Dr. Charles Bugg in his research laboratory, circa 1984

The UAB Center for Macromolecular Crystallography was approved by the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees on December 5, 1985, with Dr. Charles E. Bugg (Biochemistry) as inaugural director.  The Center initially focused on protein crystal growth and drug design based on protein crystal structure.  The Center became a designated NASA Research Partnership Center and provided numerous UAB experiments for the research programs of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

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Crippled Children's Clinic and Hospital, circa November 1952

Built within the university medical center by a private foundation, the Crippled Children's Clinic and Hospital was officially dedicated in a ceremony held November 22, 1951.  The new facility was located across 19th Street South from University Hospital and was known as the "hospital that football built."  Funds were raised at an annual football game held on Thanksgiving Day at Legion Field that featured area high school teams.  Following the success of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines, the need for the hospital was greatly diminished by the late 1960s, and it was eventually closed.  UAB acquired the building in 1970 and used it as a temporary home for the new School of Optometry and as the university's Ambulatory Center.  The building was demolished by UAB in 1975 for the construction of the Russell Ambulatory Center and the Spain-Wallace addition of University Hospital.

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UAB Huntsville Regional Medical Campus, circa 1996

UAB assumed administrative responsibility of the School of Primary Medical Care at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) on October 1, 1995, and the UAB School of Medicine Huntsville Program was established.  The UAH school was founded in 1971 and had long been affiliated with the medical school in Birmingham before its acquisition by UAB and had served as a site of clinical training for medical students since 1974.  Today, the UAB Huntsville Regional Medical Campus is one of the four campuses of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine and is under the direction of a regional dean.  It is home to Family Medicine and Internal Medicine residency programs and hosts 130 medical students and residents.  It is also home of the Sparks Medical Library, a component of the UAB Libraries.  A new facility, the primary clinical and academic space for the Huntsville regional campus, was completed in 2003.

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Nursing students in the simulation laboratory, circa 1972

The School of Nursing was established at the University of Alabama and opened in September 1950 with one faculty member (Dean Florence A. Hixson) and 17 students.  Although the school was based in Tuscaloosa, after 1953 nursing students were assigned to University Hospital in Birmingham for clinical experience.  The school was moved to Birmingham in 1967 where it became one of the schools at the university's medical center.  The nursing school has been housed in the same building at UAB since 1971, although there have been several additions and renovations to the original structure.  New state-of-the-art simulations labs were included in the building's most recent expansion project, which was completed in 2018.  In the school's 75-year history, there have been just five deans of nursing. 
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Student orientation, August 1997 

New UAB students receive information packets at the university's student orientation, held in the Hill University Center in August 1997.  The freshman class in 1997 totaled 2,220 students.  Total UAB enrollment for the fall term was 15,850 students at the undergraduate level through the advanced professional schools.

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Ballet students in Scotland, 1969

During the summer of 1969, several members of the Alabama Ballet spent the summer dancing and studying in Europe, with visits to Scotland, Italy, and Switzerland.  In Scotland, Helen Dexter and Larry Bailey were photographed on Calton Hill with the Dugald Stewart Monument and the city of Edinburgh in the background.  At the time of this European tour, the Alabama Ballet was an affiliate of UAB and was under the direction of faculty member James F. Hatcher, founding director of the UAB Town and Gown Theatre.

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Medical students enjoy a day at the lake, 1949.

Members of the medical class of 1949 were the first students to spend all four years of study in Birmingham, having begun their educational journey in the fall of 1945.  The seniors spent a day on Lake Guntersville just before final exams as the last group outing for the class.  On June 3, 1949, 31 medical students graduated; there were 24 male and 7 female graduates.  The Tennessee Valley Authority had just created the lake in Marshall and Jackson Counties with the completion of Guntersville Dam in 1939.

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Installation of the university's first vice president, 1955

In 1955, Dr. Robert C. Berson became the dean of the Birmingham medical school and the inaugural vice president for Health Affairs.  He was the first vice president in the 124-year history of the University of Alabama.  In honor of the occasion, an installation ceremony was held May 15, 1955, in front of the Medical and Dental Basic Science Building and Dental Clinic [today's School of Dentistry Building], with university administrators from Tuscaloosa, medical center administrators from Birmingham, local and state government officials, and members of the Board of Trustees.  Students, staff, and faculty of the university and members of the public, including the news media, were also in attendance.  Dr. Berson (at the podium) speaks to the assembled crowd.  Berson would remain in Birmingham until 1962.  The building in the background was the Crippled Children's Clinic and Hospital.

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Visiting the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, circa 2000

On April 28, 2000, the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE) approved UAB's proposal for a major in African American Studies, the first such program in the State of Alabama.  Dr. Horace Huntley (History) had in 1979 been the initial director of UAB's interdisciplinary, non-degree program.  Approval for the major came after a multi-year planning and implementation process spearheaded by Dr. Virginia Whatley Smith (English), director of the African American Studies Program until 1999, and by Dr. Adeniyi Coker (Theatre) who succeeded Smith as program director in the fall of 1999.  The new bachelor's degree in African American Studies would be awarded to the program's first graduate at the June 2001 commencement ceremony.  In this photo, Dr. Coker addresses UAB students during an educational visit to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

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Basketball team celebrates courtside, circa 1991.

Jacque Nero (#35) and teammates celebrate courtside at a women's basketball game in the UAB Arena [now Bartow Arena].  Nero was a Blazer student-athlete from 1989 until 1992.  She became UAB's first-ever women's player to earn the honor of Conference Player of the Year (1991); she repeated in 1992 winning the same award.  She holds many records at UAB, ranking third all-time in points scored and fifth all-time in rebounds.  Nero was inducted into the UAB Athletics Hall of Fame in 2018.

March traditionally serves as the month for intercollegiate basketball tournaments, both within a conference and in the national NCAA tournament.  The UAB Women's Blazers have five regular-season conference championships and one conference tournament championship.  The Blazers have played in two NCAA tournaments and appeared in the Sweet Sixteen Round in 2000.

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Denman Hall, circa 1975.

In 1973 construction was completed on a student residence at UAB.  The new building provided 100 housing units in efficiencies, one-bedroom units, and three-bedroom suites.  In 1975 the residence hall was renamed Denman Hall in honor of Hugh Denman, an executive director of the Housing Authority of the Birmingham District (HABD) and a supporter of UAB.  Since the demolition of older facilities in 2002, Denman Hall has been the oldest remaining residence on the UAB campus.  Denman was closed before the fall 2024 term and demolition of the building began in January 2025.

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UAB employees mark the declaration of a smoke-free campus, 1990.

As of January 1, 1990, all buildings, grounds, parking lots, and parking decks across the UAB campus became smoke free.  The move to a smokeless campus was a gradual process.  In 1987 all indoor public areas within the university's multi-block medical center and hospital had become smoke free.

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