Support President Bonner

                   Attention, all University of Alabama faculty, staff, administrators, members of the Board of Trustees and all students: Please join me in supporting Dr. Judy L. Bonner being fully accepted as the president of The University of Alabama. As we already begin to approach the close of another academic year, the University is undergoing some major changes to its leadership. Dr. Bonner has already been named as our interim president as Dr. Witt was selected as chancellor of the UA system. Now, I need your help in endorsing and supporting Dr. Bonner fully becoming the leader of this academic institution. As I wrote in my last statement, I was honored and blessed to have the privilege of meeting Dr. Bonner in person. I love that woman; she is an academic angel! The support she has given to me and the rest of the student body has been absolutely tremendous. She has worked to improve the quality of teaching so that learning can improve, and I believe she is just one of the many reasons that the enrollment rate at UA has increased dramatically. Her kindness, her generosity toward us, her love for what she does and her love for the UA family is inspiring to me as a student, and this is exactly what this school needs in a leader. I believe the work she has done as provost and her long history of success in all she has done here at UA and beyond demonstrates that she deserves this position.

Dr. Bonner was promoted to executive vice president and provost in April of 2006, after serving as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs since March of 2003. She holds two degrees from UA—a B.S. in Nutrition and an M.S. in Food and Nutrition—and a Ph.D. in Human Nutrition from Ohio State University. She was named Dean of the College of Human Environmental Studies at UA in 1989, prior to which she served as Special Assistant to the President, Assistant Academic Vice President and Head of the Department of Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management. She has also held faculty positions at UAB and Ohio State. On top of that, she is an active member of civic, scientific and professional organizations and has written a number of articles.

I am an out-of-state student from Maryland and am trying to stay in Alabama long enough to be classified as an in-state student since I plan to settle in Tuscaloosa when I graduate, and personally, IF I COULD stay with her over the summer, I WOULD. That is how much her leadership and dearness to everyone has meant to me. Besides, if she’s got multiple degrees in Food and Nutrition, coupled with the fact that I know from experience that Southern women can cook as it is, I don’t know about any of y’all, but I’d think staying with a woman of those letters would mean one summer of darn good eatin’! If any members of the Board of Trustees are reading this, I’d like to meet some of you one day to thank you also for what you do. But in the meantime, please know that Dr. Bonner has my support in her role as president of UA. This is why I’m asking all students, faculty and staff to join me in asking the Board to keep Bonner in as president of The University of Alabama. ROLL TIDE!!! 

--David Rissling