Students and colleagues of former University of Alabama president David Mathews hope to bring to the state his expertise as 25-year president of the Kettering Foundation.

The Kettering Foundation, which supports and encourages public debate on what it takes to make democracy work and on quality of life issues, was founded by Charles Kettering, the inventor of electric starters for automobiles, according to local attorney John Plunk.

Mathews, a native of Grove Hill who is retiring as Kettering president to return to Alabama, was UA president when Plunk attended there in the early 1970s. He was appointed by President Gerald Ford to head the cabinet post then known as Health, Education and Welfare—now Health and Human Services.

When Jimmy Carter was elected, Mathews lost his cabinet post and returned to the university as president for a few years before being named to the Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio.

Plunk said he has been appointed to a board attempting to build a center, possibly at the university, to house Mathews’ archives and papers and to provide a place where he might continue his work in public discourse.

“Mathews is in his late 60s, he wants to retire and be near his grandchildren in Montgomery,” said Plunk. “A group of about 50 former students and retired professors, his colleagues, gathered together Sunday to plan a place where Mathews would have a place to work on the research he was doing at Kettering.

“This would be something like a presidential library for his archives, memorabilia and writings, a place where a scholar can continue research,” said Plunk. “It would also be a place to foster public discourse to learn how we better prepare young people to take their place in public life.”

Plunk said that during Mathews’ tenure at the university in the early 1970s, he founded the College of Community Health Services, a course of study for doctors in which they were paid to perform a year’s internship in family medicine with the hope they would commit at least three to four years to practicing in a rural community.

“The doctors were trained for rural areas that don’t usually attract doctors,” said Plunk. “Part of it still in operation in Huntsville, across from Huntsville Hospital.”

Plunk said Mathews’ lifelong mission has been to “get people to realize they must be involved and not to leave it up to the elected officials or boards on quality of life issues.”

Plunk said a good example of an issue that the Kettering Foundation would take up for debate would be the current proposal to build a new public library in Athens.

“You learn how to debate issues, how to get things done, how you get people and leaders behind a project,” said Plunk. “He always preached that citizenship is for everyone, that everyone should be involved.”

Bob McKenzie, president of the Alabama Center for Civic Life in Northport and a senior associate of the Kettering Foundation, said it would be Mathews’ choice where he wants to have the center built.