By Kyle Parmley
BIRMINGHAM — The lights went out in the Cudworth Hall auditorium for a brief moment.
That split second was a sign of things to come.
The UAB Faculty Senate voted to pass a resolution on Thursday declaring no confidence in school president Ray Watts. The vote received over a two-thirds majority of the 35 voters, with only a simple majority required.
Chants of “U-A-B” broke out immediately among supporters following the announcement that the Senate had elected to pass the resolution of no confidence.
Shortly following the conclusion of the meeting, Watts released a statement to the media expressing his opinion on the decision while focusing on what lies ahead.
“I’m obviously disappointed,” the statement reads. “But what this vote means to me is that I have more work to do to find common ground. My focus moving forward is to work with our community to carry out our mission. As President I am totally committed to the future of UAB and the many great things we are doing here.”
A pair of resolutions was anonymously voted on during the specially called meeting, with the first one being a declaration in support of the football, bowling and rifle programs, calling for a review of the process that shut the programs down in December.
Prior to the no-confidence vote, a representative from the School of Medicine put forth a motion to postpone the process until a later date, to allow the faculty to deliberate further. Other senators shot down the notion adamantly, and a unanimous vote allowed the vote to proceed.
“I am absolutely delighted that the vote to postpone failed,” said Susan Key, a management professor at UAB. “What I have seen over the last six months is bad management decisions that have bad financial consequences for this university.”
Chad Epps, head of the Faculty Senate, hopes that today’s vote will provide a strong enough message to incite change in the administration of the university.
“The faculty have let their voices and their concerns be known,” Epps said.
The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees is the entity with the power to remove the school president from office, but Epps is unsure whether the vote today will have any real impact on its decision-making.
“I don’t know if it has an impact on them directly,” he said. “Our hope would be that the board of trustees would take this into consideration and recognize that it would be difficult to move forward (with Watts as president).”
It was reported last week that Epps would be on the committee tasked with selecting a firm to review the CarrSports report that led to the dismissal of the football program. He said today that he will not take part in the committee, but will select another senator to represent the faculty.
Tim Alexander, a UAB football player who attended Tuesday night’s Trussville City Council meeting, made his way up and down the aisles greeting everyone before the meeting was called to order.
Six players from The Trussville Tribune coverage area were members of the UAB football team this past year. Senior running back D.J. Vinson, redshirt freshman safety T.J. McCollum, sophomore running back Marcus Reaves and redshirt freshman linebacker Brandon Fuller all played at Clay-Chalkville High School. Junior wide receiver Jamal Hundley and freshman linebacker Joseph Roberts played at Hewitt-Trussville High School.
Roberts recently announced his intention to transfer to Jacksonville State, and will be a sophomore next season. Vinson has decided to finish his career at South Alabama, and Hundley is headed to Arkansas at Pine Bluff.