The Professor Alfred A. Baumeister Endowed Support Fund was established in 2013 by his estate, family, and friends. Baumeister was a psychology faculty member at UA from 1965 to 1973.
Baumeister joined the faculty at UA to lead a pioneering new doctoral program in intellectual disability research (formerly called mental retardation research). He held numerous training and research grants from NIH and other agencies and foundations. He was involved in numerous class action suits aimed at improving services for people with developmental disabilities and helped found the first group home for individuals with intellectual disabilities in Tuscaloosa for former residents of Partlow State School. Dr. Baumeister authored or co-authored over 200 articles, chapters, and books. He left UA in 1973 to become the director of the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development at Vanderbilt University.
Upon retirement from Vanderbilt in 2000, Dr. Baumeister moved back to Tuscaloosa. He died in 2011, and two years later, the Baumeister support fund was established. Since then, each year, the Baumeister award is awarded to an undergraduate psychology major with excellent academic achievement and who demonstrates financial need. Priority is to a first-generation student or a student who has faced personal hardships.
Give to the Professor Alfred A. Baumeister Endowed Support Fund