Posted on December 4, 2002 at 10:00 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Health care executive and UAB alumnus Michael E. Stephens and UAB Honors Program director Ada Long, Ph.D., will be honored during University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) graduation ceremonies at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 14. Ceremonies will be held at Bartow Arena, 617 South 13th Street. Some 950 of the 1,895 December graduates will take part. UAB President Carol Z. Garrison will deliver the commencement address.

Stephens, who received the honorary degree Doctor of Humanities during May commencement, will receive the UAB Distinguished Alumnus Award. Long will receive the UAB President’s Medal, which recognizes scholarly distinction and service to the university.

Michael E. Stephens is well known in Alabama for his support of worthwhile community projects and is recognized locally and nationally for his leadership in the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors of the rehabilitation industry. He founded both the Lakeshore Foundation, a charitable organization that supports the development of programs for people with physical disabilities, and ReLife, a publicly traded company that merged with HealthSouth in 1994. Both efforts stemmed from his early work as executive director of Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital and from his personal recovery from a disabling injury.

Stephens had begun a successful career in the publishing industry when in 1970 he suffered a spinal-cord injury in a diving accident. In 1973, after intensive rehabilitation, during which he learned to walk again, he returned to the University of Montevallo to complete his bachelor’s degree in business. In 1975, he earned a master’s degree in health administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Stephens went on to become executive director of Lakeshore Hospital when it was still a small rehabilitation facility. Based on his own experience during rehabilitation, he was determined to eliminate the fragmentation of services that often hampered the recovery of people with physical disabilities. In the next decade, he transformed Lakeshore Hospital into what Forbes magazine called, “… a model laboratory for his ideas about rehabilitation.” Under his leadership, the hospital became world renowned for its work in the rehabilitation of people with physical disabilities.

Stephens’ progress with Lakeshore Hospital led to his founding ReLife in 1986. As president and CEO, he guided the organization to national prominence as an effective, comprehensive rehabilitation system. When ReLife merged with HealthSouth Corporation in 1994, He continued to work on behalf of people with disabilities, serving as an active member of the board of trustees for the Lakeshore Foundation.

He is the owner of Resting S Ranch, a champion Arabian brood-mare farm in Indian Springs, Alabama. Through his company S Enterprises, he has investments ranging from banking to real estate development. He serves on the United States Paralympic Leadership Council and the boards of Banc Corporation and the Naples, Florida, Philharmonic.

Ada Long, Ph.D., the founding director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s nationally recognized Honors Program, is a professor in the Department of English. The UAB Honors Program, housed in the newly renovated Spencer Honors House, provides gifted and highly motivated students with an intimate, innovative, and challenging interdisciplinary course of study. Under Long’s leadership, students in the UAB Honors Program have won major scholarships and awards, including Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, and Fulbright as well as National Science Foundation fellowships.

UAB students have repeatedly recognized Dr. Long for her excellence in teaching. She received the Ingalls Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1988 and Ingalls Recognition for Excellence in Teaching in the School of Humanities in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1988. In 2001, she received the Honorary Alumna Award from the UAB National Alumni Society.

Long is a native of St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1967 from Stanford University “With Great Distinction,” where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1971, she earned a Master of Arts degree in English “With Distinction” from SUNY-Albany, where in 1976 she also earned her Doctorate in English with a specialty in 18th-century British literature. She taught at the University of Cincinnati from 1974 to 1977, before coming to UAB in 1977 as an assistant professor of English. In 1980, she became an associate professor and began a two-year term as director of graduate studies in English. In 1982, she took the lead in launching the University Honors Program. She was named a professor in 1992.

Long is past president of the National Collegiate Honors Council and co-editor of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. She has been a consultant and evaluator for 20 university honors programs. She is past president of the UAB Chapter and the Alabama Conference of the American Association of University Professors. She is chairman of the Truman Scholarship Selection Committee and a member of the Rhodes Scholarship Committee. In 1981, she received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to develop the Interdisciplinary Course Sequence and Faculty Seminar in the Humanities at UAB. She has published four books and numerous articles, most on poetry, the arts, women’s literature and honors education.

She also is active in the community. She is a past president and a current member of the board of directors for Bread and Roses, a board member of the Birmingham Institute of Religious Studies and coordinator of the UAB Faculty Lecture Series at the Donaldson Correctional Facility. In 2000, she received the UAB Odessa Woolfolk Community Service Award.

Downloadable Images

To save images from your browser window, follow these directions:

• Windows users: follow the "Download now" link below and then right-click the large image — select "Save picture as ..." from the menu to save the image to your local computer.
  
• Macintosh users: follow the "Download now" link below and then control-click (hold down control while clicking) the large image — select "Download Image to Disk" to save the image to your local computer.
  

	Image Size: 1,253 pixels by 1,800 pixels (4.2" by 6.0") Resolution: 300 dpi Format: JPEG (grayscale) File Size: 435 KB Download Now! Caption: Health care executive and UAB alumnus Michael E. Stephens will be honored during UAB graduation ceremonies at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 14.
	Image Size: 1,258 pixels by 1,800 pixels (4.2" by 6.0") Resolution: 300 dpi Format: JPEG (grayscale) File Size: 748 KB Download Now! Caption: UAB Honors Program director Ada Long, Ph.D., will be honored during UAB graduation ceremonies at 2 p.m. Saturday, December 14.