UA Health Center Director to Receive National Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Connie Diggs, director of The University of Alabama’s Russell Student Health Center, will receive the American College Health Association’s Hannibal E. Howell Award on Wednesday, May 30, at the association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas.

One of the association’s top 10 national award winners, Diggs joins college health care professionals from institutions such as Harvard, Duke, and Carnegie Mellon as an honoree.

The Howell Award honors American College Health Association members who have made “outstanding proactive contributions” to their campus communities and ACHA by promoting health care, and ways to prevent health problems, relevant to ethnic minorities, according to the association’s web site.

Diggs has served as director of UA’s student health center since 1998. The UA center is the state’s only college health service accredited by Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care or the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. In 2000, the Center was re-accredited by AAAHC for a full 3-year term.

An Alabama native, Diggs has held a range of medical administrative positions, both inside and outside of higher education. Prior to joining UA, Diggs directed the student health center at California State University in Los Angeles. She earned her diploma of nursing from Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Atlanta; a bachelor’s degree in health science and a master’s in public administration from California State University at Carson, Calif; and a Juris Doctor degree from South Western University School of Law in Los Angeles.