Scott Bridges Named Director of UA Creative Campus Initiative

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Scott Bridges, professor in The University of Alabama School of Music, has been named director of the UA Creative Campus initiative.

An internationally acclaimed clarinetist, Bridges has been on the UA faculty since 1978. A former member of the United States Army Band and New Jersey and North Carolina Symphony Orchestras, he has also served as a faculty member at the Shenandoah Conservatory and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

UA Creative Campus, an initiative that began in May 2005, is a student-centered project to expand and extend the impact of cultural arts on and off campus. Maxwell Hall (the old observatory) is the new headquarters on campus for Creative Campus.

Bridges’ duties as Creative Campus director will include developing technological, economic and artistic creativities across campus and in the community.

“A specific goal of the Creative Campus is to increase the coherence, visibility and accessibility of UA cultural arts and activities,” Bridges said. “Working through the organization of the Creative Campus to gain student perspective is central to our success,” he added.

Bridges is the founder of “Realizing the Dream,” an annual concert tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. that has become a West Alabama community event held at UA. He has commissioned some 14 musical works, most recently “Two Cherokee Prayers” by University of Georgia composer William Davis for clarinet, soprano, piano and percussion that premiered at the Warner-Westervelt Museum of Art.

“I look forward to my collaborative work with Dr. Hank Lazer, associate provost, and Kristi Wilcox, senior intern in Creative Campus; both are exceptional leaders,” Bridges said.

Bridges has been active statewide as a social entrepreneur linking the arts, campus and the larger community. He was one of the initial organizers of the Michael Figures Leadership Experience, the Legislative Agenda Committee, the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and the Capstone Woodwind Quintet.

He has also served in the UA Faculty Senate and on the Tuscaloosa Library Board, and he is the current elected chairman of the Northport Planning and Zoning Commission.

In March 2004, he was one of 65 national leaders invited to the “Creative Campus” conversation sponsored by the American Assembly at Columbia University. Bridges’ upcoming activities include workshops with Jerry Yoshitomi, an invitation to the Edinburgh Festival Conference on Society and the Arts where he will co-present “The Creative Campus: An Exploration of Cultural Development” and a plenary invitation to the Vanderbilt Curb Center Symposium on the Creative Campus in November.

Bridges began his duties as UA Creative Campus director in mid-August.

The mission of Creative Campus is to build synergy through collaboration.