Program to stimulate interest in research
Tuscaloosa News – May 20
The University of Alabama was awarded a $1.5 million grant to restart a successful program that gets undergraduate students interested in medical research.
The grant is part of $70 million awarded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit philanthropies, to interest students in medical research. UA was one of 50 institutions selected for the grant. “The motivation of HHMI is to introduce a broad range of students to research in hopes that will increase the number of burgeoning scientists,” said Martha Powell, the UA biology professor who received the grant…Besides the undergraduate research, the grant will also pay for UA graduate students who are interested in becoming professors so the students can learn teaching techniques from current professors. Those graduate students will also help mentor the undergraduate researchers. The grant will also help redesign freshmen honors chemistry courses to infuse more computer-based labs, and it will help pay for lab kits for the Alabama Science in Motion program, which brings university faculty and staff into high school classrooms to teach concepts of science.
Meteorite that struck Alabama woman in 1954 returning home
Associated Press – May 19
…Hodges donated the meteorite to the University of Alabama’s Museum of Natural History in 1956 …
Gadsden Times – May 19
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – May 19
NBC13 (Birmingham) – May 19
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – May 19
Gates Scholarship Winner to Attend UA
WAAY (Huntsville) – May 19
A Bob Jones high school senior is receiving a blank check to cover the expenses of attending the college of his choice. Novian Yarber recently found out he has won the Gates scholarship, named after billionaire Bill Gates. Novian plans to attend the University of Alabama in the fall …
Performance to benefit leukemia victim
Tuscaloosa News – May 20
… “It’s hard to receive money from other people,” said Gordon, who will attend the dinner theater with his other daughter, University of Alabama freshman Tori Gordon, and members of his wife Pam’s family. Pam and Anna, whose immune system is too compromised for her to be around crowds, will be near the University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital where Anna is recovering from bone marrow transplants.… Pam Gordon took leave from her job as a UA music instructor to take care of their daughter… Even after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, Anna managed to finish her undergraduate degree at UA last spring, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude …