UA summer commencement set for Saturday in Coleman Coliseum
Al.com – July 30
The University of Alabama will hold its summer commencement ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 4, at Coleman Coliseum on campus. Commencement exercises for undergraduate and graduate students will begin at 9 a.m. UA has held a summer commencement ceremony since 1997. Approximately 1,535 diplomas will be awarded.
Saturday’s ceremony will be broadcast live online. The webcast will be archived on UA’s website and will be available for viewing through the end of August.
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – July 30
UA student delays graduating after April 27 tornado destroys her home
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – July 30
A University of Alabama student delayed her graduation when the April 27th tornadoes destroyed her home. Now she’s finally getting her PhD on Saturday. Fox 6 News videojournalist Neal Posey talked to the excited graduate. “We knew we were in a major serious storm and that was the first time I’ve ever been scared.” Amanda Cassity was preparing for her PhD in education administration at the university when the April 27th storm swept over her home, with her family inside. “I used to teach history and it looked like one of those World War I pictures, the battlefield. It was just surreal,” she said. Pictures show the devastation but Amanda Cassity and her husband Bernard are fortunate to be alive, the foundation is the only thing visible from where they lived more than a year later. “Not only did I not have time to do it … you go through this feeling I don’t know if I can do anything but what I’m doing right now which is going to what’s left of my house.”
UA offers $100 incentive for parking correctly
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – July 30
The University of Alabama has a reward for students who park the right way. The “positive parking incentive program” actually gives some students cash. Student Molly Atherton say it’s not always easy for her to find a place to park at the university. “I’ve got plenty of tickets and I know my mom doesn’t like to see these on my student account,” Atherton said. That’s why the university is not only adding parking spaces, but 100 more reasons why students should park in the right place. This past year, the university awarded ten $100 positive parking incentive scholarships to students who didn’t get a parking ticket or warning. The school issued about 1,300 more parking permits than there were spaces for students to park in January. But officials and others say it’s unlikely all those drivers would be on campus at the same time. “They have spots for everyone who has a parking pass. They don’t ever oversell their spots. So if you buy a parking pass, there should be a parking spot for you when you get on campus,” Gina Johnson with UA Support Services said. Students say adding parking makes it less likely they’d get a ticket.
Business Buzz: 7/29
Tuscaloosa News – July 29
Kimberly Boyle, an assistant professor in the University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences, has been named a member of the Southeast Tourism Society’s Forty for the Future inaugural class. Professionals younger than 40 from 14 states were selected for the recognition by the Southeast Tourism Society, an Atlanta-based professional association in the tourism industry. The selected individuals will be honored at the society’s Fall Forum in Virginia Beach, Va. Boyle earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in hospitality from UA, and worked in the hospitality industry before returning to UA to teach and advise students. She received the 2010 Joseph Rowland Teaching Excellence Award from the UA College of Human Environmental Sciences and the 2005 Educator of the Year Award by the Alabama Hospitality Association and Alabama Restaurant Association.
Another day of record ratings for NBC
Associated Press – July 31
Look online, and it seems everyone has a complaint about NBC’s Olympics coverage. Look at the ratings — the report card that really matters to NBC — and the London games are a smash hit. The Nielsen company said 36 million people watched Sunday night’s coverage, the biggest audience for the second night of a non-U.S. summer Olympics competition since TV began covering them in 1960…”The ratings are surprising to me,” said Andrew Billings, a sports media professor at the University of Alabama and author of “Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television.” ”I thought social media would be more of a detriment than an attribute. I thought more people would not tune in because they knew the results.” Billings said he’s tried to avoid learning the results of events before he watches NBC’s tape-delayed prime-time telecast. But it’s hard: He didn’t want to hear about Ryan Lochte’s gold medal victory over Michael Phelps on Saturday, but when his mobile phone beeped that afternoon, he looked and saw a CNN news alert telling him what happened.
Los Angeles Times – July 30
Daily Mail (UK) – July 30
Jobs in Alabama July 2012
Examiner.com – July 31
One word describes the rate of jobs growth in Alabama during July of 2012 and that is stagnant. The Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at the University of Alabama reduced estimates of Alabama’s gross domestic product growth (GDP) to two (2) percent according to a report in the Birmingham Business Journal on July 12, 2012. Retail, auto manufacturing, and health care services added jobs in July. The announcement of plans by Airbus to build a plant near Mobile that will employ about 1000 people was celebrated as a great advance for the state but in reality Airbus may seek out experienced employees from other areas of the United States instead of investing funds in training Alabamians. The unemployment rate increased in June by 0.02 percent to 7.8 percent reflecting a large reduction of state employees in cost cutting measures necessitated by huge budget deficits in 2012 and expected in 2013. More people are unemployed in Alabama now than at the beginning of 2012. Expectations from CBER are that an increase in 10,000 jobs may be possible in Alabama in 2012.