UA music instructor performs in Afghanistan
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 27
On a day when most people sat down to enjoy a turkey dinner with their family, Beth Gottlieb, a percussion instructor at the University of Alabama, wasn’t sure where she would be, except that it was somewhere in Afghanistan. Gottlieb and her husband, Danny Gottlieb, play percussion for the Lt. Dan Band, founded by actor Gary Sinise, who played the character Lt. Dan in the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump.” The band, which works often with the USO, played for the troops somewhere in Afghanistan for the Thanksgiving holiday. Because of the recent attacks on UN troops in Afghanistan, the security has been heightened, and the band didn’t know exactly where they would be…Although, the band has never been to a war zone before, Gottlieb said it will not be their first brush with danger in the military. The band was at the Fort Hood military base getting ready to play a show Nov. 5 when a gunman went on a rampage that killed 13 people. “We were right there when Fort Hood happened,” she said. “They brought the killer in the basement of the building where we were…Although she works hard with the Lt. Dan Band, Gottlieb also makes sure her students are her top priority. She is a 1983 graduate of the School of Music, and began teaching at UA in the fall. “I love it, it’s what I do in my life, really being a musician and a music educator,” Gottlieb said. “I take this very seriously, I become like a second mom to my students. They all call me ‘Miss Beth.’ I see them for one-on-one lessons. I make sure they’re OK with academics, music and health. It all really comes together.” The band left for Afghanistan on Nov. 20 and will return to the United States on Saturday.
Birmingham News – Nov. 30
Study examines rural AIDS patients
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 28
…A $100,000 federal grant to study the stigma behind disclosing HIV/AIDS in rural Alabama has been given to Susan Gaskins, a professor in the Capstone College of Nursing at the University of Alabama, and Pamela Foster, assistant professor at the College of Community Health Sciences and deputy director of the Institute for Rural Health Research in the department of community health medicine. Gaskins and Foster received the grant in July and began working on the study in September, Gaskins said. “It’s stigmatized as a white male disease,” Foster said. “And now (new cases are) showing up more in African-American men and women — 50 percent African-American, 70 percent women.”…
UA researcher studies sharkskin to aid flight
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 30
…But a University of Alabama researcher believes the science isn’t dead and has won several grants worth a quarter of a million dollars to study sharkskin further. “I feel pretty strongly there is a mechanism there,” said Amy Lang, a professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics. “It’s in the early stages, but we have to understand it.”…Lang wants to understand how the hard, yet flexible, scales bristle in unison at the change of flow. Understanding that could lead to better man-made sharkskin models. Of course, it’s still a long ways off from being used in the real world. Lang said, if successful, the scales could be placed on the turbines or propellers of the plane, on parts of a submarine or even on a torpedo or missile. “You can’t really see what technology can be applied to because you don’t know where it’s going to lead to,” Lang said.
Access to What?
InsideHigherEd.com – Nov. 30
…“I’m not surprised that we’re beginning to hear about closing [access to] open-door institutions … in light of the financial crises these states and institutions find themselves in,” said Stephen G. Katsinas, director of the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama. “Community colleges have not had open-door policies for a number of their prestige programs — like nursing and allied health — for a long time. But these financial cracks we’ve been seeing are becoming crevices. This is the kind of rationing argument we’re likely to see in the future, and it’s going to be a world of hurt for some institutions.”…
Weighing the Cost: Community Colleges vs. Four-Year Institutions
Changing Tides – Nov. 30
…“Community colleges provide an open access, open door for people seeking higher education,” said Dr. Stephen Katsinas, director of the Education Policy Center. “Often times those disadvantaged economically or those who care to stay close to home attend community colleges. It’s their way to access the American Dream.”…“With the flagship universities in the state stuffed to the gills with enrollment, students were choosing to attend community colleges far before the economic downturn,” Katsinas said. President Obama’s policies regarding the improvement of community college called for 5 million more community college graduates by 2010, according to Katsinas’ report, Funding and Access Issues in Public Higher Education: A Community College Perspective…The underlying problem in community colleges is that student’s quest for higher education often stops there, according to Jessica Griffin Simmons, the Alabama College Transfer Advising Corps program coordinator…The Corps is a program that places recent UA graduates at various community colleges within the state for a two-year period, where they serve as advisors to students, giving advice on how to navigate the college admissions process….
Sleep Apnea May Cause Nighttime Urination
U.S. News & World Report – Nov. 29
…Mary Umlauf, a professor at the University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing in Tuscaloosa and a noted nocturia researcher, said the study could play an important role in dispelling “old wives’ tales” about nocturia. “Many health-care providers and ordinary people think of nocturia as a urological or gynecological problem,” she said. “They don’t understand that sleep apnea can cause the body to produce too much urine at night. “People who wake up to urinate shouldn’t assume that it’s my prostate, or ‘I’m just old’,” she said.
Can print, technology learn to coexist?
Florence Times-Daily – Nov. 29
…Jennifer Greer, chair of the journalism department at the University of Alabama, often gives her students reading assignments. “When I send anything of length to be read, they print it out,” she said. “…It’s just easier to be read in that environment.”…Blogs in fact, may give potential authors a leg up in getting their work published, according to Greer. “It’s harder to get a book published without a following online,” she said. “They need to have their book published to get a following, and they need to have a following to get published.” She cites Julie Powell, author of “Julie and Julia,” as an example of what the Web can do for an aspiring writer. After Powell’s blog picked up hundreds of followers, Little, Brown and Company published a book based on it…
Retailers hope months of preparation will pay off
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 26
…Kristy Reynolds, a University of Alabama associate professor of marketing who specializes in retailing, said Fisher’s early planning for the holiday season is not unusual. “The stores’ buyers are out and have to place their orders at least six months in advance,” she said. Most big orders have to be placed by March or April, with merchandise arriving at stores or retailers’ warehouses by fall, she said…
Local unemployment remains level
Cullman Times – Nov. 30
…Sam Addy, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama, told the Associated Press he expects the jobless rate to go over 11 percent and continue to rise until late 2010. “It’s going to peak somewhere over 11 percent before heading in the other direction,” Addy said. He said he expects it will be 2013 or 2014 before the state’s unemployment rate returns to lower levels…
UA Economic Researcher Says Birmingham’s Construction Industry Won’t Recover Until 2011
FOX6 (Birmingham) – Nov. 29
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Nov. 29
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Nov. 29
WTOK (Meridian, Miss.) – Nov. 29
…an economic researcher for the University of Alabama says metro Birmingham’s construction industry won’t likely recover until 2011…
Spring pygmy sunfish in Limestone County may be in line for federal protection
Huntsville Times – Nov. 28
…Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity in Portland, Ore., and University of Alabama graduate student Michael Sandel petitioned the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to declare the spring pygmy sunfish an endangered species. Sandel, who studies sunfish as part of his doctoral research in aquatic biology, said it has been pushed to the brink of extinction by agricultural chemicals and mud washing into the creek from nearby farm fields. “It’s really not looking good for them,” he said Tuesday. “The population may be in the thousands, but that’s kind of misleading. They can disappear at the rate of thousands overnight because they are so sensitive” to changes in water quality…
Group promotes Black Belt art
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 29
…Through the support of the Tombigbee Planning Regional Commission and the University of Alabama, Black Belt Treasures has opened a door of opportunity for artists across the Black Belt Region…The University of Alabama Management Information System Capstone Experience team helped launch the organization’s online site…“What’s good about the Web site is that it helps familiarize with the rest of the world with the richness of the writers and artists involved with Black Belt Treasures,” said Nisa Miranda, the director of UA’s Center for Economic Development who helped to orchestrate the partnership between UA and Black Belt Treasures…
‘After Wallace’: Authors return to dawn of a new era
Mobile Press-Register – Nov. 29
…Both authors are respected scholars, Cotter a professor of political science at the University of Alabama and Stovall a professor of journalism at the University of Tennessee. Stovall and Cotter have used many of the polls they conducted before and after the 1986 election to help define and analyze shifting public opinion. The polls are reproduced in this book so the reader can analyze them at leisure if he wishes…
Tusk Editor’s Note: 11/27
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 27
Last Sunday, a cacophony of musicians from Tuscaloosa’s rock, blues, folk, jazz, etc. past and more-or-less present clustered on the steps of Reese Phifer Hall on the University of Alabama campus for a photo project by local shooter David A. Smith. It’s called “A Great Day in Tuscaloosa,” styled after the 1958 Esquire magazine photo “A Great Day in Harlem,” featuring 57 jazz greats. The shot of the 95 who made it will be unveiled Dec. 11 at a Christmas party at Egan’s bar…