Alabama athletics honors standouts
Tuscaloosa News – April 26
The University of Alabama Athletics Department hosted its annual Student-Athlete Academic Achievement Awards Banquet on Monday night in “The Zone” located in Bryant-Denny Stadium. Women’s cross country and men’s golf were honored as the teams with the highest grade point averages. Women’s cross country earned the honor for the second year in a row, posting a 3.80 GPA while the men’s golf team earned a 3.43.Senior gymnast Kayla Hoffman and senior quarterback Greg McElroy were named the winners of the Paul W. Bryant Award given annually to the top male and female student-athlete…
Birmingham to work on growth plan for city
Birmingham News – April 26
… Arthur Allaway, a University of Alabama business professor who has worked on previous master plans, said the process can give all sectors of a city a stake in its long-term vision. “A part of it is the vision, but the vision is based on the constituents and what they want out of the growth of their city,” he said in an interview. “It’s not the firm in Boston that’s making the plan. They’re just summarizing what the people of the city decide they want out of the plan. If you do it right, you gather input from all the potential constituencies.” Allaway, who worked with KPS Group, one of the local participants in Bell’s proposal, to develop a master plan for the University of Alabama, said such a plan serves as a marketing tool for municipalities. “In a perfect world it’s an excellent tool, because you can hand it to people who don’t see the vision and bring them on board,” he said. “You can hand it to potential developers and all kinds of people, and it’s a shortcut to the city. Everything is on the same page.”
Experts sound off on economic hotspots
Birmingham Business Journal – April 26
… “The University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Growth is projecting real growth in Alabama’s output during 2011 at 3.4 percent. Leading the charge, according to CBER, will be the state’s automotive industry, health care services and defense base Closure and Realignment Commission-related development (BRAC)…
Oil spill’s economic impact? Nobody knows yet
Mobile Press-Register – April 26
… the University of Alabama’s Center for Business Economic Research said that losses could total $3.3 billion in a worst case in which tourism revenue in Mobile and Baldwin counties dropped to zero…
Old files show city’s role in civil rights era
Tuscaloosa News – April 26
…The Commission to Preserve the Peace, which Bill Stewart, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama, describes as ‘a Gestapo-like secret spy force that is a blight on Alabama history,’ had some reason to believe there would be widespread civil rights activity in Alabama in 1964; King’s handbook, which the commission cited, said so… That was a shameful era for Alabama, and the peace commission, which was obsessed with communists and the civil rights movement, was one of the worst parts,’ Stewart said. ‘It was like the governor’s own secret police force.’…
TOWN HALL: Tuscaloosa during the Civil War
Tuscaloosa News – April 26 (Online only)
… Tuscaloosa was never a real target of the Union forces, since we had little of value to be captured or destroyed. But that didn’t stop Brig. Gen. John T. Croxton from crossing the river from the Northport side and sacking the University of Alabama, where only four buildings were left standing after the torch was put to everything else. A lot of other businesses, warehouses, cotton gins and the like were also destroyed by Croxton’s Raiders. The pity of the matter is that the University was burned on April 4, 1965 — just five days before Lee surrendered and the war ended after a total of more than 600,000 deaths on both sides.
OLLI has open house Thursday
Gadsden Times – April 26
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alabama Gadsden Center will have an open house and a reception for the summer semester from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday. OLLI at UA Gadsden is member-planned and member-managed, the center’s website states. “This new academic cooperative provides mature adults with opportunities for intellectual stimulation, cultural development and social interaction,” the website states. “OLLI at UA educational programs are centered on courses developed by and often taught by (their) members, who volunteer their time and talents to share their knowledge and interests with other members. You’ll find no homework, no exams, no required college degree, no age threshold (and no academic credits) — just learning for the pure joy of learning.”…