Logan Paul Myrick, a Physical Therapy student expected to graduate December 2022, has been awarded a UAB School of Health Professions Blazer Forever Scholarship. He is one of five SHP students selected during Homecoming Week based on their answer to an essay question. Here is the question and Logan's answer.
What makes you most proud to be a UAB Blazer?
Blaze on. A short but fitting saying around the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
What does it mean? And why do people say it to one another so often around the campus? Most people associate the phrase with sporting events, whether it is shouting it after Tyler Johnston III throws a touchdown pass or pushing our girls through the last limb in a cross-country event; however, this phrase extends far beyond sports and traces the University back to its roots. It is what makes me so proud to say I attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
While there are so many reasons I am proud to be a Blazer, the fact that we continue to push towards a brighter future and become trail blazers to advance the world around us is what we makes me most proud. We continue to blaze on no matter the situation, against all odds.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is a very young university, only being founded in 1969. This did not slow the faculty and staff from putting their best foot forward to ensure UAB left not only a footprint, but a permanent mark on the world. UAB was founded in a time of recently ended trial and tribulations in the south, and in a city where the Civil Rights Movement was loud, proud, and proved to be unstoppable.
I believe the success of the Civil Rights Movement spoke to the integrity of the people of the city and showed that the city was on the move towards something great. The people made this city a great location for all students. In the midst of civil unrest in the south, the University arrived and pressed forward. We blazed on.
UAB was founded and it quickly moved up in ranks as one of the most prestigious universities in the south, especially in the medical field. Today UAB stands as one of the best colleges, not just in the south, but in the nation for physical therapy, occupational therapy, and graduate school education. Furthermore, the University has been ranked the number one young university in the United States the past two years and the number twelve university worldwide.
In 1969, the founders probably never thought they would make the strides forward they have but they continued to try their best to ensure the students, and the city, would blaze on.
Now, we find ourselves in a pandemic. And I have never been more proud to say blaze on. In the midst of a nation that has failed to eradicate the disease as other countries have, UAB has been a beacon in the hopes of developing a vaccine and putting forth vital research to learn more about how to slow down, and eventually prevent, this catastrophe. Students and faculty are working together to make sure we blaze on.
From civil unrest, to having odds stacked against us, to being a role model for our nation, we have always and will always blaze on.
