Message from the President

Welcome to our newly designed website. Chris McCauley, our Director of Operations, has taken over the website. Look for news on upcoming activities in our signature programs and special initiatives.

The Center is entering what we might call Phase II. In the past two years, we have experimented with several approaches to our purpose of fostering infrastructure and habits of more creative decision-making in Alabama communities.

I will not comment in detail on our emerging annual cycle of key activities. They will be described in other places on our website. Chris McCauley has worked tirelessly with many, many people and communities to develop Alabama Issues Forums and supporting activities.

In this initial communication, I want to thank people that make the Center work. I will mention here folks at American Village and other educational institutions. In later comments, I will focus on our community liaisons as we share what is happening in Alabama communities.

Tom Walker, Ellen Corbett, and the staff at American Village are our hosts, our colleagues, and our friends. Not every organization has George Washington, Patrick Henry, Abigal Adams, Phyllis Wheatley, and other historical characters working with them! If you have never visited American Village near Montevallo, you have missed a treat. You will find a link to the Village’s website on our website.

Jim Hall, Lane McLelland, Lindsey Mullen, and Lydia Atkins in New College at the University of Alabama have been instrumental in developing the Jean O’Connor-Snyder Community Research Internship Program in support of our signature programs and special initiatives. Lane McLelland has been our pioneer O’C Intern coordinator.

With the warm cooperation of Jim and the UA administration we have been able to develop the O’C Interns statewide. We currently have O’C Interns at the University of Alabama, Auburn University, Miles College, the University of Montevallo, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. We will add more as funds and staff resources permit.

Mark Wilson and friends in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University work closely with us. We also cherish association with Joe Sumners and the Institute for Economic and Community Development and friends in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Jay Lamar and the Draughon Center for Arts and Humanities.

Jim Day at Montevallo, Ba-Sheen Welch at Miles, and Kristen Boggs at UAB also work with the O’C Interns.

We are creating a network of folks across the state who realize the importance of this question: “what would work better in our community if we worked better together?”

Bob McKenzie