James Hood, one of the first black students at the University of Alabama, dies
Tuscaloosa News – Jan. 18
James Hood, who faced down George Wallace’s stand in the schoolhouse door to help integrate the University of Alabama 50 years ago, died Thursday afternoon at the age of 70, in his hometown of Gadsden. “James did a great thing for the University of Alabama,” said E. Culpepper Clark, former dean of UA’s College of Communication & Information Sciences, and author of “The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at the University of Alabama.” “With Vivian Malone, he liberated the university to serve all the people of Alabama and thereby join the ranks of the nation’s flagship universities.”…Samory T. Pruitt, UA vice president for community affairs, met Hood in the mid-’90s, at a program marking the 30-year anniversary of Jones’ graduation. He interviewed Hood, Jones, Autherine Lucy and 13 others for his dissertation “A Reflection of Student Desegregation at the University of Alabama, As Seen through the Eyes of some Pioneering African-American Students 1956-1976,” published in 2003. “One of the things I’ve always taken away from it, none of them were really afraid, because they thought they were doing the right thing, and were just very spiritual about it,” Pruitt said. “They felt like they were led to do what they did. They really didn’t talk much about being afraid or bitter. It wasn’t about fame, anything like that. it was just clear to them that those obstacles shouldn’t be in place. So if someone needed to step up and try to remove some of those barriers, let it be them.” Hood was “a very personable man, and obviously a very courageous man,” said Pruitt, who got to be friends with Hood and his family…“I thank God for his courage, because if it wasn’t for people like him, folks like me wouldn’t have the opportunities we have,” he said.
Al.com – Jan. 18
Gadsden Times – Jan. 17
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Jan. 17
Alabama economy expected to improve slightly in 2013
Florence Times Daily – Jan. 18
Alabama’s economy should improve this year, but not by much, economists said at the annual Center for Business and Economic Research conference held Wednesday. “There are a lot of good things going on in Alabama,” said Sam Addy, the center’s associate dean for research and outreach director. “(Alabama’s economy) is somewhat better.” The annual conference by the center, which is housed at the University of Alabama, also featured analysis by a vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Retirement Systems of Alabama Chief Executive Officer David Bronner. Addy said the state’s outlook for 2013 includes a 1.7 percent increase in gross domestic product and a 1.1 percent increase in employment. “That’s not a bad story there,” Addy said. Total tax receipt growth will slow, however, to 3.5 percent, from 5 percent in 2011 and 3.8 percent in 2012, he said. Addy said the number of jobs in Alabama increased by 12,700 from 2011 to 2012. “A clear improvement of unemployment is good for the state as well,” Addy said. Still, 24 percent of the state’s available workers remain are either underemployed or unemployed — 482,391 underemployed and 171,200 unemployed. And it may be 2015 before the state sees significant recovery from the recession that began in 2008.
Gadsden Times – Jan. 17
Montgomery Advertiser – Jan. 17
Decatur Daily – Jan. 17
American South hit by winter storms
ABC News – Jan. 17
The winter blast hitting the southern United States … It’s the first winter storm for many in the south, and it’s been a disaster on the roads. “I feel like we’re not prepared for it like most other states” … Students at the University of Alabama turned the rare scene into a campus-wide snowball fight. “I’m from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, so I’m not used to the snow; I’m used to the sun.”
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Jan. 17
WJXT-TV (Jacksonville, Fla.) – Jan. 17
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – Jan. 17
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Jan. 17
WFLD-Fox (Chicago) – Jan. 17
WAGA-Fox (Atlanta, Ga.) – Jan. 17
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Jan. 17
Alabama football players, students engage in epic UA Quad snowball fight (photos, video)
Al.com – Jan. 17
Eddie Lacy, TJ Yeldon, Alphonse Taylor and other Alabama Crimson Tide football players engaged with fellow University of Alabama students in an epic snowball fight on the Quad on campus. Nearly 200 or so students braved the cold following the rare Tuscaloosa snowfall and fired snowballs and whomever stood in their way. Lacy, Yeldon, Taylor and other players lapped up the spontaneous snowball war, hurling giant icy boulders at each other and hiding from ones thrown their way. No one was safe from what felt like a No Man’s Land in the middle of the Quad, as students flung snowballs at anyone they either knew or folks who simply weren’t paying attention. Just came with the territory, it seemed. Check out our photo gallery and videos of the fun.
University of Minnesota gets $28 million semiconductor research grant
Twin Cities Pioneer Press (Minn.) – Jan. 17
The University of Minnesota has been awarded $28 million to lead research on developing the next generation of semiconductors, the school said Thursday, Jan. 17. The five-year grant was awarded by the Semiconductor Research Corp., formed by a global collection of private companies, universities and government agencies, and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the entity that developed the Internet. The funding will support work at the university’s new Center for Spintronic Materials, Interfaces and Novel Architectures, or C-SPIN, the university said. The center will gather researchers from across the nation to develop technologies for spin-based computing and memory systems, which have been described as a way to break through the limits of current semiconductor technology. C-SPIN was one of six research centers that received a total of $194 million for 39 universities though the Semiconductor Technology Advanced Research network administered by the Semiconductor Research Corp … C-SPIN, on the university’s Twin Cities campus, will fund research by 31 experts from 14 universities. The other schools involved with the C-SPIN research are Carnegie-Mellon University; Cornell University … University of Alabama.
The New Montgomery: Inaugural Quidditch tournament coming to Blount Cultural Park
Montgomery Advertiser – Jan. 17
Pull out the broomsticks, and get ready to duke it out with wizards and witches on the grounds of Blount Cultural Park. Muggle Quidditch — or simply, Quidditch — involves flying broomsticks, four balls and six elevated ring-shaped goals. And if it sounds like a scene from a fantasy, it is. It’s a fictional game from the beloved Harry Potter book series. And the city of Montgomery hopes it becomes a signature event for Alabama. …The University of Alabama has a college-oriented Quidditch event, but Emerson doesn’t know of any city-wide festivals and tournaments in the state. “It will be a pretty dynamic afternoon,” he said. “We’re thrilled at making this a signature event for Alabama.”