University of Alabama puts the ‘wow’ in its Week of Welcome event for new students
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 19
At least 3,000 students gathered at Coleman Coliseum on Sunday night to ride bumper cars, test out a zip line and eat free food being given away by Tuscaloosa restaurants. The carnival-style event was part of the kickoff for the “week of welcome,” meant to introduce freshmen and transfer students to the University of Alabama, said Taylor Johnson, an event programmer with University Programs, a student-run program organization that was the event’s lead sponsor. As part of the event, Moe’s Barbecue, McAlister’s, Yogurt Mountain, Baumhower’s and other area restaurants handed out free food and desserts. Student organizations had booths lining Coleman Coliseum, ready to inform students about what the university has to offer. “This is to welcome new freshmen and transfer students and give a first glimpse of what we are all about,” said event programmer Melanie Williams-Hill. “It’s great, because everything is absolutely free,” Johnson said.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 18
UA students move in
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 17
If you were out around Tuscaloosa today, you probably noticed a lot more people on the roads. That’s because thousands of University of Alabama students are back in town today. Some students are returning, others are moving to title town for the first time. We spoke with one mother who says this day is bittersweet. “We are actually moving in. This is my baby girl so it’s kind of hard. It’s the second one but it’s still hard because she’s the only girl.” … First day of class for the university is set for Wednesday, Aug. 21.
Alabama Bid Day 2013 underway (photos)
Al.com – Aug. 17
More than 2,000 women participated in sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama in 2013. It culminated in Bid Day on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013 when young women received their new bids and ran from Bryant-Denny Stadium to their respective sorority houses. Check out the photo gallery above to see the action.
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Aug. 17
Crimson White – Aug. 17
Thousands of spectators surround Bryant Denny Stadium to watch UA’s Bid Day 2013 unfold (photos, video)
Al.com – Aug. 17
Sorority rush at the University of Alabama has been steadily growing for decades, and for the last several years, the Capstone has boasted the largest sorority recruitment in the nation. As the number of girls rushing has increased, so has the size of the spectacle that is Bid Day and of the crowd that comes out to watch the crowd. Thousands of people packed Campus Drive and sorority row near Bryant Denny Stadium Saturday a week before classes start to watch their daughters, sisters, friends or girlfriends race, screaming, from the stadium to those sorority house that gave them a bid and accepted them into their ranks.
Watch Alabama Bid Day 2013: Running of the Bids (video)
Al.com – Aug. 17
Watch the new sorority pledges run from Bryant-Denny Stadium during Bid Day on the University of Alabama campus on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013.
Dinner With Strangers continues to bring together students, community members
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 18
Though the first year of Dinner With Strangers succeeded by many standards, that’s no reason not to take Season 2 to the next level, said founder and coordinator Heather Roberts. In the 2012-13 academic year, DWS brought together University of Alabama students and Tuscaloosa community members with a variety of skills and experiences — in music, visual arts, the culture of food and more — joining town and gown in blog exchanges, dinner conversations and party events. DWS encouraged students to move out of the comfort zones of Bryant-Denny Stadium, classrooms and the Strip and into the wider community, while helping long-term residents appreciate the influx of energy, ideas and creativity from the short-termers. There was no overriding goal or agenda, Roberts said, beyond getting the conversations started. “We wanted to figure a way to do it again, and to grow the project,” Roberts said. For the 2013-14 year, she’s added an intern, UA public relations student Kalli Abernathy, and joined forces with UA’s Crossroads Community Center, the focus of which is cultural events and dialogue for the campus.
Alabama’s unemployment rate down in July; Tuscaloosa County jobless rate rises
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 17
Tuscaloosa County’s unemployment rose in July, but that’s not as bad as it might sound, according to a University of Alabama economist who follows labor market trends. Meanwhile, Alabama’s July unemployment rate, also released Friday, fell, a generally positive thing that might not be as good as it first appears, said Ahmad Ijaz, director of economic forecasting at the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research. Tuscaloosa County’s July unemployment rate was 6.5 percent, up from 6.2 percent in June. Alabama’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 6.3 percent, 0.2 percent less than in June. The state’s rate was the lowest since the 5.9 percent in October 2008. “Overall, the numbers are looking good,” Ijaz said. “But I am always a little skeptical of Alabama’s month-to-month unemployment rates.” Part of that skepticism is because the numbers do not tell what types of jobs are being created. “They could be low-paying jobs. They could be part-time jobs. They could be jobs with no benefits,” he said.
ESSAY: Significance of threatened tracts
Daily Press (Hampton, Va.) – Aug. 17
During the Civil War, the Historic Triangle saw African Americans play a major role in helping to end slavery, even before the U.S. government recruited them as soldiers. Today, the possibility of commercial land development threatens to further obscure this important history. In May 1862, northern Gen. George B. McClellan’s attempt to capture Richmond by way of the Virginia Peninsula had been stalled for a month by earthen defenses largely built by slaves impressed into Confederate service. At long last, however, he was set to bombard these fortifications around Yorktown. et, escaped slaves told Union soldiers that southern troops would not be there for the attack. Most officers distrusted such reports and ignored them, but the African Americans were correct. Despite the strong Peninsula defenses, Confederate commanders wanted to rely upon Richmond’s stronger fortifications and to mire the Union army in the Chickahominy swamps. Soon the Rebels were gone, ruining McClellan’s plans for a decisive battle at Yorktown as in the Revolution. If the Yankees had heeded the news brought in by African Americans, they might have pounced on the retreating Rebels. Union officers would not ignore black informants again. (Glenn David Brasher, a professor in the University of Alabama History Department, is author of “The Peninsula Campaign & the Necessity of Emancipation)
College News: 8/18
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 18
University of Alabama art and art history professor Sky Shineman is exhibiting her work at the Birmingham Public Library. The exhibition, titled “Surfacing: The Paintings of Sky Shineman,” opened Thursday in the fourth floor Exhibition Gallery of the Central Library, 2100 Park Place. A reception was held Saturday in the fourth-floor boardroom. The exhibition runs through Sept. 20 and is on view during regular hours.
Pulitzer winner Bragg addresses GRU freshman class
Augusta Chronicle (Ga.) – Aug. 16
The inaugural freshman class of Georgia Regents University got a reading assignment and an opportunity to meet the assignment’s Pulitzer Prize-winning author Friday. Rick Bragg, who rose from Alabama poverty to win the Pulitzer for feature writing for The New York Times, conceded at GRU freshman convocation that he had never completed the bachelor’s degree he began many years ago. “I am technically a freshman at Jacksonville State University,” said Bragg, now a professor of writing at the University of Alabama. Bragg said that he began writing when his “craft was still blue collar” – but that for all in the audience, that has changed. Bragg said he had been “very lucky” to travel the world . “I’ve seen a holy man at the edge of the Saudi desert sing and call a beautiful prayer” and had “a voodoo priest in Haiti look at me and try to turn me into a goat.”
Film follows young couple’s diet shift
East Tennessean – Aug. 17
In search of a simpler life, a young couple returns home to Alabama where they set out to eat the way their grandparents did — locally and seasonally. But as they navigate the agro-industrial gastronomical complex, they soon realize that nearly everything about the food system has changed since farmers once populated their family histories. A thoughtful and often funny essay on community, the South and sustainability, “Eating Alabama” is a story about why food matters. The Mary B. Martin School of the Arts presents “Eating Alabama” with director/producer Andrew Beck Grace as part of the South Arts Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers on at 7 p.m. Monday in East Tennessee State University’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium. The documentary received the Best Alabama Film at the Sidewalk Film Festival 2012 and Winner Top Grit at 2012 Indie Grits … Grace is a documentary filmmaker and native Alabamian. He’s a past fellow at the CPB/PBS Producers Academy and directs the Documenting Justice program at the University of Alabama.
Alabama among 15 schools vying for Southern Living’s tailgating title
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 16
The University of Alabama is a contender in a competition to determine the top school for tailgating in the South, according to Southern Living. The magazine picked 15 schools to feature in its September issue, which will be on newsstands Aug. 23. “In the South, pre-game celebrations matter as much as what happens on the field,” said Lindsay Bierman, Southern Living’s editor-in-chief. “We’re asking readers to decide which school best honors our great tradition of Southern hospitality with the most stylish and spirited spread.”
Million Dollar Band practices
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 16
Students returning to campus means one thing: football season is getting closer and closer. And if you travel through campus at the right time, you can even hear it. The University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band is practicing to prepare for the upcoming season. The 400-plus members work hard all through the summer to prepare for the half-time show inside of Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Local completes leadership training
HoumaToday (La.) – Aug. 16
Cullen Curole, economic development administrator for South Central Planning & Development Commission in Thibodaux, has successfully completed the Delta Leadership Institute sponsored by the Delta Regional Authority and administered by the University of Alabama.