The Alabama Senate this week confirmed the reappointment of three members of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees to new terms, among them Angus R. Cooper II of Mobile.
A maritime executive on the board
Cooper is chairman and chief executive officer of Cooper/T. Smith Corp., a Mobile-based company whose business is the working waterfront: ship docking, mooring, warehousing and barge transfer. The firm is one of the largest stevedoring operations in the country and one of the more consequential private companies headquartered on the Alabama coast.
A graduate of the University of Alabama, Cooper was inducted into the International Maritime Hall of Fame in 2007.
His new term will end in 2015.
What the board does
The Board of Trustees governs three institutions: the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Its members set tuition, approve budgets and capital projects, and select the chancellor and the presidents of the three campuses.
Trustees serve long terms and are confirmed by the Alabama Senate, which makes the board one of the more durable centers of influence in state government — less visible than the Legislature, but with authority over an enterprise that employs tens of thousands of people and educates a substantial share of the state’s professional class.
Mobile’s seat at the table
For Mobile, the value of Cooper’s continued service is straightforward. The Port of Mobile and the shipbuilding and maritime industries that surround it depend on engineering and business graduates, and on research relationships with the state’s universities. A trustee whose company works the docks every day is a trustee who understands what the coast needs from a university system headquartered several hours to the north.
It is worth noting the geography. The University of South Alabama in Mobile has its own separate board of trustees and is not governed by the University of Alabama system. Cooper’s appointment therefore places a Mobile business leader in the governance of a university system based elsewhere — a bridge that the coastal business community has historically valued.
The Senate confirmed the reappointments without controversy.