UA Helps Parents with New “Read Tween The Lines” Website
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – July 31
…The University of Alabama now has a website you can head to, call “Read ‘Tween’ the Lines.”…Dr. Joyce Stallworth: “The site also looks at dropout prevention, money management, making friends, and even behavioral issues. “So many things are happening to them psychologically, physically, they’re learning different roles, so many pressures on them at that particular times”…
New Federal Financial Aid Applications Are Easier
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – July 31
…Helen Allen is the associate director of student financial aid at the University of Alabama. She says more and more students are filling out the FAFSA, which is something they recommend whether it’s needed or not…
Social interaction evolves with technology
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 2
…Barrie Jo Price and Anna McFadden, of the Institute of Interactive Technology in the University of Alabama’s College of Human Environmental Sciences…After working at several colleges and on private contracts around the world, they came to UA 20 years ago from the University of Miami. McFadden’s the hardware person; Price is the application and organization side, so she does much of the talking…Any new technology that bursts onto the scene eventually becomes the norm, then fades away, said Wayne Rau, who works in digital media at UA. ‘If an EMP [electromagnetic pulse] went off, I think it initially would be stressful without all of our digitals and cellulars and portables and minis,’ he wrote. ‘People rely more on technologies than people. This is what we presently know. And to some, it is all they know. ‘I think it wouldn’t be as bad as one may expect. If everyone, as a whole, is lacking, then we will find other ways of networking. It’s how each new generation grows socially. Our environment would lighten the burden as well by shifting directions and taking us down a non- technological path.’…Price and McFadden freely admit they are technology optimists. Technology just is, they say, and we’d best learn to live with and make the best use of that genie, which is not going back in the bottle. The ease of using Google is changing how we learn, just as the growing availability of printed matter to middle and lower classes changed schooling in earlier centuries. ‘In the old days, you’d find somebody who had a book and pay them to teach from that book,’ Price said. As facts and figures became more easily accessible, teachers began teaching students to assess and evaluate content. There’s current research showing that our brains are actually changing as a result of our communication patterns. ‘I think in time, people will begin to describe their metacognition in such a way, that we will find why blind people have an image of people they meet,’ Price said. ‘I think that’s how we’ll tie the old world with the new.’…
Alabama’s Hyundai engine plant fuels flexibility, stability in industry downturn
Birmingham News – Aug. 2
…Jim Cashman, a management professor at the University of Alabama, said Hyundai seems to have tapped into the value-focused mind-set of car buyers in a tough economic climate. “They seem to be well-positioned in terms of being able to meet the price capabilities of the American consumer,” he said.
WAKA (Montgomery) – Aug. 2
First-time homebuyers utilize new tax credit
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 2
…’You can make an assumption that the uptick in home sales is due at least in part to the $8,000 tax credit,’ said Leonard Zumpano, a finance and real estate professor at the University of Alabama. But there is no data available yet showing just how many people are becoming homebuyers because of the credit, he said. Zumpano compared the home buying tax credit to the federal government’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program that is offering cash rebates of up to $4,500 to people trading in older gas-guzzling vehicles for new fuel-efficient models. Both programs are catching potential buyers’ attention, and both programs are causing some people to make the purchase, he said…But as Zumpano noted, the $8,000 federal tax credit is unlike anything ever offered before by the government to stimulate home purchases. It thus will be interesting to see if the 2009 figures show a significantly higher percentage of first-time buyers in the mix, he said.
College News
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 3
Kim Bissell, Southern Progress Corporation Endowed Professor in Magazine Journalism in the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences, has been selected for the 2009 Krieghbaum Under-40 Award. The award is given by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, for outstanding early career accomplishments and to honor individuals who have shown outstanding achievement and effort in teaching, research and public service. Bissell teaches undergraduate courses in magazine design, magazine production and photojournalism and graduate courses in research methods, mass communication theory, health communication and media effects. She recently taught a magazine production class that traveled to France and produced a multimedia magazine, Alpine Living.
College briefs
Mobile Press-Register – Aug. 3
The University of South Alabama The University of South Alabama Center for Academic Service-Learning and Civic Engagement will host its first service-learning workshop Aug. 11…Stephen Black, director for the Center of Ethics and Social Responsibility at the University of Alabama and founder of Impact Alabama, will be the facilitator for the workshop. Impact Alabama is the state’s first nonprofit initiative dedicated to developing substantive service-learning projects in coordination with select universities and community colleges…