Birmingham Southern graduate, local attorney discusses college’s closing
MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — Birmingham Southern College is closing after more than 100 years in business.
That decision was made official on Tuesday. The private liberal arts college will close on May 31, following years of financial troubles.
Ed Rowan is a local attorney who graduated from Birmingham Southern in 1994. He discussed his alma mater’s closure with News 5’s Cherish Lombard.
Rowan said he did not see BSC closing its doors on the horizon.
“I didn’t. Y’all called me, and I was surprised by it. I was shocked by it,” Rowan said. “And it’s an unhappy day for myself, for many, many excellent graduates of Birmingham Southern. Lawyers, doctors, leaders of industry throughout the state and the country. It’s a terrible day that the state is letting this happen.”
Rowan said he doesn’t really pay attention to everyday politics in Alabama, but the word behind the scenes was that the bill was going to pass, and the money was going to be allocated to the school, which did not happen.
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About a year ago, a spokesman for Governor Kay Ivey said the state had no plans to use taxpayers’ public funds to bail out a private college. Lombard asked Rowan if he agreed with that decision.
“Well, I don’t really understand that because I think she signed a bill in January of last year that put that process in place,” Rowan said. “And then several months later, she said that she didn’t agree to doing that. But, I mean, we’ve we’ve bailed out banks. We’ve bailed out things that cost trillions of dollars. And, you know, this is an asset, this school. And their buildings are huge assets. The assets that are produced from it, you can’t measure. So, yeah, I think the state should have done that. And I think the state’s made a mistake. We’re going to regret it.”
Rowan was part of efforts to help the school financially along with other school alumni, but the number of dollars required to do so was too big.
He said he feels the state of Alabama is losing its best college, and it will have effects on the state and Birmingham.
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“Well, in Birmingham and I think statewide, but in Birmingham, just when I would go interview for jobs there, when I would meet business leaders around the community, they held Birmingham Southern in extremely high regard,” Rowan said. ” And granted, I’m biased, but I really think it was the best school we had in Alabama. So what happens when you lose the best school you have in a state? OK, there’s a trickle-down effect, and it’s not a good thing.”
That trickle-down effect could lead students who may have preferred to attend BSC to go to another school in the state of Alabama or even leave the state altogether, Rowan said.
He discussed how BSC is a different niche compared to other schools where it’s a smaller school and how students can have a very close relationship with professors, which is something larger schools don’t exactly offer.
“My daughter goes Alabama,” Rowan said. “It’s great school. I love it. So is Auburn. But they don’t eat lunch with their professors.”
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