UA holds commencement ceremonies
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – May 3 and 4
The University of Alabama saw spring graduates on their way to the next level of their lives today at Coleman Coliseum. Families and friends watched as students made their walk across the stage to receive their degrees for the spring commencement ceremonies…more than 2000 university students graduated today….in total the university awarded over 4,000 degrees.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – May 5
Graduates leave for the working world
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – May 3
Another crop of seniors at the University of Alabama are preparing to enter a new phase of their lives. Spring Commencement is this weekend, and about 4,100 students will be receiving diplomas on Friday and Saturday. Students are facing better economic conditions than some of the classes before them, but they are still not ideal. According to new numbers, there has been a small increase, about 2.1 percent, in the number of employers who plan to hire 2013 college graduates. The starting salary for the average 2013 college graduate has also increased. Studies have found that a 2013 graduate can make about 5.3 percent more in their first job than a 2012 grad did at their first position.
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – May 3
UA will stream today’s graduation ceremonies online
Tuscaloosa News – May 3
The University of Alabama will stream today’s commencement exercises live online at www.ua.edu/commencement. The graduation ceremonies will be held at Coleman Coliseum at 9 a.m. and at 1:30 p.m. today. At the morning ceremony, graduates from the Capstone College of Nursing, the College of Communication and Information Sciences, the College of Education and the College of Human Environmental Sciences will receive degrees. At the afternoon ceremony, graduates from the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Social Work will receive degrees. The webcasts will be archived at www.ua.edu/commencement and available for viewing for about 30 days after the ceremony. UA will award more than 4,000 degrees during spring graduation exercises.
UA spring commencement (photo gallery)
Tuscaloosa News – May 4
Some graduates have decorated their mortar boards during the University of Alabama spring commencement ceremony at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Saturday, May 4, 2013 …
University of Alabama graduation list
Tuscaloosa News – May 4
The University of Alabama graduates for May 4 include …
Dogs help relieve stress during students’ exams
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – May 3
Cute, cuddly and totally loveable, some dogs are just what University of Alabama students needed this week. These therapy dogs calmed a lot frayed nerves during this week of final exams. They and their handlers from “Hand in Paw” were at UA at the request of the (UA) Student Government Association. Dogs like “Pickens” make stressed-out students feel at ease when they take their tests.
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – May 3
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – May 3
Business Scene: 5/5
Tuscaloosa News – May 5
Alabama Public Radio, which is housed in The University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences, has been named winner of a 2013 national Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Ala. law has cleared the way, but much work is ahead for posthumous pardons of Scottsboro Boys
Washington Post – May 5
Though the Alabama Legislature has cleared the way for posthumous pardons of the Scottsboro Boys, much work — from legal documents to public hearings — remains before the names of the nine black teens wrongly convicted more than 80 years ago are officially cleared. The Scottsboro Boys were convicted by all-white juries of raping two white women on a train in Alabama in 1931. All but the youngest were sentenced to death, even though one of the women recanted her story. All eventually got out of prison. Only one received a pardon before he died … Sheila Washington, founder of the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center in northeast Alabama, said that will happen soon. “Trust me. It is not going away after we got it this far,” she said … Washington said she took a break after the law passed, but added that now is the time to get back to work and get them issued. She said she will have help from researchers at the University of Alabama in compiling the necessary information.
Gadsden Times – May 5
Charlotte Observer (N.C.) – May 5
Daily Herald (Chicago) – May 5
ArizonaCentral.com – May 5
Montreal Gazette – May 5
Youth orchestra to perform Monday
Tuscaloosa News – May 6
Approaching its 20th year, the Tuscaloosa Youth Orchestra took strides to bolster numbers in its horn sections and strengthen connections between the seventh- through 12th-graders with mentors at the University of Alabama. UA and TYO connections go back to the orchestra’s beginnings, when the group formed in fall 1993 through the Community Music School, housed in UA’s School of Music. Teachers for the CMS and TYO often come from UA faculty or advanced students. For the 2012-13 season, leadership came from conductor John Ratledge, conductor of University Singers, area coordinator of graduate choral conducting and director of choral activities at UA, along with two of his students, Nathan Tucker and Tristan L’Heureux. For most of the TYO’s history, string sections have been strong while the horns have been smaller, so a large focus of the graduate students’ work was to recruit horn players from more schools. “We’ve had to do it with who was available,” said Jane Weigel, executive director of the CMS.
LEND A HAND: Sister Cities group honors legacy of former UA employee
Tuscaloosa News – May 5
Marilyn Emplaincourt, a longtime University of Alabama administrator known for her many contributions to international education, was honored by the Tuscaloosa Sister Cities International organization at an Earth Day event on April 22. Emplaincourt, who died in 2010, was one of three charter members of the Sister Cities organization recognized at the event. Sister Cities dedicated three cherry trees with bronze plaques recognizing the contributions of Emplaincourt, as well as Jim Fitts III and Rainer Albright Jamison, to the organization. The trees are near Madeiros Point on the Riverwalk Parkway along the Black Warrior River. Emplaincourt was director emerita of the Japan program and associate director of Capstone International Programs when she retired in 2006 after more than 30 years of service to UA.
University of Alabama cheerleaders’ event raises awareness of genetic disorder
Tuscaloosa News – May 6
Five-year-old Rhae Busby of Demopolis has had 186 broken bones in her lifetime and is often in constant pain because of osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disorder that causes her fragile bones to break easily. But she excitedly sat next to University of Alabama mascot Big Al on Sunday, her pastel pink walker nearby, with a group of other little girls from Alabama with the same condition, all watching the Alabama cheerleaders practice. The cheerleaders, including a 26-member all-girls cheerleading squad and 22-member coed team, wore yellow in honor of the children with OI. “The little girls are loving this, and we appreciate anyone willing to help promote awareness,” said Rhae’s mom, Dana Busby. “I think it’s great, because it brings more recognition of OI.” Today is Wishbone Day, where people are encouraged to wear yellow to bring awareness to OI and to celebrate the people, like Rhae Busby, who live with the condition each day. The University of Alabama cheerleaders started organizing a Wishbone Day event last year in honor of Maggie Bailey, the 31⁄2-year-old daughter of two former UA cheerleaders, Jenna and Chris Bailey.
Lockheed’s secret weapon
CNN.com – May 6
Marillyn Hewson probably does not fit your notion of what a defense company CEO is like. The Lockheed Martin chief is so self-effacing that for years Mike Hardin, dean of the University of Alabama’s business school, didn’t know exactly what Hewson did for a living, even though she sits on his school’s Board of Visitors. If you go to see her at her Bethesda, Md., office, chances are good she’ll greet you with a warm smile, hand you a bottle of water, and, if it happens to be a Monday morning in the fall, offer a lively recap of the previous Saturday’s University of Alabama football game. (She earned an undergraduate degree in business and a master’s degree in economics from the school.) Hewson’s good nature belies a toughness developed during the course of a 30-year career at Lockheed Martin (No. 59 on the Fortune 500).
Alabama Voices: Concerns about hazardous waste at Emelle are misguided
Montgomery Advertiser – May 3
In recent days there have been many questions raised in articles and opinion pieces about HB 181. To a large degree, many of these worries and concerns have been guided by incorrect facts or not grounded in any. During the debates regarding increasing the tax rates applied to waste shipped to Chemical Waste Management’s Emelle facility in the late 1980s and early 1990s, basically the same environmental concerns were raised but there were no incidents of environmental impact to substantiate those concerns. Hazardous waste is, for the most part, a diluted form of the products that are used and are shipped via highways and rails on a daily basis; these products all move safely across the nation. The Emelle facility has had an exemplary environmental and safety record. (Samuel Addy is associate dean for research and outreach in the Culverhouse College of Commerce & Business Administration at the University of Alabama. Mike Davis is senior district manager for Chemical Waste Management.)
GUEST COLUMNIST: How to handle the weeds that pop up in life
Tuscaloosa News – May 5
No matter what poets say, spring is not mainly about “daisies pied and violets blue” or “a morning-glory at my window.” As pretty as flowers are, they’re no match for weeds. When I was a kid, each year from April through August my father made me pull weeds with him in our vegetable garden and pasture. He seemed to get satisfaction in pulling weeds. There was no job I disliked more. Now that I’m old, though, I can understand my father. Pulling weeds is not necessarily a job. It can give a real sense of accomplishment. When a large expanse of weeds confronts you in April, the worst thing to do is to think as a kid who can’t see that there is something beyond the horizon. (David Sloan is a retired professor of journalism at the University of Alabama. Readers can email him at wmdsloan@bellsouth.net).