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A viral video introduced University of Alabama at Birmingham alumnus Tim Alexander to the world when the paralyzed former football player stood from his wheelchair to deliver the game ball in the Blazers’ return to action. What many people did not see was the hard work and determination Alexander showed for a decade to reach that moment.
Construction cranes became ubiquitous on campuses, and often the most high-profile projects involved student amenities — rock-climbing walls in recreation centers, swanky student unions with first-rate food services, and luxury “residence halls” with private bathrooms — usually financed by borrowing. Between 2001 and 2012, the amount of debt taken on by colleges rose 88 percent, to $307 billion.
A paper describing the findings by a team of researchers at Penn State University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“One of the things that led me to take the role were great leaders from the community like Alabama Power, Regions Bank, UAB, the Community Foundation and the BBA who stepped forward and said we want to take a hard view of technology-based economic development and really turn it into an economic development strategy that creates predictable, repeatable and sustainable results.”