Storytelling festival celebrates ancient art form
Tuscaloosa News – March 29
Today, information flashes around the globe almost instantaneously, making it hard to remember the only way ideas used to flow was person-to-person through the spoken word. That’s what the second annual Black Warrior Storytelling Festival wants to preserve. “We are celebrating the art of story-telling through the spoken word,” said Courtney Marr, a University of Alabama senior from Mobile working with Creative Campus, the organization that presented the festival. “We have storytellers from around the state.” Originally scheduled to be held at the Park at Manderson Landing, the festival moved inside to Riverside Community Center because of the threat of rain. In addition to traditional storytelling, the festival also included storytelling by musicians and dancers as well as children’s activities. Creative Campus is a UA program in its fifth year as a division of the Office of Academic Affairs, said Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Hank Lazar. About 25 graduate and undergraduate interns work to broaden the offering of cultural activities on and off campus, he said. The storytelling festival is part of that effort.
Crimson White – March 29
Festival to showcase spruced up park
Tuscaloosa News – March 27
Organizers of today’s Holt Community Partnership Festival want to celebrate the effort to spruce up the area while looking forward to creating more positive changes…Jeffrey Parker, a UA associate professor in psychology who teaches a course on positive youth development, helped coordinate the many agencies and businesses that donated time, material and efforts for the renovation. However, he said he was tempted to have professionals paint the basketball court. “But I’d much rather have the lines on the basketball court painted by the kids themselves, even if they’re crooked, so the kid can walk by and say, ‘That’s my line,’ ” Parker said. He said the cleanup is about turning upside-down the idea of community service as a punishment handed out by the courts. Instead, Parker wants to promote community service as the pinnacle of engagement, of ownership in your home…Kathleen Hughes, program manager for Alabama Consortium for Education Renewal, which creates partnerships among and is funded by UA and Tuscaloosa city and county school systems…
Druid City Arts Festival livens up former CityFest lot
Tuscaloosa News – March 28
…This was the first year for the festival, hosted by the University of Alabama’s Creative Campus initiative. The festival’s goal was to embrace diversity within the community by introducing people to the wealth of artists that Tuscaloosa and the region has to offer…
Crimson White – March 29
Pulitzer winner, UA alum returns to campus
Crimson White – March 29
Pulitzer Prize-winner and UA alumnus E.O. Wilson will visit campus Tuesday to give two public talks, in addition to meeting with students and faculty of the Blount Undergraduate Initiative. Wilson’s first public talk, a colloquium titled, “Consilience Twelve Years Later,” will be in Morgan Auditorium from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The second talk will be a lecture called “Biodiversity in the Future,” and will take place in Sellers Auditorium in Bryant Conference Center at 7 p.m…Joseph Hornsby, director of the Blount Initiative, said Wilson’s visit is part of the Blount Initiative’s 10th anniversary. Hornsby said it is appropriate that Wilson visits because students read his works as part of the Blount program. “Wilson is a large part in the curriculum of the Blount program,” Hornsby said.
Legislature bogs down on health
Huntsville Times – March 27
…Although Beason and his GOP colleagues may sincerely oppose President Barack Obama’s health care plan, David Lanoue, head of the University of Alabama’s Department of Political Science, said Friday that the motivation for the vote and for the filibuster “is primarily to put the Democrats in the most difficult spot possible.” “The only remaining question is whether voters, who are concerned with a whole host of other important issues, will begin to chafe at the delaying tactics and the game-playing this late in the session,” he said. “But I think they are used to that from both parties, in Washington and Montgomery.”
As election nears, raises slow for state legislators
Tuscaloosa News – March 29
…David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama, said today’s environment is different than in 2007, when few could foresee a future of unemployment, fantastic losses of personal wealth and extreme partisan politics. “In today’s environment, legislative and congressional pay raises are going to be contentious,” Lanoue said. “People distrust government, and they think it’s wasteful and they really don’t stop and think about what legislators do. “Leaving policy questions aside, these are people who work hard to deal with Alabama’s concerns,” he said. “Unfortunately it is a contentious issue and a lot (of people) feel obligated to opt out of pay raises so their opponent doesn’t use it against them in the next election.”
Gadsden Times – March 27
Davis faces reaction to health-care vote
Tuscaloosa News – March 28
…Asked if Davis might have been heeding such wisdom in his health-care vote, David Lanoue, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama, said “that could very well be a possibility. “It could be a calculated risk,” Lanoue said. “I think he could be looking past the primary at the general election and assuming that his vote on health care won’t hurt him too bad in the primary. “In a sense, this is a perfect outcome for Davis because the health-care bill passed without his support, but it passed,” he said. “People likely to vote in the Democratic primary are probably glad it passed and may not hold his vote against him. “But it’s a two-step process getting elected governor and I think it is pretty safe to say that it would not help you win a statewide election in Alabama by voting for Obama’s health-care legislation.”…
Toyota turnaround
Montgomery Advertiser – March 28
…Jim Cashman, a professor a management at the University of Alabama who specializes in the study of the automotive industry, said at the time that Toyota was likely to get one chance to fix the problem and its image. Now, Cashman has praise for the way the company handled the whole fix. “At this point, they are past the point where things could have gotten real bad,” he said. Toyota’s efforts to tell the public about the problem and how they planned to fix the problem were the major positive points to the preventing a complete loss of consumer confidence in the brand, he said. “First, they apologized like crazy,” he said…
Opinion: State legislators need to use time wisely
Tuscaloosa News – March 29
…Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the state House is considering a filibuster over health care that could burn more of the precious few days remaining. Legal experts, including University of Alabama School of Law associate dean Bryan Fair, say legal challenges by states won’t trump federal authority. The proper way to address changes in the federal health-care bill is at the federal level…
John Tyson takes his case to UA law students
CBS42 (Birmingham) – March 26
WTVY (Dothan) – March 26
…John Tyson, the leader of the governor’s anti-gambling task force, spoke to law students at the University of Alabama…
UA arboretum events
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – March 26
The University of Alabama’s arboretum has a bunch of different events planned to help you maximize your time in the yard…