UA School of Music gets Steinway designation
Tuscaloosa News – Feb. 3
The University of Alabama’s School of Music has been named an All Steinway School, which will see the department’s rehearsal and performance pianos systematically replaced with Steinway instruments. UA joins more than 160 other universities and institutions internationally that have been designated All Steinway Schools, according to the famed piano manufacturer’s website. … “Having daily access to Steinway pianos for both practice and performance will allow our keyboard students to experience the highest in industry standards and expectations,” said Skip Snead, chair of the School of Music in the College of Arts and Sciences, in a statement released by UA. “This will not only directly benefit our current students, but substantially enhance the recruiting of future students.” … UA marked its designation with an evening of presentations and performances on Jan. 25 in the Moody Concert Hall.
Crimson White – Feb. 3
Supernova exploded 11 million years ago; see it tonight in Tuscaloosa
Al.com – Jan. 30
The space world is watching a rare stellar blast this month in a galaxy not so far away. Tonight, if the sky stays clear, you can see what has everyone so excited if you’re near the University of Alabama campus. Supernova SN 2014 J exploded into our view earlier this month in the galaxy M82. As galaxies go, M82 is next door at only 12 million light years away. That means the supernova – or exploding star – is now visible on many telescopes including the one at the university even though it actually exploded some 11.4 million years ago. UA physics and astronomy professor Dr. William Keel says the public is invited to the rooftop observatory on Gallalee Hall tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. Gallalee is located near the University Boulevard and Hackberry Lane intersection. There, you’ll get to look out of UA’s 16-inch Ritchey-Chretien reflector telescope at the supernova, the moon and other celestial objects.
Eyes to the sky
Tuscaloosa News – Feb. 1 (Print version only)
Students at the University of Alabama Child Development Research Center got to see the view from inside a mobile planetarium Friday. The “One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure” show features “Sesame Street” characters teaching children about the night sky and going on an imaginary trip to the moon. The 10-foot-high dome can seat 35 students and is traveling to 19 states. The program is sponsored by PNC Grow Up Great, an initiative to help prepare children up to age 5 for success in school and life.
What’s Keeping Fans Out of Stadiums
Fox Business – Jan. 31
Football might be America’s most popular sport, but that doesn’t mean fans are flocking to cheer their teams on in person. “The at-home experience has gotten better and the stadium experience has plateaued or gotten worse,” says Andrew Billings, Ronald Reagan chair of broadcasting at the University of Alabama. Most professional sports teams rely on filling stadiums as their main revenue source, but that’s not the case for football. Ironically, it’s the league’s biggest revenue source, TV, that has become its biggest competitor for getting fans in stadium seats. Increased ticket prices have also been a major turn off. The NFL suffered a loss in attendance from 2008 and 2011, which forced the league to change its television black-out rules. “We want it to be full, but we don’t want to be the ones filling it,” says Billings. “It is the snake starting to eat its own tail. Media rates are going up, but that will soon be depleted if there are empty seats.”
Jobs under Bentley a mixed bag
Montgomery Advertiser – Feb. 1
If the giant image of Gov. Robert Bentley on a billboard near the Mulberry Street exit on Interstate 85 didn’t make it clear: Alabama’s chief executive wants to talk about jobs. … In his State of the State address on Jan. 14, the governor painted a picture of a state that is attracting international firms, drawing billions of dollars in investment and adding to labor rolls … In a manufacturing-type economy, Ahmad Ijaz, an economist at the University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic Research, said factories would simply recall workers after a recession. But recessions, he said, frequently eliminate service jobs. “As you move toward more and more service-oriented jobs, it takes longer and longer and longer to go to a pre-recession level of employment,” he said.
OPINION: The Liberal Newcomers
The National Review Online – Feb. 3
People come to America because it is a remarkable oasis of freedom, prosperity, and opportunity. Conservatives recognize that the principal reason for our unique abundance is our constitutional restraint on the power of government. … While it seems that much of the Republican-party leadership has not actually looked at the policy preferences of immigrants, everyone else who has looked at the polls comes to the conclusion that significant majorities of immigrants and their children are big-government liberals. … As University of Alabama political scientist George Hawley observes, “Immigrants are well to the left of the American public on a number of key issues.” He also makes clear that “liberalizing immigration will liberalize the U.S.”
Cancer Network Announces a New Mini-Series Dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking
ADVFN – Jan. 31
Medica US announces that Cancer Network, the leading online community for oncologists and others who treat cancer, will introduce a new mini-series marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark publication Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States which occurred on January 14. Cancer Network, home of the journal ONCOLOGY is commemorating this anniversary with an expert-perspective mini-series on the progress, challenges, and new directions in tobacco awareness and control, lung cancer prevention, and patient care. … In the third perspective, Dr. Alan Blum of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society will explore missed opportunities in tobacco prevention efforts, and the need for stronger leadership and clearer direction.
CBS 8 (Monroe, La.) – Jan. 31
Yahoo! Finance – Jan. 31
Students bike across nation, construct homes
Crimson White – Feb. 3
Ashton Greer will leave Virginia Beach, Va., in early June and travel across the country. She will see the rugged Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains and flat expansive Heartland. She will stop in Denver and climb the Tall Trail Ridge Pass in the Rockies. Her trip will conclude 10 weeks later when she reaches the Pacific coast in Oregon. Greer, a senior majoring in civil engineering, will not be taking this cross-country trip in a car, nor will she be flying from place to place. Instead, she will be biking the 3,794 miles from coast to coast. “I had always talked about taking a cross-country road trip, but really this is going to be so much better,” Greer said. “I’ll really be able to see and experience the country in a way that you couldn’t in a car.” The cycling trip is part of Bike & Build, a nonprofit organization that does cross-country fundraising cycling trips. All proceeds from the trips go to affordable housing organizations. Each participating cyclist will raise $4,500. Cyclists will also participate in building projects across the country with Habitat for Humanity.
Students gain class credits, work experience in Ghana
Crimson White – Feb. 3
Many students choose to get career experience while they are in college, but not many of them get the opportunity to do so in a foreign country. Every summer, undergraduates have the chance to study, sightsee and job shadow in Africa as a part of the UA in Ghana faculty-led study abroad program. Seth Appiah-Opoku, an associate professor in geography, leads between 10 and 45 students on a three-week tour of Ghana each July. The students take six credit hours on the geography and culture of Africa and travel around the country doing field visits. Some of the excursions include visiting a gold mine, a slave castle built in 1482, a monkey sanctuary and a canopy walk in the rainforest. In addition, students spend a week in Sunyani, a sister city of Tuscaloosa, shadowing a job in their field of study. Appiah-Opoku talks with the students to figure out what they are interested in, and arranges a service-learning opportunity that matches students’ career goals.