Dr. Chuck and Mrs. Jodie Karr
Dr. Chuck and Mrs. Jodie Karr
Michael Mercier | UAH

The University of Alabama in Huntsville President Dr. Chuck Karr and his wife Jodie are fast approaching the one-year anniversary of their arrival to Huntsville and the university, and during their time here, they’ve felt welcomed and supported.

“We are so blessed to be associated with this university and the community,” Dr. Karr says. “People here have taken us in and accepted us.”

The Karrs say that this strong connection is just one of the reasons why they recently announced they are making an initial unrestricted planned gift of $50,000 to UAH. The gift will secure their place in the Richardson Shaver Thrasher (RST) Society, which honors those who plan to invest in the future of UAH, and they join the 57 families, 11 of whom just joined this year, to be welcomed into the RST Society.

“It’s important to us that this university is a great contributor to the community, and it’s important that Jodie and I are a part of that contribution,” Dr. Karr shares.

Dr. Karr joined UAH, a part of the University of Alabama System, as its 10th president in December 2021, after retiring from a 26-year career at the University of Alabama (UA), where he served most recently as the dean of the College of Engineering (COE). Dr. Karr joined UA first as a part-time instructor in the Engineering Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering departments but quickly rose through the ranks from assistant professor to full professor. He then served as the head of UA’s Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics department, prior to becoming the associate dean for research and graduate studies and later the dean of the COE.

Both Dr. and Mrs. Karr are also UA alumni. Dr. Karr is a three-time graduate of UA, culminating in a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics. However, UA wasn’t the first school he attended. “I was slated to attend Georgia Technological Institute when the University of North Alabama waved a baseball scholarship at me. I went there for a year and played baseball before transferring to UA.” Once at UA, he set his sights on engineering; “I was told I was good at math and science, and that I should try engineering,” Dr. Karr says. “So, I put my head down and stuck with it.” Mrs. Karr came to Alabama from the Midwest, and she graduated from UA with a degree in interior design. Like Dr. Karr, she was also a scholarship recipient.

What followed for Dr. Karr was a successful career working as a research engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Mines at the Tuscaloosa Research Center. He authored books and journal papers; he won engineering awards; and he presented at conferences. Yet, he says, “I was never so much an engineer as I was an educator.” His passion, he says, is working with and getting to know young people. “If you don’t appreciate and enjoy being around young people when you work in education, you’re in the wrong business.”

That passion is evidenced here at UAH by the quick rapport he’s established with the UAH community and beyond. It’s not uncommon to see Dr. Karr conversing with students or riding around campus on a golf cart, ferrying students to class and hearing more about their day. That drive to connect with students began, Dr. Karr says, when he was in school.

“In graduate school, I was first exposed to being an educator when I was a teaching assistant, but before that, I had plenty of professors who saw more in me than I saw in myself. And that’s what being an educator really is,” Dr. Karr explains. Now that he’s president at UAH, he sees his role as one that has evolved over time. “As you progress you feel farther from what brought you here, but then you realize you’re steering a different ship that affects a lot more people and makes a larger impact.”

Dr. Karr emphasizes that an education is of utmost importance to him and his family. “Education transforms lives,” he says. “My dad was a coal miner and one of 13 kids here in Alabama, and he parlayed a football scholarship into an education. It changed his life and his lineage – it changed the expectations for me, my siblings, and my children.” Dr. Karr adds that in his family, “We were raised to care about others around you. For me, that’s what makes the world go around.” That’s echoed in Mrs. Karr’s experience; her mother demonstrated a giving heart by serving at the local YMCA and spearheading programs that taught children with special needs in a time when not many did so. “I witnessed my mother doing that,” Mrs. Karr says, “and it inspired me to give back.”

Dr. Karr notes that no one succeeds without support. For him, there were “a lot of people who helped me when they weren’t obligated to do so.” He adds, “I tell students to go home and make a list of the people who helped them get where they are today. Then I say two things: one, you’re never going to list everyone who helped you, and two, find out how you can get your name on someone else’s list.” That, the Karrs emphasize, is what they are striving to do now: get their name on someone’s list. “Jodie and I said that when we had the opportunity to do so, we would like to give back.”

The Karrs say they’ve also worked to model the importance of giving to their two adult sons, Nate and Noah. Both sons graduated from UA, and both were on the track teams. Nate works for Brasfield and Gorrie as a project manager and just completed work on Huntsville’s Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering. Noah works as a news producer at WBRC-6 in Birmingham. “Hopefully,” Mrs. Karr asserts, “they are witnessing what we are doing in terms of giving. And they’re also interested in making an impact.”

That impact may result from financial support, Dr. Karr says, but that isn’t always the case. “I’ve coached hundreds of kids. Jodie and I did a decent amount of work with special needs kids with the Special Olympics,” Dr. Karr clarifies. “If you are limited in the financial support you can provide, then you can certainly give of your time.”

The question some might have, considering the amount of time he and his family spent at UA, is, “Why make a planned gift to UAH?” Dr. Karr says the answer is pretty simple. “UAH has a great mission and there’s a great future ahead for UAH. It’s been a privilege to be a part of that mission and that future. I consider it a worthwhile investment.”

For the Karrs, now felt like the right time to create their own impact at UAH by making a planned gift. “There’s a time when you make a decision of what your legacy is going to be,” Dr. Karr explains. “For Jodie and me, it’s a culmination of years of planning and saving. We aspired to make a planned gift because you never know what the future will hold and we were ready.”

Please contact the Office of Development if you’d like to learn more about how to make your planned gift.

CONTACT US | University of Alabama Huntsville Foundation—Planned Giving

 

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Dr. Helen Lien
256-824-5485
helen.lien@uah.edu

Jenn Memolo
256-824-6845
jennifer.memolo@uah.edu