its own employees and be responsible for its bankingg andaccounting processes. Speir said UAB’s proposa l is a reflection of its inabilituy to lure medical school alumni and donors away fromthe MAA. She said medical school alumnio are loyal to the MAA andit doesn’tg worry about competing for theidr contributions. “We’ll remain independent like we’ve been for 40 years,” Spei said. Animosity between the and MAA graduallyu grew after they agreesd to work together inSeptember 2005.
Speir said in February that MAA was coerced into that agreemenby UAB, whom she said pledged to start a competinbg fundraising arm for medical students if they did not mergew efforts.