UNIVERSITY PROGRAM COUNCIL
ABOUT THE PROGRAM COUNCIL
The UPC wasn’t just some minor “concert committee,” it was an epicenter for learning and experimentation while providing students with engaging activities beyond academics. Program Council events were "must-see entertainment," bringing people from all over the region to campus. It grew into the envy of similar college programs across America. Along with athletics, the UPC formed an unintended, yet potent recruitment tool for the University of Alabama that has special meaning to this day.
UPC personnel were mostly unpaid volunteer students, guided by faculty involvement, working with booking agents, and promoters, most significantly, Ruffino-Vaughn Productions in New York. Later, Tony Ruffino moved his entire company to Birmingham where he operated successfully for many years. The students were involved in choosing acts, negotiating contracts, budgeting, ticketing, staging and production, security, publicity and promotion, artist relations, and just about everything connected to bringing big-time entertainment to the town.
It was also a manual process in those years, void of databases, computers, and the kind of modern technology that drives contemporary business. In short, everything was done by hand. It was a common sight to see UPC volunteers stapling handbills to telephone poles around town trumpeting shows such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, The Grateful Dead, Phoebe Snow, Liza Minnelli, Al Green, and dozens more. In its heyday, UPC concert posters became works of art that proudly hung in dorm rooms and apartments. Today, the posters and t-shirts worn by security personnel are considered vintage, and may go for big bucks on collector websites.
What makes this story all the more improbable is the fact that many of the current staff at the University seem to have little to no reference regarding UPC history, nor the impact they made that resonates with thousands of alumni to this day. The Program Council became its members’ social circle, the place that embraced them and made them feel like they belonged, much like a co-ed fraternity or sorority. It exposed them to crucial life lessons such as punctuality, acceptable office etiquette, effective communication, fiscal responsibility, and working as a team towards a common goal. The invaluable lessons learned while being a college student can set an indelible tone.
In the case of the UPC, later renamed Alabama Union Programs, it made a much deeper impact. Information about the events booked, promoted, and executed during the existence of the Program Council is scarce. Sadly, web searches on the era don't result in much of anything. It is as if the organization had left such an enormous impact on so many lives, including UPC members, and the audiences they served during the 1960s and 1970s, disappeared. Such information could benefit researchers, reconnect alumni, and the many people who poured their hearts and souls into the University Program Council to serve the student body, while experiencing an unmistakable comradery, while gaining unparalleled training in a variety of professional and life skills.
HOW WE GOT HERE
By David Muscari
College is a ball of confusion, at least it was for me. I started my academic career at the University of Alabama in the summer of 1975, moving to Tuscaloosa the day after graduating from Lanier High School in Montgomery. My mom thought it would be wise for me to start during the less hectic summer semester.
My older brother, a senior studying social work, took me under his wing and immediately introduced me to the University Program Council where he’d volunteered for a couple of years before my arrival.
It changed my life and the lives of many others.
This little-engine-that-could student organization was responsible for bringing iconic acts like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, The Band, Frank Zappa, The Eagles, Earth, Wind & Fire, Billy Joel, Elton John, Chicago, and Elvis Presley to campus, some multiple times. Artists performed on stages at UA venues such as Memorial Coliseum, Foster Auditorium, Ferguson Center, and Morgan Hall, as well as outdoors on the steps of the library, Woods Quad, and at other spots around campus. Many acts bypassed larger southern markets for Tuscaloosa in those years. The UPC was a community of young people who grew and learned together. They were exposed to some of the top professionals in the entertainment business and had the opportunity to connect with many of the acts they helped showcase. Working on stage and security crews, publicity teams, and attending to every need, UPC personnel did it all.
In the mid-1970s, UPC shows helped revitalize the historic Bama Theatre, a WPA performance hall located in downtown Tuscaloosa, with a series of intimate concerts by best-selling artists, including musicians Robert Palmer, Leon Redbone, Tim Weisberg, Ry Cooder, and comedian Lily Tomlin. And the list goes on.
There are accomplished professionals around the state and beyond with deep UPC roots. Will Ferniany is an example; a 1973 Alabama graduate, the Mobile native joined the Program Council in 1971, becoming the president his senior year. He says the experience provided good leadership skills that he utilized at UAB where he earned a master’s degree and a Doctorate. From there Ferniany went to work in hospital administration, ascending to the position of CEO of the UAB Health System. “Friends, great concerts, and an opportunity to be creative” were highlights of Ferniany’s UPC tenure, he says. Today, Ferniany is retired but speaks fondly of his UPC experiences. He tells vivid stories about everything from helping get The Beach Boys out of a “speed trap” to get them to their UA concert, to Jane Fonda’s ominous predictions about the use of autonomous bombers in future warfare while speaking on campus.
Another example is Cleo Thomas, an Anniston native who worked on the UPC during the 1970s running the Emphasis speaker series where he conceived and implemented the Distinguished Alabamians Lecture series. It featured political icons such as Gov. Albert Brewer, Sen. Howell Heflin, Justice Janie Shores, and Judge Frank M. Johnson. Bringing Johnson, a University of Alabama School of Law graduate and landmark civil rights figure, “back to campus for the first time was significant,” reflects Thomas. “As a freshman, I was chairman of Black History Week and brought Angela Davis to campus in the spring of 1974.” The UPC sponsored other well-known newsmakers such as Tom Brokaw, Tony Randall, and Godfrey Cambridge. In retrospect, Thomas says student activities like the Program Council aided in developing skills in budgeting, logistics, management, etc. He was elected the first African American SGA in school history in 1976 and went on to graduate the following year. [It would be another 40 years before another Black student would be elected SGA president at Alabama]. Thomas earned a degree from Oxford University in England and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1982. He later served on the University of Alabama Board of Trustees. Over the years Thomas has served on numerous corporate and civic boards, including AmSouth Bancorporation and AmSouth Bank Board; Protective Industrial Investment Company); the Birmingham Museum of Art; Alabama Humanities Foundation; and Alabama School of Fine Arts.
There were regularly scheduled UPC movies in the Ferguson Center for students, faculty, and staff, plus large and small festivals around campus, and an impressive list of cultural acts peppered throughout each semester.
Never short on controversy, in 1974 the Program Council’s controversial production of “Sex Week” produced a few shockwaves while welcoming adult star Linda Lovelace, infamous magazine publisher Al Goldstein, and others to campus. The full week of provocative programming that challenged the attitudes of the day, prompting fresh debate while gathering national press coverage in publications including The New York Times.
Phillip Rawls remembers it all very well; he was the organization’s president from 1973-1974, after chairing a couple of UPC committees as well. “I was a shy introvert when I entered Alabama in the fall of 1969,” he says. “UPC helped me develop confidence and determination and made me comfortable in front of many people.” After completing his undergraduate degree in journalism in 1973, and a master’s degree the following year, Rawls spent the next 41 years in the news business, the last 35 and a half as a reporter with the Associated Press based in Montgomery. Rawls says it also taught him organizational skills and time management. “I look back at my year as president, and I’m not sure when I slept,” he laughs.
Ray Waites graduated in 1974 with a degree in communication disorders, followed by a master’s degree in guidance and counseling. He started as a UPC volunteer in 1971 then moved up the ranks, landing as the organization’s president. “I had led a sheltered life ... and didn’t realize the amazing world around me before joining the UPC,” he says. Waites thinks the opportunity to be among, “The people, the laughter, the energy, the joy, and the spirit of giving to others, with no expectation” was “creative and beguiling,” and will always be a special memory. Since leaving Alabama, Waites’ global travels have taken him to educational positions in Houston, Las Vegas, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Cameroon, and Southern California, where he works today.
Over the years, the Program Council’s popular Emphasis series brought dozens of newsmakers and celebrities to the Capstone, including Truman Capote, Stan Lee (creator of “Spider-Man”), “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, Charles Manson prosecutor and “Helter Skelter” author Vincent Bugliosi, social rights crusader Betty Friedan, Congresswoman Bella Abzug, legendary actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Chris Miller (co-author of “Animal House"), and Nguyen Cao Ky, the former prime minister of South Vietnam.
Kent Öztekin served as a UPC photographer from 1975-1979, taking candid shots for promotional ads, and as an historical record. At one point, the Birmingham native became part of the act when comedian Steve Martin called him onstage at Memorial Coliseum during a 1977 concert. Öztekin remembers his time at the UPC fondly; it sharpened his professional skills and helped him learn patience with “difficult” people. And best of all, the experience, he says, “Led me to lifelong friends,” a common theme among members. Now semi-retired, Öztekin went on to work extensively in commercial photography, and in a family- business based in Birmingham.
The UPC wasn’t just some minor “concert committee,” it was an epicenter for learning and experimentation while providing students with engaging activities beyond academics. UPC events became must-see entertainment, bringing people from all over the region to campus. It grew into the envy of similar college programs across America. Along with athletics, the UPC formed an unintended, yet potent recruitment tool for the University of Alabama that has special meaning to this day.
Muscle Shoals native Steve Wombacher earned an undergraduate degree in media studies and a master’s in higher education. While in college he worked for the UPC, doing volunteer work, he says, “hanging posters, selling tickets to films, and working security at concerts. Later Wombacher chaired UPC committees, including film, then concerts. His UPC experience led him to become a staff advisor to student groups similar at Auburn, Clemson, and Nebraska; then later a vendor working with college campus unions in Midwestern and Mountain states. “UPC was my entry vehicle to staff positions in higher education,” he says. Skills developed at the Program Council were daily tools used throughout his career. “I consider it my true education.”
UPC personnel were mostly unpaid volunteer students, guided by faculty involvement, working with booking agents, and promoters, most significantly, Ruffino-Vaughn Productions in New York. Tony Ruffino moved his family and the entire company to Birmingham where he operated successfully for many years.
The students were involved in choosing acts, negotiating contracts, budgeting, ticketing, staging and production, security, publicity and promotion, artist relations, and just about everything connected to bringing big-time entertainment to the town.
Richard Blake did his share of work at the UPC, starting by loading and unloading sound and lighting equipment for shows. “I think Loggins and Messina were the first,” he remembers. A few weeks later he was in the UPC office when someone asked about his major, (which was advertising). “They were working on a poster for an upcoming Doobie Brothers show and put me to work on the spot doing paste-up layout for the poster.” He soon ran the Publicity division working with local and regional newspapers, radio, and TV stations buying media for shows and special events. The experiences led the 1978 graduate to a career in media, working in magazine circulation and IT for about 20 years, and the supermarket tabloid Globe for 11 years. Blake says the UPC taught him ways to deal with prickly people and how to work with others in an office environment. “I learned more about real-world advertising there than I did from the UA curriculum.”
Like Blake and the other dedicated young men and women who formed the beating heart of the organization, it was a master class in business, public relations, problem-solving, leadership, and more. There were distinctive moments of triumph and tragedy along the way, a true microcosm of life beyond the campus.
Nowadays, successful UPC alumni dot the landscape, many working in leadership roles in fields such as law, medicine, media, retail, advertising, entertainment, government, education, and much more.
It is extraordinary to reflect on the success generated within the walls of the UPC offices of a fairly new Ferguson Center in those years.
For example, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra performed in only a handful of American cities, including New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Tuscaloosa during a 1975 tour. When that happens, you must be doing something right.
What makes this story all the more improbable is that the current staff at the University seems to have little reference as to the UPC’s history, nor the impact that resonates with thousands of alumni to this very day.
The UPC became its members’ social circle, the place that embraced them and made them feel like they belonged, much like a co-ed fraternity or sorority. It exposed them to crucial life lessons such as punctuality, acceptable office etiquette, effective communication, fiscal responsibility, and working as a team towards a common goal.
Barry Bukstein, a 1979 New College graduate, worked his way up the organization to become the UPC president. “It was ‘life's classroom,’ and touched on important aspects of management, organization, conflict resolution, and development. I gained experience as a student that few ever get the opportunity to match in the real world.”
The invaluable lessons learned while being a college student can set an indelible tone. In the case of the UPC, later renamed Alabama Union Programs, it made an additional impact that for many went much deeper.