Explore UAB

Lt. Leo Woods operates the police department's tape machine.  The Dictaphone 4000 recorded all telephone and radio calls. A Police Department was formally organized at UAB in 1972.

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UAB began NCAA-level basketball play on November 24, 1978, with an inaugural game against the University of Nebraska before a crowd of over 14,800 in the arena at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center.  Coach Gene Bartow's Blazers lost 64-55.  Five days later, Coach Fran Merrell and the Women's Basketball team competed in their first game at the BJCC; the Blazers lost to the University of North Alabama 82-77.

This month we celebrate the 40th anniversary of an intercollegiate athletics program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  Today, UAB provides eleven sports teams for female students and seven for male students.  There are also three spirit and two band programs that support the athletic program and entertain event attendees.  Go Blazers!

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In February 1973 UAB opened a new bookstore after a move from the store's prior location in the basement of Tidwell Hall.  The "new" bookstore, a building which had formerly housed a dry-cleaning business, was located on 15th Street South at the corner of 8th Avenue South.  The bookstore remained in this location until it was moved into the original Hill University Center in 1983.  This building was again renovated and was renamed as the 15th Street Classroom Building, which provided the academic community with six classrooms and a conference-seminar space.  The building was demolished in 2006 as development proceeded on the Campus Green.

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A new UAB-wide transportation system, the Blazer Express, was inaugurated in January 2014, but in earlier years the university also provided transportation options. Old school buses, shown here parked near the Ullman-Bell Complex, were used in the 1970s and 1980s to transport students from parking lots to classrooms and to various university events.

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At the groundbreaking ceremony for a new academic campus are (left to right): Dr. Joseph F. Volker, President of UAB; Albert P. Brewer, Governor of Alabama; and Dr. George W. Campbell, Dean of the College of General Studies. As faculty member Dr. Hubert Harper later remembered, they were in “a blighted environment…streets full of litter…some old houses still standing in the progressive decay… In this depressing environment…we stood in the dying day and the rising chill and witnessed" a very important occasion, the expansion of UAB. The first four buildings of this new western campus would be dedicated in ceremonies held in 1973.

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Dr. David P. Lewis, chair of the UAB Department of Economics, spoke to area business executives during an "Economic Outlook '79" seminar hosted by the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, the UAB School of Business, and the UAB Division of Special Studies. Lewis and other speakers predicted the country would experience a "mild recession" by middle of the year.

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The Beta Zeta chapter of Alpha Sigma Tau was established in May of 1970 as the university’s first social sorority.

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These students make good use of the new pedestrian bridge crossing University Boulevard at South 13th Street.  The bridge was completed in 1975 as UAB experienced dramatic growth in the student population. Total enrollment grew from 5,381 in 1969-70 — UAB's first year as an independent university — to 12,119 in 1975-76 the year the footbridge was completed on the western end of the UAB campus. The undergraduate enrollment grew 109% during that time period.

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Paula Dennis demonstrates the largest camera on the UAB campus, the Print Plant’s new room-sized process camera. The camera used 32 x 32 inch film and a 40 x 50 inch copy board. The Print Plant was moved into a leased building on the 2100 block of 5^th Avenue South in 1976 and the university acquired several new pieces of equipment to meet the production needs of the UAB community.

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University College Building No. 1 and Mervyn H. Sterne Library were among the first four buildings constructed for the new University College campus. The four buildings were dedicated during ceremonies held on May 20, 1973. In September 1983 Building No. 1 was rededicated as the School of Education Building. The education school moved out of its long-time home in 2020, and the building is slated for demolition in order to make way for a new Science and Engineering Complex.

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Ground was broken in July 1970 for a new building in the developing campus of University College. This facility was completed and opened in June 1972 as the home to classrooms, laboratories, administrative offices, and several academic units. In 1983 the building was renamed the Physical Sciences Building. Following the completion of a renovation project, in 1995 the facility was renamed the Chemistry Building.

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University College Building No. 1, Building No. 2, Building No. 3, and the library – today’s Education, Chemistry, and Humanities Buildings and Sterne Library – were dedicated in a ceremony held in May of 1973. Governor George C. Wallace spoke at the ceremony one year after he survived an attempted assassination at a presidential campaign stop in Maryland. The Governor’s wheelchair is visible as he stands at the podium.

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University College registration, September 1972. Registration for University College was held in the gymnasium of UAB's Bell Building. A total of 7,564 students enrolled in credit and non-credit courses during the two-day registration on September 21-22. Before the days of personal computers and online registration, UAB students would queue for their classes at tables placed around the gym.

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These students are seated outside of Tidwell Hall on South 20th Street, on the site currently occupied by the Kaul Human Genetics Building.

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Visiting actors Kitty Carlisle Hart (center) and Birmingham native Wayne Rogers (left) view artifacts in the Town and Gown Theatre, May 1978. James F. Hatcher (right) founded the theatre in 1950 and directed it until his retirement from UAB in 1991. Hatcher eventually created a museum in the Clark Theater Building with his collection of letters, photographs, scripts and props; some of the items from that museum are now contained in the Hatcher Collection at the UAB Archives.

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A group supporting a moratorium against whaling brought a 100-foot hot-air balloon to UAB in order to call attention to the plight of the nautical mammals.

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