mission daily with competence and compassion, including our exceptional leadership team who is leading us to the highest levels of achievement in our history, outpacing most of our peers. In partnership with our community, we have made remarkable strides recognized the world-over because we have made those strides together toward a shared vision. Dr. Volker concluded his Newcomen Address as follows: 'The destinies of cities and their universities are inseparable. One cannot flourish unless the other prospers. Birmingham and UAB have made an impressive start toward these goals....God willing, we will move forward together to become a great city and a great university.' Today in this Magic City, once a boomtown born of blast furnaces and steel, we are working another kind of "magic" with resources all the more essential in a knowledge economy: bright minds sparked by the entrepreneurial spirit and an unyielding resolve to succeed and excel. On behalf of UAB, thank you very much for this honor.The Newcomen event served as a prelude to UAB's 50th Anniversary year in 2019, marking fifty years since establishment as an autonomous campus of the University of Alabama System in 1969. The university hosted numerous celebratory events, activities and service projects on campus and in the community, and published a commemorative coffee table book entitled "Fifty Years of Dreams and Discoveries." Watts authored the book's introduction, "Fifty Years of Forging Ahead," in which he reflected, "I have been privileged to witness and play a role in this university's phenomenal growth from several perspectives—as a Birmingham native, a UAB undergraduate, proud alumnus, faculty member, senior administrator and now president." Alluding to Dr. Volker's oft-quoted line, "We would do Birmingham a great disservice if we dreamed too little dreams," Watts wrote, "The early and bold vision for our university and city has been realized on a scale that even Dr. Volker and his faculty could not have imagined. Today UAB dares to dream even bigger because striving for excellence in all that we do is our duty, and we will not let Birmingham, the state or our nation down." Also during the 50th Anniversary year, Watts announced a major project that had been selected, through a campuswide competitive process, as UAB's Grand Challenge, a key component of UAB's Forging the Future strategic plan. Watts announced that the goal of the community-based initiative, Live HealthSmart Alabama, was to raise the state of Alabama out