City high school students thrive in University of Alabama’s Early College program
Tuscaloosa News – April 19
In the three years since the University of Alabama began partnering with high schools across the nation through its Early College, participants have met with exceptional results. The collective grade point average for participants in the Early College — a program that allows high school students to take college courses that they can receive high school and college credit for — is 3.4, said Cheree Causey, director of the program. But at least one group in the program has out-performed the average: students from Central, Northridge and Paul W. Bryant high schools in the Tuscaloosa City School System. “The students in the (Tuscaloosa city system) have a 3.65 GPA,” Causey said. “They’re doing very well in their classes. I’m really proud of them. The counselors at the schools have been a great conduit to help them look at the broad academic options that they have available to them and to encourage them.” Of the 60 students in the city system who are enrolled in the Early College program, nine are from Paul W. Bryant, 16 from Central and 35 from Northridge. Some of the students have been in the program since their second semester freshman year in high school, which is the earliest a student can enroll.
University Ad Team to compete at Nationals in June
Crimson White – April 19
The University of Alabama Ad Team will be competing at the national competition in Austin, Texas, from June 9 to 12. The team created and presented an advertising campaign for Nissan, their major corporate sponsor. The company asked the teams to create a campaign that was targeted at multicultural millennials in the 18- to 19-year-old age bracket and that would promote their most popular models of Altima, Rogue, Sentra, Versa and Pathfinder. In order to advance to Nationals, the team competed at Regionals in Nashville, Tenn., and defeated teams from universities in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. UA’s Ad Team has competed in this competition since the 1980s, winning district seven times and nationals once. They also placed second in nationals in 2009, with the LessThanUThink campaign. The team consists of 20 students who apply to be on the team in September. Though the team is open to anyone, advertising and public relations majors are preferred.
Speech team finishes 7th at competition
Crimson White – April 19
UA’s speech team has returned from nationals with a top-10 finish for the 11th year in a row. The Alabama Forensics Council finished seventh place out of the top-90 forensics teams in the country. Thad Fitzpatrick and Dexter Strong also won championships for individual awards in prose and impromptu. Alabama Forensics has been around for 70 years and has won 19 championships since then, said director Robert Imbody. This is the first year the forensics team has not been under the direction of Frank Thompson in 30 years. Coming to the team from Kansas State University, Imbody is in his first year as the director of forensics at UA. “When the opportunity became available, I said, ‘[Alabama] is a good place to go. I’d like to go to UA and see what’s happening.’ So, I came here, and we just started trying to do the things that [Dr. Thompson had] been doing for so long … It’s been a fairly easy transition in some regards because the students are fantastic.”
Dixon wins one of first inaugural SEC faculty awards
Crimson White – April 19
UA professor David Dixon was recently awarded one of the first Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Awards. Dixon has mentored and taught more than 40 undergraduate student researchers, 13 doctoral students and four post-doctoral colleagues after joining UA’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Although Dixon teaches in many areas around the campus, he currently teaches first-year honors chemistry and is actively involved in a freshman learning community. The award honors faculty from SEC universities with high records in teaching and scholarship that are also mentors to students and other faculty members. Beginning this year, the SEC Faculty Achievement Award winners from each of the recognized universities will receive a $5,000 honorary award and be selected to represent that university for the SEC Professor of the Year. That award winner will then receive $15,000 and be recognized at the SEC Spring Banquet in May.
Tornado Research Symposium Set for Anniversary of April 27 Storms
Newswise.com – April 18
Scientific researchers and other professionals will participate in an April 27 symposium commemorating the one-year anniversary of the tornado outbreak that struck this city and the region. The symposium is a joint effort between The University of Alabama’s College of Arts and Sciences and its Alabama Museum of Natural History, and it will feature a range of presentations about lessons learned from the tornadoes. It will look at the tornadoes from a scientific perspective and present findings from research conducted about the April 27 tornadoes. Topics include the meteorological conditions associated with the outbreak, responses to warnings and decision-making regarding sheltering behaviors and the lasting impacts on the landscape after the storms.
Psychologist speaks on Brazil’s child protection laws
Crimson White – April 19
In honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month, the University of Alabama’s College of Social Work hosted Brazilian scholar and psychologist Reginaldo Torres Alves Júnior on Wednesday. Alves, a forensic psychologist for Brazil’s first Child and Juvenile Court of Justice, presented a lecture series about the evolution of child protection in Brazil. “Our laws are some of the best laws protecting children and children’s rights, but they haven’t always been the best,” Alves said. He showed images and policies from Brazil’s past that demonstrated how the child protective system had grown, starting with the colonial era. Alves showed that as the policies about slavery changed during this time, so did policies concerning children’s welfare. In the same way, he explained that during Brazil’s more recent democratic period, civil rights flourished and specific rights for children were adopted.
Performance at the University of Alabama highlights mental health issues
Tuscaloosa News – April 19
Everybody hurts, but big boys don’t cry. Even in an increasingly open society, there’s still a shroud of silence around many mental health issues. And if someone suffering doesn’t feel able to bring it out into the open, things won’t get better. That’s part of why the National Alliance on Mental Illness, UA Campus Club (NAMI-UA) has pulled together the “Mental Health Monologues — Erase the Stigma,” to be performed at 7:30 tonight in Room 38 of Lloyd Hall on the UA campus. The stories were solicited from people at the university who have dealt with mental illness. Participants were able to submit anonymously, and local actors were cast to perform. “Some people think of it as being therapeutic, to write their story anonymously, not be judged about it,” said Becca Kastner, who took part in a similar event as an undergraduate at the College of Charleston (S.C.), then brought the concept to UA last year, in her first year of graduate school.
Sustainability Day shows students UA’s green initiatives
Crimson White – April 19
Members of the University of Alabama Business Honors Program’s Clean Energy Team hosted the third annual UA Sustainability Day Tuesday. The event took place across the University of Alabama and highlighted programs currently in place on campus helping to promote sustainability…Caroline Murray was one of the Clean Energy Team members responsible for organizing this year’s event. “Sustainability Day is all about promoting to students the sustainable practices already in place on campus,” Murray said. “We’re not out to try to make you a vegan, we just want to show you how easy and beneficial it is to make green choices.” Senior class members of the Business Honors Program parked a natural gas vehicle in front of Morgan Hall for the event. The vehicle, a vibrantly colored Honda Civic, was acquired for last year’s event to showcase the benefits utilizing natural gas has over burning traditional fossil fuels. Fact sheets distributed by the students outlined many of these benefits including significantly lower carbon emissions, longer vehicle lives and greater domestic availability.
Dissent should not be shoved out of eyesight or earshot
Bilxoi Sun Herald – April 18
Twenty-six years ago I wrote about two Mississippi high school graduating seniors among 100 students honored nationally. Both were from Jackson County. Ron was from Moss Point. John was from Pascagoula. The point of my story was that these two academically superior students in the class of 1986 were planning to attend universities outside the state because of Mississippi’s poor funding of higher education. Another case of the state exporting its best and brightest. There was one hope: both would come back and get into state politics. Last week an op-ed piece in The New York Times caught my eye. It was written by Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., professor of law at the University of Alabama. Our Ron. His piece was excerpted from his forthcoming book on “Reclaiming the Petition Clause … ‘Offensive’ Protest and the Right to Petition the Government.” Essentially, Ron argues in behalf of protecting face-to-face protest and makes the point that security is no excuse for state and local officials to disregard the right to petition…
MMA exhibit reception set for this Saturday
Meridian Star – April 19
The opening reception of a new exhibit featuring Palo Pallas and Tom Wegrzynowski will be held Saturday at the Meridian Museum of Art, 628 25th Ave…Wegrzynowski is currently a full time instructor of studio and art history at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he lives and works with his wife, book artist Charlotte Wegrzynowski, and two sons, Sam and Ben.