Bring on bid day: Number of sorority members increases this year
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 15
Greek letters as tall as some of the women holding them were followed by screams loud enough to leave spectators wishing they had brought ear plugs. The letters led packs of women clutching brown envelopes and running in high heels from Bryant-Denny Stadium down the middle of the crowded sidewalks lining Sorority Row. Family, friends, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters greeted them with gifts, flowers and hugs at their new sorority houses. A total of 2,261 of the 2,442 women participating in fall recruitment this year accepted bids to join sororities at the University of Alabama bid day on Saturday. “We are very proud of our sororities and their commitment to providing a positive and enthusiastic welcome to our newest students,” David Grady, vice president of Student Affairs, said in a news release Saturday. The number of new students joining sororities this year increased from last year. A total of 2,054 women accepted bids last fall.
Tuscaloosa News (gallery) – Aug. 15
Al.com – Aug. 15
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 15
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Aug. 15
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – Aug. 15
UA Students Move-In (gallery)
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 14
Move Team members Baker Johnson, left, and Paul Boyd, with Armstrong Relocation, help move Alanna Culbert’s items into Riverside West on the campus of the University of Alabama Friday, Aug. 14, 2015. Students began moving in at 8 AM Friday and will continue through Sunday. The fall semester begins Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015.
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Aug. 15
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Aug. 15
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Aug. 14
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Aug. 14
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 14
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Aug. 14
Flooding’s impact on wetlands measurable via low-cost approach
Health Medicine Network – Aug. 17
Scientists designed a new, on-site method for studying potential impacts rising sea levels can have on vital wetlands, said a University of Alabama researcher who led a study publishing Aug. 17 describing the modifiable apparatuses. Primarily using materials available at the local hardware store, the scientists, including UA’s Dr. Julia Cherry, designed, constructed and tested low-cost enclosures, called weirs, to realistically simulate three flooding levels on coastal wetlands. Simulating impacts of sea level rise on-site and at larger scales had previously proven difficult. “I hope this provides other researchers with a template to ask their questions and to improve upon the method we’ve documented to do bigger and better coastal wetland studies,” said Cherry, an associate professor in UA’s New College and its biological sciences department. The research, publishing in the scientific journal, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, was co-authored by George Ramseur Jr., of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources; and Drs. Eric Sparks, of Mississippi State University; and Just Cebrian, of Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the University of South Alabama.
Phys.org – Aug. 17
Gardening While You Learn
Green Review – Aug. 17
As childhood obesity continues its upward trend nationally, schools and community organizations are partnering to find solutions. One such solution is the advent of school gardens to get students outside the classroom and into the great outdoors. A University of Alabama psychologist, however, wanted more than anecdotal evidence of the various programs’ success. She’s seeking to determine exactly what kind of an impact these projects have on students, both from a health and educational perspective. “Working with children in the counseling realm, I noticed how much more time they were spending inside with video games, televisions and computers,” says Dr. Caroline Boxmeyer, a UA psychologist. “I noticed the same thing with children with ADHD and behavioral difficulties who especially need to move and get outside and engage in more hands-on learning.”
Briarwood Church, school defend plan for cop on campus
Al.com – Aug. 15
The Briarwood Presbyterian Church and school says it is necessary to have at least one sworn police officer dedicated to its campuses to prevent violence against its properties. But critics say the school opens itself up to issues with liability and transparency if Gov. Robert Bentley signs a bill allowing Briarwood to go through with its plan. Matt Moore, the church’s administrator, said in an interview with AL.com that the situation at Briarwood is no different than small private colleges such as Birmingham-Southern College and Samford University, which can provide campus security under Alabama law…. Mark Lanier, associate director of the University of Alabama Cyber Institute and former chair of UA’s criminal justice department, said a private school having its own sworn police officer appears to be unprecedented. He said there are other concerns with that idea besides transparency. “Honestly I’ve never heard of this but I would think that if Briarwood thought this through they would never in a million years do that,” he said. “The school’s liability is just too great and most churches and institutions like that can rely on the public police anyway.” Briarwood previously said that part of the reason why it wants its own officer is that it would be cheaper than private security. But Lanier said if Briarwood’s officer shoots an unarmed child, for instance, their “liability will be so much greater than any cost savings they may get.”
Private Officer Breaking News – Aug. 15
Academics, leaders stress preservation at start of Hobson City’s Founders Day
Anniston Star – Aug. 14
A University of Alabama English professor proposed Friday several projects in conjunction with Hobson City to promote the history behind Alabama’s first incorporated African American city. Michelle Robinson, an English professor at UA, brought these ideas to an open diversity symposium as part of Hobson City’s 116th Founder’s Day celebration. Robinson placed a significance on the preservation of Hobson City’s history for the overall advancement of the town through the publication of a cookbook and a visual project. “These stories matter because it is one of the ways our people can liberate themselves from oppressive situations,” Robinson said. “We have to be purposeful and diligent in preservation of our legacies.”
Fitzgerald to Flagg, a visit to some of Alabama’s literary haunts
Kentucky.com – Aug. 16
According to Dr. Wayne Flynt, professor emeritus at Auburn University, from 1933 to 1967 the South had one-fourth of the nation’s population and one-third of its poverty. During that same time, it also had 40 percent of the United States’ Pulitzer Prize winners in fiction, six of whom were from Mississippi and Alabama, arguably the country’s most impoverished states. It seems the region’s hardscrabble red clay spawned storytellers as well as sharecroppers. I began a recent literary tour of Alabama in Montgomery, the state capital. Two writers — one of fiction and the other, non-fiction — that are closely associated with this city weren’t born in Montgomery, or even Alabama, but their legacies live on here … While King compiled his own writings in an anthology, A Testament of Hope, it was his influence on other black writers that is truly remarkable, says Trudier Harris, professor of English at the University of Alabama. “From the 1950s up to today, more than 50 African-American writers have incorporated Dr. King into their writings, including some like poet Nikki Giovanni who, in her work, initially opposed his methods of non-violence,” Harris says.
The NDPC Already Have Goals For The Proposed 40-Year Development Plan In Ghana
Modern Ghana – Aug. 15
By Seth Appiah-Opoku, Professor
Planning is a systematic process of thought and action intended to contribute to effective decision-making. It is not based on emotions, intuitions, nor personal beliefs but empirical studies and data analysis. It begins with some sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo or perceived development problems. A diagnosis of the development problemsinvolves defining the problems, uncovering the root-causes of the problems, and establishing the scope of the problems. This helpsplanners to avoid hasty conclusions, witch-hunting or solving the symptoms of the problems. A planner’s role is not to impose a vision or goals but to help society diagnose their development problems and establish their own goals or vision for the plan. This is important because imposition or a perceived imposition of development planning goals is detrimental to consensus building and public support. It’s against this background that we need to examine the National Development Planning Commission’s (NDPC) announced goals for the proposed 40-year development plan. (The writer is a certified planner with the American Institute of Certified Planners and a planning professor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA. Email him at sappiah@ua.edu)
Ghana Web – Aug. 15
GUEST COLUMNIST: De Tocqueville: Slavery poison to America
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 15
In examining racism in the United States in recent columns, we started out with the question, “What is it?” Today, we take a look at the era immediately preceding the American Civil War. The Civil War was the grimmest and deadliest clash of arms that Americans have ever engaged in. The statistics alone — spare and neutral as statistics tend to be — offer appalling testimony. There were more dead and wounded in the Civil War than in all other American wars combined. And let’s face the big question: Was the Civil War about states’ rights or slavery? It was about both, and more. It was, in fact, probably more about race relations than anything else. What the Civil War did was to effectively reconcile the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution with the reality of slavery as it existed in America. If “all men are created equal,” then how can we tolerate slavery, which, by anyone’s definition, dropped one into a state less than equal to the free. Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman who traveled through America in the 1830s and recorded his impressions, addressed not only this new experiment in democracy but also clearly perceived the evils that blacks and Indians had been subjected to in America. (Larry Clayton is a retired professor of history at the University of Alabama. Readers can contact him at larryclayton7@gmail.com.)
Tuscaloosa board OKs Druid City Garden Project for 2 more schools
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 15
In September, students at Faucett-Vestavia and Flatwoods elementary schools will be encouraged to expand their minds by getting their hands dirty. The Tuscaloosa County Board of Education has approved a partnership with the Druid City Garden Project, a nonprofit organization that helps children learn science and math through gardening. … Lindsay Turner, executive director of the Garden Project, said she’s excited about bringing the “Gardens 2 Schools” program to Faucett-Vestavia, Flatwoods. … Turner said the University of Alabama started a study on the “Gardens 2 Schools” program in the 2013-14 school year. So far, the study has shown that students in the program are typically more excited to go to school, are more engaged while at school, have higher academic achievement and have healthier weights.