Friday is the last day for Birmingham-Southern College, and it’s the last chance for alumni and friends of the school to collect a treasured memento. The Stockham Shop, in the Stockham Women’s Building on the BSC campus, will reopen from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday to sell BSC memorabilia, including a lot of yearbooks. The nearly 170-year-old campus is closing after years of financial problems. Read more.
Hundreds of alumni, family and friends of Birmingham-Southern College filed into Bill Battle Coliseum Thursday night. Across the academic quad, more who couldn’t get a seat in the stands where Panther basketball teams played gathered in the auditorium of Munger Hall. All returned to the college that they have known so long to bid an official farewell in a closing ceremony. Read more.
Alumni and supporters of Birmingham-Southern College have until April 30 to display their school pride through a BSC car tag. Read more
Birmingham Promise received a $10 million grant from PNC Foundation to promote postsecondary success for city of Birmingham school graduates, the largest grant of its kind since the Promise program was created in 2019. Read more.
“Forward Ever” is the motto of Birmingham-Southern College, which for 168 years educated students and prepared them for a future beyond the Hilltop. But the liberal arts college’s days are numbered with the recent announcement that BSC will close on May 31. That announcement has left students, faculty and staff feeling like they’ve experienced a death in their family. “We are all grieving,” said Virginia Gilbert Loftin, the school’s vice president for advancement and communications. Today is Forward Ever Day at BSC. Annually, this is the day alumni and friends of the college are urged to give in support of the school. But Forward Ever Day has a somber feel this year as friends of the college will give in an effort to make the final days of students, faculty and staff as good as they can be. Read more.
The mood was somber in the auditorium at A.H. Parker High School Monday night as neighbors of Birmingham-Southern College expressed their concern about the announced closing of the liberal arts college as of May 21. State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, hosted a town hall to field questions about the school. Of particular concern was what will happen to the 192-acre campus. More than one compared BSC to the old Carraway Hospital property, which deteriorated for years north of downtown. Read more.
UPDATED — Miles College may have interest in the campus of Birmingham-Southern College, which announced this week that it will close at the end of May. “At this time, we do not have a formal plan to pursue the BSC campus,” Miles College President Bobbie Knight told BirminghamWatch. “As a Miles College community made up of faculty, students and families, our primary focus has been to support and address the needs of the BSC community. “Now that a resolution has been reached regarding BSC,” Knight said, “we look forward to a dialogue regarding the future of the campus.” Read more.
If anyone knows the importance of Birmingham-Southern College, it would be Joanice Thompson, president of Bush Hills Connections, a nonprofit organization to pool resources and forge partnerships to benefit their neighborhood. One of the neighborhood’s biggest achievements, the Bush Hills Community Garden and Urban Farm, came about with the help of BSC students, she said. Read more. Read more about BSC’s closing. Birmingham-Southern College Closing After 168 Years Educating Students
Birmingham-Southern College is closing its doors May 31 after a nearly 18-month fight to overcome its financial shortfalls. The BSC board of trustees met Tuesday and decided to close the school after learning that a bill to lend the college $30 million from a state higher education loan fund was unlikely to pass the Legislature this year. Read more.
ACT scores for Alabama’s Class of 2023 have improved in the past two years but still have not reached the levels scored before the learning loss of the pandemic, a new report from the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama shows. Progress depends on several factors, one of which is economic instability. Read more.
