UA grows by a third with acquisition
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 31
Under a deal announced Wednesday, the University of Alabama will grow by roughly a third after taking over most of the Bryce Hospital campus. Today is a very important day for the University of Alabama,” UA President Robert Witt said. “Today we are announcing the university’s ability to acquire the Bryce Hospital property, to provide critically needed land to support our enrollment growth and the need for facility expansion.”.. UA will pay the money from cash reserves, paying the reserve back over time with royalties from university natural gas, coal and timber land, Witt said. The payment will not hinder UA’s ability to operate in the current economic climate, he said. “It gives the university the opportunity today to begin planning how they are going to systematically have a program growth here that without this might not be possible,” said Gov. Bob Riley in a news conference at Bryce attended by Witt and a host of elected officials from Tuscaloosa…Also, as part of the deal, UA will pay $6.5 million to renovate and preserve the main, white domed building most associated with Bryce…No move-in date was suggested Wednesday, but Witt has said there will likely be a two- to three-year window between the sale and UA establishing a presence on the Bryce campus because mental health staff and patients cannot move until a new hospital is built. Witt said in an interview in September the first thing UA administrators would likely do upon obtaining the property is build larger, nicer intramural fields, freeing up space where the fields now sit — between Campus Drive and University Boulevard — for academic buildings…
Bryce deal reached: UA buys land; new hospital will be built in Tuscaloosa
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 31
Bryce Hospital will remain in Tuscaloosa, moving into a new facility across McFarland Boulevard, and the University of Alabama will take over the current Bryce campus, Gov. Bob Riley said Wednesday…The Alabama Department of Mental Health will pay for the new hospital with the money from UA and an additional $22 million from a state bond issue…
Birmingham News – Dec. 31
WTVA (Columbus, Miss.) – Jan. 1
Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant’s gift that keeps on giving at Alabama
Los Angeles Times – Jan. 4
Anyone with even a passing interest in college football is probably familiar with the incomparable legacy of Paul “Bear” Bryant, the late, legendary Alabama coach. The stadium in Tuscaloosa where Coach Nick Saban’s No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide plays its home games is named in Bryant’s honor. As are a conference center, a street, a bridge, an academic center and a high school, among other landmarks. At the Paul W. Bryant Museum, where a reunion is held annually for the more than 500 people named for the former coach, Bryant’s achievements can be broken down numerically: six national championships, 14 conference titles, 323 victories, 29 bowl appearances, three unbeaten seasons. Perhaps equally impressive is this: Nearly three decades after his death, Bryant still touches the lives of the players who helped make the houndstooth-loving coach an Alabama icon. An unusually generous scholarship fund established by Bryant at the height of his success in the early 1970s is earmarked to benefit the sons and daughters of everyone who ever suited up for the coach during a 25-season run at Alabama that ended in December 1982, a month before he died from a heart attack. More than 700 children of former Tide players have attended their fathers’ alma mater on a Bryant Scholarship, says Alabama Athletic Director Mal Moore, who estimates that about 90 were enrolled during the fall semester. All they have to do is apply and, upon admission, they are awarded as much as $4,000 a year to defray tuition costs, Moore says. This is true, the athletic director says, whether their father was an All-American linebacker or a fourth-string long snapper, a five-star recruit or a walk-on…
University of Alabama music therapy students work with hospice patients
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 26
Playing music for someone dying is not something University of Alabama senior Sarah Pitts ever thought she would do…Music therapy students at UA have been working with patients at Hospice of West Alabama since 2007. Working in a hospice environment is a relatively new movement in the field of music therapy, said Andrea Cevasco, an assistant professor at UA. “The research is so new, but it shows that music helps with pain, helps with anxiety and emotions that patients go through,” Cevasco said. “When (patients) are diagnosed, there are stages they go through in that process. Sometimes it’s denial, sometimes they are angry or depressed, and sometimes they are in a bargaining mode with God. Music therapy is very helpful in all of those stages.” Pitts used her experience to do research on how music therapy students working in hospices react to the experience. Her research won the E. Thayer Gaston Award for outstanding student paper…
Palm Beach (Fla.) Post – Dec. 31
UA books program benefits 6 Black Belt school libraries
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 31
Libraries at six Black Belt schools will be enriched after a donation of more than $8,000 worth of new books. The University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies gave the books to the elementary and high schools’ libraries through its annual Book Bonanza for the Black Belt program. The schools applied for the books in November and the School of Library and Information Studies selected the winners earlier this month. “Unfortunately, considering the low socioeconomic level of communities in the Black Belt region, the parents and families of students in those schools are less likely to have the means to significantly support fundraisers to benefit the school library media center,” Jamie Naidoo, an assistant professor with the School of Library and Information Studies, said in a written statement. “Books in those school libraries are often very outdated in terms of informational content and appeal to children and young adults,” Naidoo said…Fifteen schools applied for the books this year. The six schools chosen each received $1,400 in children’s and teen books…
Birmingham News – Dec. 31
Montgomery Advertiser – Dec. 29
Grant will expand rural medical care
Tuscaloosa News – Jan. 1
…The University of Alabama’s Rural Health Institute recently received a $99,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will be used for cameras and other technology for telemedicine efforts in rural West Alabama counties. For the past year and a half, the rural health institute has used telemedicine technology for psychiatry, said Dr. John Higginbotham, professor and associate dean for research at the College of Community Health Sciences at UA…The practice has been very successful, Higginbotham said, especially for diagnosing children with disorders like attention-deficit hyperactivity. The recent grant will help the program expand to other specialties, including obstetrics…
University of Alabama researchers work to turn epilepsy off
Birmingham News – January 2
Scientists studying tiny worms at the University of Alabama have taken a step toward a new treatment for epilepsy. In research published in the journal Genetics, a team of UA biologists and students detail how they have identified “molecular switches” that one day might be manipulated to prevent seizures in human beings. Guy Caldwell, a UA biologist and expert on tiny roundworms called C. elegans, said researchers used chemicals to bring the worms to the verge of having seizures…Also working on the research and serving as coprimary authors were Caldwell’s wife, biologist Kim Caldwell, and UA graduate students Cody Locke and Bwarenaba Kautu. UA undergraduates Kalen Berry and Kyle Lee were co-authors.
CBS42 (Birmingham) – Jan. 2
WAKA (Montgomery) – Jan. 2
UA experts predict big things in 2010
Florence Times-Journal – Dec. 28
For the 29th consecutive year, the University of Alabama has offered predictions from faculty experts for the coming year. While these “educated guesses” don’t always come true, the track record over the years has been good. So, what’ ahead for 2010? Here are a few of the predictions…
Mobile Press-Register – Dec. 31
Hartselle Enquirer – Dec. 31
A look at economic recovery in the coming year
Tuscaloosa News – Jan. 3
…A look at economic recovery in the coming year James Cashman, a management professor at the University of Alabama’s business school, said West Alabama has shown an ability to be resilient during the recession. Even so, it was unable to avoid the rising unemployment that has gripped the nation; he said…One of the last things to recover as recessions end is unemployment, which Cashman said will remain high this year in Alabama. For 2010, “there is no massive reason to be optimistic,” he said. There will be no major catalyst that will turn things around quickly, and several developing factors could spell trouble for the nation, and with it, the people and businesses of West Alabama…As a whole, however, Cashman said the economy will continue to struggle. Like Cashman, Barry Mason, dean of the UA business school, expects employment growth to remain low, even though, according to economic indicators, the recession has ended. “Growth will not occur until consumers begin to spend, and spending will not occur until consumers have confidence in the future of the economy. Some major manufacturers do not see a turnaround in their business until 2012,” Mason said…Sam Addy, an economist and director of the UA Center for Business and Economic Research, said West Alabama’s employment picture will improve some this year, but primarily because employees who had their hours cut last year will return to fuller work schedules. “You will see people working more hours, more days in manufacturing,” he said. Additional hiring will occur more gradually. Job growth in Alabama will be slack this year and will be flat in the Tuscaloosa area, Addy said. The Tuscaloosa metro area’s unemployment rate will remain higher than the recent past and not get down to 7 percent until perhaps 2011, he said…Kristy Reynolds, an associate professor of marketing at UA’s business school, said she believes many small businesses that can’t afford big ad budgets will embrace newer technology like Twitter to reach their long-time customers. Larger companies, such as Best Buy, also will increase their usage of social media, she said. Best Buy used Twitter to reach customers and made Twitter, as well as Facebook, centerpieces of its holiday ad campaign in 2009…
Rise in unemployment compensation tax could hurt job creation
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 26
…Gary Hoover, an associate professor of economics and an assistant dean at the University of Alabama’s business school, said the increased unemployment tax is necessary, but its timing is worrisome. “In robust times, (the increased assessment) can be easily absorbed,” he said. In robust times, people are working, employment is high and those who lose their jobs have an easier time finding a new job, so the period they would be claiming unemployment compensation wouldn’t be as long, he said. As such, there is less demand on the unemployment compensation fund, and the fund’s reserves remain healthy. To rebuild the fund, more has to paid into it and, hopefully, at some point less will be paid out as more people find jobs. But hiring won’t occur until the economy recovers, he said. “There is a risk that an increase (in unemployment compensation taxes) can stall out the recovery,” Hoover said. “You might have an employer who is on the verge of hiring new people, and now he might hesitate because of the extra charge. It is a tricky situation.” Hoover noted that economists are projecting some job growth in the first quarter of 2010…
Sparks to announce 2010 election intentions today
Montgomery Advertiser – Dec. 29
…David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama, said a Democrat in the 5th District may have a better chance than a Democrat in a statewide race like governor. “All things considered, he’s got a better shot at being the 5th District representative than he does being governor,” Lanoue said Monday…
A More Social Gospel
Christianity Today – Dec. 29
…Ministries with a sincere commitment to social issues can repair the “poor image of campus evangelicals” among peers who associate them with homophobia and political conservatism, said University of Alabama history professor John Turner, who wrote 2008’s Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ. “One way for evangelicals to counter these negative stereotypes and put themselves in a position to talk about Jesus is to engage in meaningful social justice work that even non-evangelicals can appreciate,” said Turner. “There is a danger of losing sight of evangelistic goals. But not taking these steps presents an even greater danger to those same goals.”
Tusk Editor’s Note: 12/30
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 30
…Tuscaloosa was invaded last summer for the first Cuban-U.S. theatrical collaboration in this country in 50 years: the University of Alabama’s UA-Cuba Initiative produced a three-night hit version of “Un Sueno de Una Noche de Verano” (a Cuban-language translation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”)…
Alabama’s decade of highs and lows
Birmingham News – Dec. 31
… The University of Alabama expands from 19,000 to 28,000 students and undergoes a massive building campaign, adding several dorms, classroom buildings, parking decks and improvements to athletic facilities…. Alabama hires Nick Saban, who in three years leads Crimson Tide to national title game…
Activity in Shelby County housing market still drags
Birmingham News – Jan. 2
…The Alabama Center for Real Estate at the University of Alabama found through the first 11 months of this year, many of the metro area’s markets are on pace to suffer as much or more as 2008 when it comes to housing starts. The center compiles its data from home builders associations, including those of Greater Birmingham and St. Clair County…
Business events
Tuscaloosa News – Jan. 3
Economic Outlook Conference 2010: 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel, 201 Tallapoosa St., Montgomery. Annual conference presented by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama…
UA dreams come true; an exciting path awaits
Huntsville Times – Jan. 4
…As much as I would love to start attending UA now, I still have a semester left of high school along with major events to participate in for the remainder of the school year. Information about freshman fees, scholarships, dorm fees and paperwork that must be filled out before a certain date flood my mailbox on a weekly basis. Trying to find a future roommate with whom I’m compatible is only a minor setback compared to others. Now, with one semester of high school left, I no longer have the luxury of time. I now have to prepare to close one door in my life and open another. The future holds immense possibilities, and I can’t wait for the University of Alabama to help me discover a new path.
Here are tips for getting to the game, along with some places to check out in L.A.
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 27
…The University of Alabama Alumni Association is holding a BCS Tailgate Party from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Corporate Hospitality Village on the Rose Bowl grounds…appearances by the Million Dollar Band, Big Al and UA’s cheerleaders and a meet-and-greet with former UA athletes…
United States Air Force Academy cadet from Alabama gets to carry UA flag while parachuting into the Rose Bowl
NBC13 (Birmingham) – Jan. 3
He’s a member of the Air Force Academy parachute team. His team will bring the flags to the Rose Bowl the night of the game jumping from high overhead. Spencer Walker will be the one carrying the University of Alabama flag. He lobbied for the honor. “…I said hey look, this is my team. If I wasn’t at the academy I would probably be at the University of Alabama…”
Retailers say the iconic “12” will change to “13” if Bama wins
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Jan. 3