Students promote reading campaign
Crimson White – Oct. 22
The Big Read campaign, a national reading effort sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, has made a continuous push in previous years to promote the importance of reading in small towns across the country and has supported several areas in Alabama including Huntsville, Jefferson County and Perry County. This year, the Big Read program has been expanded as a group of UA students plan to promote a statewide literacy campaign called Alabama Reads … The 15 UA students involved in the campaign meet twice a week to discuss how to promote the campaign. These students are members of Capstone Agency and the Public Relations Student Society of America. They meet with librarians from across the state as well as the Statewide Public Relations Committee to do research and plan out promotions strategies for the campaign …
Professor leads students to reevaluate pop culture, religion
Crimson White – Oct. 22
David S. DeWitt is enough of a fan of Alabama football to teach a course about it … DeWitt teaches classes on such touchstones of popular culture as “Star Wars” and Alabama football. DeWitt is an interdisciplinary liberal arts professor in the Blount Undergraduate Initiative, a minor designed to expand students’ worldviews. DeWitt said his goal with these courses is to teach students how to examine mass media and popular culture with a critical eye as he does …
War, protests remembered in Galloway
Crimson White – Oct. 22
… “The History of Hair,” a series of dramatic readings about University of Alabama Vietnam War veterans and the anti-war movement on campus. The title of the event comes from the theater department’s upcoming production of “Hair,” and the event was made to inform people’s viewing of the musical … Sassy Saint, a sophomore majoring in psychology and English and an intern with the Honors College, helped organize and recruit students for the event. “This is the most successful faculty-in-residence program I’ve been to,” Saint said. “I feel like this event really brought together different generations.” The first part of the readings focused on UA Vietnam War veterans and students who knew them, and the second part told the story of the campus’s own anti-war movement. These readings showed how students began to protest in greater numbers at UA after the Kent State Massacre …
Candlelight vigil held in honor of victims of domestic violence
Crimson White – Oct. 22
… UA students and other community members of both genders gathered on Wednesday night at 6:30 to honor victims of domestic violence and to listen to speakers shed light on the issue … The keynote speaker was Michele Weldon, a journalism professor at Northwestern University and a former victim of domestic violence. Weldon is the author of “I Closed My Eyes,” a book chronicling her journey with domestic violence …