After the unfortunate closing of Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) in 2024, Roald Hazelhoff, director of the Southern Environmental Center (SEC), met with AEC to discuss future plans for the center and its new environmental education program—the Birmingham Urban Watershed STEMM Initiative (BUWSI). AEC recognized the education and resource gap left by BSC closing and the opportunity for a great partnership. As the SEC aligns with AEC’s mission of environmental education, AEC decided to become the fiscal sponsor of the SEC and is pleased to announce this exciting partnership and new education program for the organization. Since then, AEC adopted these programs as our own.

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A little history: AEC, formerly called the Alabama Conservancy, helped start the SEC in the late 1980s. In fact, the SEC was formerly called the “Birmingham Southern Conservancy” as it was a student group connected with a network of college-affiliated groups the Alabama Conservancy created. In the early years, one project AEC and BSC collaborated closely on included a campus recycling program. The program was so successful, President George Bush gave the BSC student group a Point of Light Award on Earth Day 1990. In the following decades, the two organizations have worked closely together on waste reduction and countless environmental initiatives.

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With a focus on climate change and education, the new SEC will now be called the Alabama Resilience Center (ARC). It will have an EcoScape field trip site, demonstrate how an industrial brownfield can be transformed into a carbon reducing greenspace, and showcase effective ways to harvest rainwater, solar, and wind power. We have started the first phase of a capital campaign to house the new ARC at the Continental Gin complex in Birmingham.