UA’s Alabama Center for Real Estate Gets New Director, New Name

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The former Alabama Center for Real Estate Research and Education at The University of Alabama has a new name, a new director, a new direction and will soon have a new staff.

First, the new name – Alabama Center for Real Estate, or ACRE. The new director is Grayson M. Glaze, J.D., who holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from The University of Alabama with a concentration in real estate and who has extensive experience in commercial real estate in the Birmingham area. Glaze also has a law degree from the Birmingham School of Law.

“The Alabama Center for Real Estate Research and Education, since its establishment, has served a very valuable purpose,” said Dr. J. Barry Mason, dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce. “However, the sea change that has struck the residential real estate community dictated that we change the direction of the real estate outreach program. Our emphasis is shifting from research to service to the real estate community. In addition, we will focus more on educating our students in a fashion that will allow them to understand the economic impact and the supply and demand side of real estate. The interest in the real estate courses has also accelerated rapidly, necessitating additional classroom instruction.”

Mason said Dr. Leonard V. Zumpano, Alabama Association of Realtors Chair of Real Estate and former director of the Alabama Real Estate Research and Education Center, will return fulltime to teaching and research in response to the accelerating enrollment. Zumpano is editor of the Journal of Housing Research and one of the nation’s top 50 real estate researchers.

Glaze said he plans to expand the Alabama Center For Real Estate’s Web site to provide more assistance to the real estate community, and he hopes to institute distance learning programs for real estate professionals, along with Web seminars and conferences.

“I also hope to find more student internships in the real estate community,” Glaze said, “and I will be looking for way to increase student participation through student oriented activities.” Glaze said the number of students concentrating in real estate has climbed to 500 from a low of 200. He also said he is in the process of hiring two new staff members.

Glaze has taught as an adjunct professor at UA, and he is a member of the National Association of Realtors, the Alabama Association of Realtors, the Birmingham Association of Realtors and is a licensed Alabama real estate broker.

Before arriving at UA, Glaze was employed by Carter Real Estate of Atlanta as general manager of SouthBridge in Birmingham, a 225,000 square foot office building owned by Alfa Insurance. His recognitions include 2005 and 2006 Carter Building of the Year- Class A Office portfolio and Top 40 Under 40 by the Birmingham Business Journal. In 2006, he was inducted as a Life Member in the Birmingham Commercial Million Dollar Sales Club.

Glaze’s wife’s grandfather is the late Paul Garner, former dean of the UA business school, and his father was director of recreation at UA in the 1970s.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was established in 1919 and in 1929, became the 38th school to earn admission into the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business. The excellence of the UA business school has been acknowledged on a national level. The undergraduate program is ranked 29th among public universities by U.S. News and Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 15th among public universities by U.S. News. The graduate accounting program is ranked 15th and the undergraduate program 14th by Public Accounting Report.