Glenda Stanley, MA, Associate Director of the Alabama Statewide Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program retired in October. Stanley has served the National AHEC Organization for over 20 years. 

“AHEC has been like my family, I have worked with so many fun people through the years,” Stanley said. “AHEC has a tendency to attract like- minded people.”

Glenda Stanley, M.A.

Over the course of her career, Stanley has served in various roles within the National AHEC Organization including periods in Florida and her home state of Kentucky before joining Alabama Statewide AHEC Program. The Mission of the Alabama Statewide AHEC Organization is to recruit, train and retain a healthcare workforce for Alabama. The AHEC Organization provides accredited education programs to support the needs of practicing healthcare students in rural and underserved areas.

Stanley first worked with AHEC as a student back in the 1970s at the University of Kentucky, completing an interdisciplinary team experience in a rural area. Stanley was with four other health profession students and says she is a product of the AHEC system. Stanley began working with AHEC in 1993 as a student coordinator in Kentucky and served most recently as a Center Director in Florida before joining the Alabama Statewide AHEC Program.

“I was drawn to public health because I wanted to give people an opportunity a better life,” Stanley said. “I felt like the key to improving people's lives was education.”

While at AHEC Stanley strived to implement programs, services and activities that helped underrepresented and rural Alabamians build careers in the health professions by developing partnerships and facilitating resources with other organizations.

Award presentation from early in Stanley's career. Pictured (left to right): Maureen Guthke, Edna Apostol, Congressman Bill Young, Cindy Selleck, Glenda Stanley

Stanley has dedicated her time to countless efforts to improve the health and access to care for citizens in rural and underserved populations in Alabama.

“Education is just interwoven in everything that I believe in,” Stanley said. “A good education can change not only the student's life, but a whole generation. It provides another asset to the community.”

The goal of AHEC is to provide resources that give students in rural and underrepresented areas an opportunity to train as a health professional - that opportunity can change their quality of life, transform their future and uplift their communities.

The Alabama Statewide AHEC created the Alabama AHEC Network to initiate a coalition of community partners from the entire state by providing community-based training to the teams involved with COVID-19 testing in rural Alabama. AHEC has focused on testing and vaccinating rural and underserved areas and populations, In response to COVID-19, AHEC produced the playbook “How to Establish a Community-Based Vaccination Site for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine”. This playbook allows organizations to follow a series of steps and establish vaccination sites in the state where health care accessibility is limited. A UAB medical student led group, Equal Access Alabama (EEA), has partnered with AHEC to deliver vaccines primarily in the Black Belt region by going door to door with doses.

“AHEC was able to respond quickly; we've provided vaccinations in churches, the workplace, and all over the state,” Stanley said. “I'm very pleased that it also created a community health worker training program statewide, so we have community health workers deployed all over the state.”

Despite the COVID- 19 pandemic, AHEC continued to grow with Stanley’s quick efforts to adapt and reimagine the vision of how the organization might continue to serve Alabama. Stanley and her team were able to acquire and administer the funding that has made AHEC’s new vision attainable.

She advises health professionals and community members to show up, do their part and come together for something better. The rewards, she said, are well worth the effort. Looking back at her career, she is most proud of the way she has been able to help students, such as those in the Rural Health Club, which offers the opportunity to educate students regarding rural health issues in Alabama through volunteering, shadowing and workshops.

“While at UAB I've been most proud of our Rural Health Club, the student chapter of the Alabama Rural Health Association, so many of our students have been admitted into medical school, dental school and nursing school, the whole the whole range of health professions,” Stanley said. “I've had the privilege of being the faculty advisor for six years.”

In Stanley’s experience, the most rewarding part has been impacting one student at a time, and she plans to always remain a mentor for many of those who follow the path she helped pave.

Written by Kenia Hernandez