Students move in on campus for pre-semester University of Alabama programs
Al.com – Aug. 9
Nearly 3,000 University of Alabama students are moving on to campus this weekend to take part in several pre-semester programs before classes begin. Director of Housing Administration Alicia Browne said 2,700 students signed up for early move-in, which began yesterday. Though classes don’t begin until Aug. 21, many students are taking part in sorority recruitment, which begins tonight. While upperclassmen do participate in recruitment, a vast majority of the women are freshmen, who are required to live on campus. Honors College freshmen taking part in Alabama and Outdoor Action, week-long service-oriented programs, are also on campus early, in addition to Million Dollar Band members who are participating in band camp. The rest of UA’s on-campus residents are scheduled for move-in next weekend.
More than 2,000 participate in fall sorority recruitment at Alabama
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 10
More than 2,090 women have registered to participate in the fall sorority rush at the University of Alabama, making it the largest class of participants to date. “We are excited for the growth of the system,” 2012-13 Panhellenic President Brandi Morrison said. Morrison said sororities have seen growth each year since 2000. Olivia Hunnicutt, Panhellenic graduate assistant and previous Panhellenic president, said the several houses under construction along Bryant Drive were a testament to the system’s growth. The students officially began the recruitment process with a convocation at Coleman Coliseum on Friday evening, when registration officially ended. The potential new sorority members participated in open houses on Saturday and Sunday at the various sorority houses.
Survey confirms a J-school bubble
The Australian – Aug. 12
Some 96 per cent of journalism educators believe that a journalism degree is very important or extremely important when it comes to understanding the value of journalism. By contrast, 57 per cent of media professionals believe that a journalism degree is key to understanding the value of their field … Journalism professors said the opinion gap is nothing new to journalism. And while there’s an ongoing need to shape programs to better-prepare students for a rapidly evolving field, the discipline as a whole isn’t doing a good enough job – perhaps ironically – publicizing the changes it’s already made. “That is a trend we see that goes back to the creation of the first journalism school in 1908,” said Jennifer Greer, professor of journalism at the University of Alabama and chair of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Committee on Teaching. “There’s a division between the practitioners who think we’re in the ivory tower and people in education not getting the word out about what we’re doing. “Sometimes we get so busy with the day-to-day business of educating future journalists that we don’t tell the story as well as we should, but there are a lot of innovations and collaborations happening.”
Oil sands may be financial boon for parts of Ala.
Florence Times Daily – Aug. 10
A financial boon could be awaiting Alabama just below the earth’s surface in parts of north and west Alabama. That’s what some consider to be the potential of oil sands _ or tar sands as they also are called _ that geologists said are called in some areas, including Colbert, Franklin and Lawrence counties…In its raw form, the sand stone is similar to asphalt, geologists said. “It takes a lot to get it out of the ground,” said Andrew Goodliffe, an associate professor of geophysics at the University of Alabama. He has studied the oil sands in various areas and said it is similar to what is found in Canada and what could be transported to refineries near the Gulf of Mexico in the proposed and controversial Keystone pipeline. There are two ways to extract the oil sands: strip mining or drilling.
Charlotte Observer – Aug. 10
Race ‘a factor’ in a Mobile mayoral race featuring candidates talking about uniting
Al.com – Aug. 11
Sandy Stimpson’s campaign of “One Mobile” has collided this summer with incumbent Mayor Sam Jones’ slogan of “Too Busy to be Divided,” and both recognize that bringing a sometimes racially divided community together is an important issue. But it’s one that has been rarely discussed during public candidate forums and on the campaign trail, aside from a question to Stimpson during a recent forum asking whether he belongs to a racially segregated Mardi Gras organization and if he would cease membership in it if elected mayor…William Stewart, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama, said making an issue about someone’s Mardi Gras affiliation in Mobile — home to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the U.S. — is like “grasping at straws.” “Mardi Gras seems to be such a universally accepted function in Mobile that I can’t see how black voters would be offended if a person belonged to an all-white Mardi Gras group,” Stewart said. “They are providing entertainment for the entire community.”
GUEST COLUMNIST: Revolutionaries of all stripes admired Jefferson
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 11
On July 30, columnist Cal Thomas got on a roll and knocked Ho Chi Minh for expressing admiration for Thomas Jefferson in Ho’s early revolutionary years. Cal basically said that Ho, the man who led North Vietnam into the communist camp and kicked the Americans out of Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s, was a brutal dictator, tyrant and oppressor, and no one with his record can legitimately claim to be an admirer of our Thomas Jefferson. But may I suggest that Thomas Jefferson, a revolutionary and a traitor (to the British, of course) in his own time, has inspired revolutionaries across the past two centuries. That Ho was moved by political sentiments of equality and liberty — espoused with almost fanatical devotion by Jefferson in his lifetime — is probably true. What followed afterward in Vietnam, the crafting of an authoritarian communist state was no fault of Jefferson, or of his principles which inexorably coupled liberty and republicanism. (Larry Clayton is a retired professor of history at the University of Alabama.)
Military News: 8/11
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 11
A University of Alabama educator recently observed and participated in officer training hosted by the Marine Corps Recruiting Command at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. June 24–28. Fern Hampton, assistant director of UA Athletic Student Services, attended workshops highlighting the education and training men and women undergo to become Marine Officers. Participants learned combat leadership skills while practicing patrolling with lieutenants; viewed a Sunset Parade at the Marine War Memorial in Washington, D.C.; toured Marine Helicopter Squadron 1, the president’s squadron, and participated in training at the Officer Candidates School.
National Geographic featuring Alabama grad who died in Afghanistan
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 11
The story of Senior Airman Mark A. Forester, a University of Alabama graduate killed in combat in 2010 in Afghanistan, is among the vignettes in a new episode of the National Geographic Channel series Eyewitness War airing this week. The episode “Fallen Hero” will air on Aug. 12, 19 and 26 on the National Geographic Channel. The 30-minute episode will feature footage from a helmet-mounted camera worn by Forester, an Air Force combat controller. Eric Wiener, a producer with Karga Seven Pictures, the company that produced the show, said the episodes usually include a couple of different stories from Afghanistan. The vignettes allow the military personnel to discuss what is going on in the accompanying footage.