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MONDAY, NOV. 12 – SUNDAY, NOV.18, 2012

BEST BETS

VETERANS WEEK GRAND OPENING – The UA Office of Veteran and Military Affairs is hosting a series of events across campus in recognition of Veterans Week with a highlight of the week to be the office’s grand opening Friday, Nov. 16, from 2-4 p.m. in 1 B.B. Comer. The event will include the unveiling of a WWI memorial plaque and a special presentation by the American Fallen Soldiers Project. For a complete list of events, go to http://uanews.ua.edu/2012/11/ua-hosting-campus-events-for-veterans-week/ and contact Alex Karagas, UA Office of Veteran and Military Affairs, 205/348-5800, karag001@sa.ua.edu, http://vets.ua.edu/ about the grand opening.

UA ENGINEERING PROFESSOR DEVELOPING BETTER ANKLE PROSTHESIS – Dr. Xiangrong Shen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UA, hopes to develop an alternative below-knee prosthesis capable of actively powering the ankle joint for amputees. For more information. go to http://uanews.ua.edu/2012/11/ua-engineering-professor-developing-better-ankle-prosthesis/ or contact Adam Jones at 205/348-6444 or acjones12@eng.ua.edu.

CALL FOR NOMINEES – UA’s Institute for Rural Health Research is seeking nominations for its 2013 Rural Health Heroes Awards. The awards will honor rural health care providers and others who assist in reducing or preventing obesity and promoting wellness. Winners will be honored Feb. 20 at the 14^th Annual Rural Health Conference at UA’s Ferguson Center. Nominations are being accepted in the following three categories: rural community members or organizations, health care providers or government officials and agencies; students enrolled in Alabama colleges and universities, including undergraduate, graduate, medical students and residents; and faculty and staff of Alabama colleges and universities. To nominate an individual or organization, contact Barbara Wright at bwright@cchs.ua.edu or 205/348-0025. The deadline for nominations is Jan. 11. For more information about the conference visit the Rural Health Conference website at http://rhc.ua.edu or call 205/348-0025.

BOLSTERING PHYSICS EDUCATION –UA recently received a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to boost physics education in high schools throughout the state. As part of Alliance for Physics Excellence, a partnership with Alabama A&M University, UA will provide training to current physics teachers and get more physics teachers into schools through stipends and grants at UA. According to Dr. Dennis Sunal, science education professor at UA, Alabama is sorely lacking for physics teachers. “The research shows that innovative programs like this actually do produce a greater number of students going into STEM careers in college,” Sunal said. “Physics education in this state is at a very low level. There’s a shortage of teachers, so not all high schools teach it anymore. The ones that do will need an upgrade. It’s the first state-wide, secondary school project that the state has received (for physics education). It’s a discipline that’s really in trouble now. Colleges and universities are even finding it difficult to find students for STEM disciplines.” Contact: David Miller, media relations, at 205/348-0825 or dcmiller2@ur.ua.edu.

EXPANDING COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION – Continuing efforts to introduce computer science to high school students, a $1 million grant was awarded to UA to train teachers in a new computer science course and future College Board AP exam. The grant from the National Science Foundation to Dr. Jeff Gray, associate professor of computer science in the UA College of Engineering, builds upon his work with the College Board to craft a new Advanced Placement computer science course designed to increase secondary and post-secondary educational interest in computer science and improve collegiate preparation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, majors. For more information contact Adam Jones at 205/348-6444 or acjones12@eng.ua.edu.

CURRENT COMMENT

THE FISCAL CLIFF – Dr. Stephen Borrelli, UA professor of political science and expert on the U.S. Congress, offers his insights as President Obama and congressional leaders face legislation to prevent the “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to begin at the end of 2012: “To resolve the so-called ‘Fiscal Cliff,’ we have essentially the same set of players who brought us the debt limit fiasco last summer: Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, etc. The American people have, perhaps unintentionally, cast their collective ballot for the same divided government we’ve had since January 2011. So if the players haven’t changed, we can only hope the political calculations on all sides have changed because the election is now past, or the economic calculations have changed due to our credit downgrade and the continuing problems in Europe.” Borrelli can be reached at 205/348-3802 or sborrelli63@gmail.com.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN – With the opening of Steven Spielberg’s film “Lincoln” starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Dr. George C. Rable, Charles G. Summersell chair in Southern History at UA, is available as a source about the 16th president’s life and the adoption of the 13th Amendment barring slavery. He is the author of “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” and “God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War.” Rable is researching the relationship between Lincoln and Union Gen. George B. McClellan. Contact Rable at grable@bama.ua.edu.

EVENTS

MISALLIANCE – UA’s theatre and dance department presents George Bernard Shaw’s play about the mating instincts of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man’s country home one summer weekend afternoon. A successful merchant is enjoying his life, along with his dotty wife, daughter and son. But the simple estate is turned upside down and unsuitable alliances are formed by the visit of the daughter’s fiancé, his aristocrat father, a gun-wielding youth trying to kill the merchant and a sputtering airplane containing an old school chum of the fiancé and a female acrobat. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, through Friday, Nov. 16, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, in the Marian Gallaway Theatre on the UA campus. Tickets are $18 adults, $15 staff, faculty and seniors and $12 students and children. For more information, go to http://theatre.ua.edu/ or call  205/348-3400.

FIGHTING HUNGER CLOSE TO HOME – The UA Community Service Center is sponsoring a Hunger Banquet on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 6 p.m. in the Ferguson Center Heritage Room and a 5K race on Sunday, Nov. 18, at 2 p.m. at the Outdoor Pool Complex at part of the Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive. BABH is an annual food drive benefiting the West Alabama Food Bank. UA challenges Auburn University to donate food and funds to the East Alabama food bank to see which school can collect the largest amount of nonperishable food items to help Alabamians in need. Since the competition began in 1994, both schools have raised some 3 million pounds of food. CSC contacts are Lisa Bochey, uahungerandhomelessness@gmail.com, and Andres Mendieta, beatauburnbeathunger@gmail.com.

CHECKMATE! – UA students in Every Move Counts, a chess-in-education, service-learning course, will hold a chess match Thursday, Nov. 15, from 3:30-6:30 p.m. for Tuscaloosa-area children who play the game as part of a team or club through their schools or other organizations. The event, sponsored by the UA Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility, will be held at the Tuscaloosa Magnet Schools. Every Move Counts is an honors course in which UA students explore the academic and social benefits of chess for children while teaching the game in public schools. This fall, 45 UA students are teaching chess to some 230 students at Tuscaloosa Magnet Schools-Elementary, Tuscaloosa Magnet Schools-Middle, Alberta Elementary School and Oak Hill School. For more information, go to www.cesr.ua.edu and contact Olivia Grider in CESR at cesr@ua.edu, 205/348-6490.

WORLD DIABETES DAY – The UA Diabetes Education Team will host a World Diabetes Day event Wednesday, Nov. 14, noon-4 p.m. on the Quad. The event will provide a fun and educational environment for students, faculty, staff and community participants to learn about diabetes and healthy living. Educational materials will be provided. For more information, visit www.worlddiabetesday.org or contact Koushik Kasanagottu, kpkasanagottu@crimson.ua.edu.