Alabama colleges toast graduates with degree-awarding ceremonies
Birmingham News – May 10
… More than 3,100 students will graduate from the University of Alabama…
FOX6 (Birmingham) – May 8
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – May 8
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – May 9
Spouses to graduate
Tuscaloosa News – May 9
The Robinsons are a tiny sliver of students at traditional universities: married, undergraduate students. And today, they both graduate from UA…since both have housing allowances as part of their scholarship, the Robinsons lived in on-campus apartments designed for married couple and families…Home for the Robinsons, for right now anyway, is UA. ‘People aren’t necessarily ready to be independent, but we’re very well-prepared’ Ashley Robinson said. ‘It’s definitely more responsibility, but it’s worth it.’
Grads’ job options varied
Tuscaloosa News – May 10
…Outside the University of Alabama’s spring commencement ceremonies, the options expressed by the recent degree-earners were as wide and varied as the smiles they wore for their accomplishment. For some, like social work students Faye Sharp and Angel Phillips, months of job searching paid off with June 1 hire dates. Sharp, 46, of Albertville was one the approximately 1,900 who walked across the stage in Coleman Coliseum as part of Saturday’s spring commencement ceremonies. She said she is relocating to Chattanooga, Tenn., to put her master’s degree in social work to use by working with the elderly. ‘I’m very thankful,’ Sharp said about finding full-time employment…
Alabama’s Coleman leaving with degree
Mobile Register – May 9
Junior forward Yamene Coleman has elected to forego his final year of eligibility and leave the Alabama basketball team after he receives his criminal justice degree today…”I’m grateful for the opportunity to earn a degree from the University of Alabama while representing the Crimson Tide on the court,” Coleman said in a statement…
UA Photographer Travels to Cuba
NBC13 (Birmingham) – May 10
These are some gorgeous pictures from Havana Cuba taken by University of Alabama photographer Chip Cooper…
Study finds home loan rates differ for blacks, whites
Tuscaloosa News – May 10
Black homeowners in Tuscaloosa County are much more likely to pay higher interest rates than whites regardless of income and amount borrowed; a University of Alabama analysis of federal data shows…Leonard Zumpano, Alabama Association of Realtors chair of real estate at the University of Alabama, agrees that borrowers should be able to trust banks and credible lenders. ‘Established mortgage companies are not going to screw people,’ Zumpano said. ‘In situations of bad credit, brokers tend to be more willing to take on risks than banks.’ The result is more loans with high interest rates…
Seivers and bank maintain close ties
The Tennessean (Nashville, Tenn.) – May 10
…University of Alabama finance professor and municipal finance expert Robert Brooks said the arrangement raises conflict-of-interest questions and has the whiff of pay-to-play scenarios that have long plagued municipal finance. When there’s a gatekeeper to conduct business, he said, it drives up costs. “We as a people need to have as clean a government as we can possibly have and it’s in our interest to root these kinds of things out,” Brooks said. “It makes the markets more inefficient. There are people out there who do a very good job delivering capital to those people who need it, but have just decided that the municipal corner of the business smells too bad.”
Advice from the Experts
Tuscaloosa News (Dateline) – May 9 (Online only)
After studying multimedia news production for an entire semester, one group of University of Alabama journalism students recently got a rare opportunity for feedback on their multimedia projects. The occasion for that feedback was Journalism Jobs Day, a series of panel discussions about the state of the journalism profession and what students entering that profession need to know to be successful…