November 4, 2021
The College of Community Health Sciences was awarded The University of Alabama’s prestigious Sam S. May Commitment to Service Award Oct. 27 for its service to the campus community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a tremendous honor for our College and reflects our continuous commitment to the health and wellbeing of the UA community,” said Dr. Richard Friend, dean of CCHS. “I am tremendously proud of all of our employees who worked tirelessly and with compassion to keep UA faculty, staff, and students safe from COVID-19. They are the finest examples of selflessness, resilience, ingenuity and kindness. CCHS operates University Medical Center.”
Added UA’s Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. James Dalton: “How proud you must be of this team for working selflessly, creatively and collaboratively to serve others.”
The Sam S. May Commitment to Service Award, a University-wide award established in 2000, recognizes teams or departments that demonstrate exceptional commitment, innovation, or creativity in customer service. A recipient may be named as the campus community recipient, which was the case for CCHS.
The award is named after Sam May, who was employed in the School of Chemistry at UA from 1911 to 1941 and who learned basic chemistry from instructors during lunch hours. May soon became the person students turned to for explanations of puzzling chemistry problems and experiments.
CCHS received the 2007 Sam S. May Commitment to Service Award for opening the Faculty-Staff Clinic at University Medical Center. The clinic is devoted exclusively to the care of UA employees and their dependents covered under the University’s BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama medical insurance plan.
