Dear new University of Alabama students:

On behalf of our faculty, staff, students and alumni, welcome to The University of Alabama family. We want the next four years to be a wonderful time of positive growth for you.

Starting college is an exciting time, and we have many resources available to help you succeed in your time at UA and beyond. One of those is Thrive, a web-based education program available to all incoming students. The Thrive program educates students in specific areas before they arrive on campus — community, wellness, healthy relationships and substance misuse. This program has been helpful to many college students as they balance the freedom of living away from home with the need to establish a healthy lifestyle as a young adult. Not only is the information helpful for navigating your own college experience, but it can also equip you to be a good classmate or roommate, knowing how to respond and point fellow students to appropriate resources and next steps.

The Thrive course comes in two parts. You will receive an email to your UA email address on July 10, 2024, with specific directions for logging on to the course through myBama for Part 1 which should be completed prior to Aug. 12, 2024. On or after Sept. 4, you will receive an e-mail with updates to complete Part 2 by Oct. 18, 2024. Completing all Part 1 lessons will take a few hours, so we encourage you to break them up into separate sessions; all Part 2 lessons should take approximately half an hour to complete. You will receive credit in your REAL Tide record of engagement and learning upon successful completion of both Part 1 and Part 2 of the courses.

Significant student participation in the course is one way the University fulfills federal requirements from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice. More importantly, it is one important way we support your wellbeing and resilience as you join our campus community and learn to live out the ideals of our Capstone Creed.

If you have any questions about the program, or if you have any problems accessing the course, please reference our website at thrive.sl.ua.edu.

Sincerely,

Stuart R. Bell
President