Dear UAB Community and Friends,

Our university and community have celebrated several milestones over the past few months, including UAB’s highest-ever research expenditures of $562 million and being named the Top Young University in the U.S. (and 10th globally) by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Recently we added another achievement that speaks to UAB’s insatiable drive to excel and exceed even our own high expectations: our enrollment has reached a record high for the third consecutive year, growing to 21,923 — an increase of nearly 5 percent (1,021 students) over last fall. This includes growth at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels, and in our Honors College. We have also maintained our nationally recognized diversity, seen increased average ACT and high school GPA among our freshmen, and widened access to educational opportunity — nearly 29 percent of our first-time freshmen are first-generation students.

I congratulate and commend Vice Provost Bradley Barnes and his team in our Office of Enrollment Management for their leadership in executing this institutional priority, as well as Vice President John Jones and his team in Student Affairs for continually enhancing a vibrant student experience that is among the best in the nation. Our intensified efforts in student recruitment and retention are, more than ever, attracting to our campus the most talented, diverse and motivated students from around the U.S. and the world.

This remarkable growth is also the result of collaboration and innovation all around campus, our community and state: our faculty and staff, who are teaching and mentoring these students and developing innovative new academic programs and a signature core curriculum geared to success in 21st century fields; our students themselves, who continue to represent our university so well, throughout this city that is their classroom and on a national and global stage as they earn prestigious fellowships and other honors; and our alumni, donors and friends who have put the Campaign for UAB over $917 million and continue to be outstanding advocates and ambassadors throughout Birmingham, Alabama and beyond.

Our enrollment success is also the result of telling our story and promoting our brand more effectively than ever. It is the story of a university that always dreams big and aims high, setting and surpassing ambitious goals, and enrollment growth is a case in point. We had originally aimed in 2015 to break 20,000 in enrollment by 2020. Instead we reached that benchmark three years early in 2017 (with 20,902 students) and now — still two years out — we have exceeded our original goal by nearly 2,000 students. At a time when enrollment at many colleges and universities nationally is declining, we have increased our enrollment by more than 17 percent over the past five years.

This is what we mean by aiming high and exceeding our goals. This is what we mean by “powered by will.” We are harnessing the individual and collective will to push boundaries, to envision and achieve even greater things in all areas of our mission and across all disciplines — from the sciences and medicine to business to the arts and humanities.

Thank you all for making possible our enrollment success and many more successes to come.