When Frank Franz ’59 assumed presidential duties of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in 1991, the institution was on the verge of financial collapse. Franz proved equal to the challenge; following his recently concluded tenure as the longest-serving university president in Alabama, UAH is thriving.

The university is home to more than 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students and offers 62 academic programs through its six colleges.

Franz is quick to acknowledge that UAH’s transformation into a more “user-friendly” school has been a team effort.

“I have been deeply dedicated to the concept and practice of shared governance within a university,” he says. “Members of my administration and I worked closely with our faculty and staff senates, our student government, and individual centers and departments to make substantial improvements in the structure and operation of our university. We brought forward new ideas, new possibilities, new proposals; we sought input, made modifications, and proceeded forward with beneficial change. We worked to make every office, every individual, and every policy as sensitive and responsive as possible to the needs of our students and the rest of our university family. We built pride in UAH as a smaller, student-centered research university of distinction. This year just past, UAH reached $70 million in federally financed awards for research; many of our undergraduates work on these projects. We attracted students from, of course, all over Alabama, 44 other states, and more than 75 other countries.”

“And, we maintained our impressive record of being the only research university in Alabama never to lose a football game; indeed, never to be scored upon,” he jokes.

Franz received the 2006 Brotherhood/Sisterhood Award from the Huntsville chapter of the National Conference for Community and Justice.

“I felt greatly honored, especially because it came from entirely outside our profession,” he says. “The award, in part, recognized my help in rescuing UAH from the brink of financial collapse – our financial condition was dreadful when I arrived – and in helping to create the tremendous community resource UAH is today. It recognized our success in dramatically expanding African American representation in our student body, faculty, and staff, as well as our strengthened ties with our two historically black universities in Huntsville, Alabama A&M University and Oakwood College.”

The physics graduate nurtured his love of tackling difficult challenges while at Lafayette. His undergraduate years also gave him the chance to explore interests outside his academic discipline.

“Lafayette’s many opportunities for broadening oneself outside the classroom were especially valuable to me,” he says. “I was a member of College Choir and greatly enjoyed the performances, friendships, and trips, although I couldn’t stand the sight of a ham dinner for several years thereafter. I was a columnist for a while on the student newspaper. I acted in several productions of The Little Theatre, usually to my disappointment cast not as the romantic lead, but rather as whatever kind of father figure was available. I enjoyed my first Vivaldi concerto at a Lafayette concert. And, in something that presaged my later adventures in academic administration, I organized a group of [Knights of the Round Table] members to assist the admissions office in recruiting students to Lafayette.”

Franz even met up with his favorite professor as he pursued master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Illinois.

“One of my favorite teachers was Laird Schearer, then a young instructor/assistant professor, who combined a great sense of humor with a strong enthusiasm for physics,” he says. “Both of us left Lafayette at about the same time. I went on to graduate school at Illinois, and Laird went on to pursue his doctorate at Rice University. By a great quirk of fate, we wound up in the same subfield of experimental atomic physics and remained good friends throughout his too short lifetime.”

Closing a chapter on a career spent in higher education, Franz believes his successes and challenges could not have been more worthwhile. Prior to accepting the presidency at UAH, he was provost at West Virginia University. Before that, he was a professor of physics at Indiana University in Bloomington before first becoming dean of its College of Arts and Sciences and later dean of the faculties.

“The rewards have been huge,” he says. “All my life I’ve been fascinated by exploring and discovering things that are entirely new, by finding creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and by working with others to find ways to make things better. Research and teaching in science and creative administration in higher education have delivered these opportunities in abundance.”