University of Alabama’s Stuart Bell seeks new heights in strategic plan
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 28
This fall, University of Alabama President Stuart Bell has relied on analogies of a climber ascending a mountain and a driver navigating with the aid of GPS as he has pitched his vision for the strategic planning process he initiated last month. Bell, who began his presidency in July, announced plans in October for a new strategic plan for the campus to be unveiled in spring. He has described the endeavor as a journey as UA tries to continue its growth and momentum of the past decade. “My expectation is this strategic plan is going to be aggressive, it is going to be exciting,” Bell said. The plan will be crafted by a committee of administrators, faculty, staff and students led by interim Provost Kevin Whitaker. The group is set to begin meeting in early December.
UA’s Child Development Research program receives more than $93,000
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 30
The University of Alabama’s Child Development Resources has been awarded $93,750 in state grants for community programs to provide assistance and resources to parents. CDR is housed in the College of Human Environmental Sciences and provides training for professional child care providers, child care resource and referral information, and parenting education and support programming. The state grants will provide funds for Baby TALK (Teaching Activities for Learning and Knowledge), a program designed to encourage parents to nurture their small children, and Parenting Assistance Line, a statewide toll-free number providing information and support to help callers become more confident parents. The awards are part of $379,000 in grants from the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention to Tuscaloosa-area organizations for community programs committed to the prevention of child maltreatment.
UA Research Aims to Make Buildings Safer in Earthquake-prone Cities
Alabama NewsCenter – Nov. 28
The combination of two proven construction methods could lead to safer wood-frame buildings in earthquake-prone cities. Two University of Alabama professors, along with a Colorado State University professor, are engaged in research that could combine the light wood frame system (LiFS) and cross-laminated timber (CLT) to form a self-centering structure that could better withstand the force of an earthquake.
UA professor studies the affect Thanksgiving dinner has on your sleep
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Nov. 26
A University of Alabama professor has studied turkey’s alleged sleepy affect on his students and has made some tasty discoveries. Dr. Adam Knowlden, assistant professor with Health Science, used surveys to discover how eating turkey with its amino acid tryptophan affected his students’ sleep. “About 9 million Americans take prescription sleep aids right now so we are trying to find some healthier, natural ways to help people get better sleep so we wanted to take a look at the effects that food have on sleep,” he said. And perhaps turkey, the Thanksgiving staple, is best known as a sleep aid with its amino acid, tryptophan, known to put people to sleep. And what better time for Knowlden to release his study on its impact on sleep.
WMBF-NBC (Florence. SC) – Nov. 26
Chandra Views the “Cheshire Cat” Group of Galaxies
2016 Tech – Nov. 26
A single hundred years ago this month, Albert Einstein published his theory of common relativity, a single of the most essential scientific achievements in the last century. A essential outcome of Einstein’s theory is that matter warps area-time, and hence a massive object can lead to an observable bending of light from a background object. The initial success of the theory was the observation, in the course of a solar eclipse, that light from a distant background star was deflected by the predicted quantity as it passed near the Sun … A new paper on the Cheshire Cat was lately published in The Astrophysical Journal. The authors are Jimmy Irwin (University of Alabama), Renato Dupke (Nationwide Observatory of Brazil), Rodrigo Carrasco (Gemini Observatory).
WAAY-ABC (Huntsville) – Nov. 27
COLLEGE NEWS: Nov. 29
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 29
University of Alabama – Thirteen University of Alabama students were recognized as Wells Fargo First Generation Scholars in a recent campus luncheon. Wells Fargo recently donated $135,000 to the University to be awarded for student scholarships. Since 2008, the company has provided UA $535,000 in scholarship support, benefiting 38 students who are the first in their families to attend college. Students awarded the scholarships this year include: –Alabaster: Kiara Perry; –Anniston: Samone Thompson; –Ashford: Kenneth Todd; –Ashville: Mitchell Partlow … –UA’s board of trustees has named Stephen Thoma, a professor of educational psychology, a university distinguished research professor. This title recognizes UA faculty who have achieved international accomplishments in their fields and who have been given extensive peer recognition for their scholarly contributions and noteworthy academic service.
Huge gaps in sex trafficking laws
Montgomery Advertiser – Nov. 29
The October arrests of dozens of men in the Southeast for sex trafficking again show Alabama is a nexus for the trade. The regional crackdown involved nine men arrested after indictments in Florida, 38 following Georgia indictments, and spread across eight states and 27 cities. Two were arrested in Montgomery and three others have been indicted out of the middle district of Alabama. As the Montgomery Advertiser’s Kelsey Davis reported, charges against the men in the highly organized pipeline include transporting persons across state lines to engage in prostitution, controlling a location to prostitute illegal aliens and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of a minor … In a significant step forward, the panel reached an agreement with the University of Alabama’s School of Social Work to perform an assessment of how the state handles sex-trafficking cases. The assessment should help organizations coordinate efforts to catch sex traffickers and aid victims.
Auburn collects more food than Alabama
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Nov. 29
A big annual food drive that goes along with the Iron Bowl has just ended. Auburn University beat The University of Alabama this year. Auburn collected 211,625 pounds of food, while UA collected 116,360 pounds.
Lahooti Music Ashram — promoting peace and harmony
Dawn.com – Nov. 27
“Welcome to Lahooti Music Ashram,” beamed Saif Samejo to the audience gathered in the hall that is reserved in his home for music related activities and events called Lahooti Live Sessions. Samejo, a jovial person is the founder and lead vocalist of Pakistani Sufi / folk / rock band ‘The Sketches’. After around 40 minutes, the American bluegrass band Kentucky Winders arrived and entered the hall where audience were waiting to listen to the Western music on the horizon of Sufism — Sindh … “This is the first time I am visiting the Ashram which is a beautiful place. The people are very good-natured and give you love, care and respect, we like it. The audience have showed love for our music that we have presented today. The environment is friendly and the food delicious. Samejo is doing well for the promotion of music and peace and such events promote cultural unity. We believe that music is power which can be an instrument for the sustainability of peace, cultural unity, brotherhood and the exchange of musical programmes,” said Nikos Pappas, the lead singer of the Kentucky Winders. He is also the assistant professor of musicology at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Big Thanksgiving numbers: Chuck’s Fish serves about 1.5 tons of food to 1,000 people (WITH VIDEO)
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 26
How do you prepare Thanksgiving dinner for 1,000 people? You start three days before the holiday, cook and bake more than 1.5 tons of food and have more than 200 volunteers to help out. That what Chuck’s Fish and Project Blessings did for the sixth year running. The restaurant on Greensboro Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa served a holiday dinner with turkey and ham and all the fixings for about 1,000 people Thursday. Lauren Walmsley, a University of Alabama senior majoring in economics, volunteered to help serve meals on Thursday. It was her first time doing so. “I just feel great. Everyone here is so happy, and that makes me happy.”
Fourteen Colorful Alabama Flower Gardens
Examiner.com – Nov. 26
Alabama has an abundance of flower gardens open to the public and visitors will find these 12 to be among some of the best in the state. 1. Southern Living Garden & Liberty Bell Garden, Montevallo, AL – is located in The American Village, a recreated Colonial-erea village located on 113 acres north of town off Hwy. 119. The Southern Living Garden is adjacent to Washington Hall, patterned after Mount Vernon. Visitors will find the Southern Living Garden to be designed like Colonial gardens including crabapple trees, crape myrtles and shrub roses. The Liberty Bell Garden is home to a replica of the real bell and has a crosswalk design of the Briting Union Jack flag. For more information go to www.americanvillage.org … 12. University of Alabama Arboretum also located in Tuscaloosa on 60 acres that include four sections with different type plants in each. These include native woodlands, experimental, ornamental and wildflowers. Call 205-553-3278.
Wisconsin high school student to play wheelchair basketball for UA
WDJT-CBS (Milwaukee, Wisc.) – Nov. 29
A Brookfield Central High School student will be Alabama bound next fall. This high achieving senior earned the opportunity to attend The University of Alabama while battling a rare form of cancer.
UA professor to take part in study evaluating needs of veterans
Crimson White – Nov. 30
Dr. David Albright of The University of Alabama will take part in a study to evaluate the needs of military veterans. The study will fixate on the southern region of the state of Alabama, including Mobile, Baldwin, Escambia, Conecuh, Monroe, Clarke, Choctaw and Washington counties. “The purpose of the South Alabama Veterans Needs Assessment is to identify the unmet needs and perceived gaps in available services of veterans and their families located in an eight-county area in southern Alabama in which approximately 64,000 veterans reside,” Albright said. Interviews, surveys and focus groups will collect information for the study. The study will also incorporate date on health care access, education and employment. “The study is needed to prioritize the needs for service provision and inform resource allocation,” Albright said. “To determine what other, if any, resources are available, and to determine if there are barriers preventing access to existing resources.”
COST program provides learning experience for all
Crimson White – Nov. 26
Looking at the world and a culture through the eyes of its children is very different than experiencing it as an adult. Teaching students to become world-class teachers is the motto of the Consortium of Overseas Student Teaching, commonly known as the COST program. Evan McIntyre, a senior majoring in elementary education, was the youngest COST participant when he was assigned to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, last spring semester. He had experience teaching both in his hometown of Pennsylvania and in Tuscaloosa through the College of Education, but through the COST program, he was challenged to take his
education a step further. “It made me more open-minded in general,” McIntyre said. “You see so much and gain an appreciation. In South Africa there’s a lot of poverty and kids coming from home environments you can’t even imagine, and just also seeing that people are people everywhere.”
Family Medicine Residency celebrates 40th anniversary
Crimson White – Nov. 30
On the weekend of Nov. 13, the College of Community Health Sciences hosted a reunion for the Family Medicine Residency alumni in celebration of the Residency’s 40th anniversary. Over the course of 40 years, approximately 450 students have graduated and gone on to establish practices. Eighty-five family medicine physicians attended the reunion. One of the physicians present was Dr. John Sullivan. Sullivan is best known for being part of a group that developed a rattlesnake anti-venom serum during his time spent in Arizona and for taking part in the development of medication cap foils after the Tylenol Scare of 1982.
UA student shares international experience
Crimson White – Nov. 30
In the spring, Ann Elizabeth’s morning commutes consisted of views of Big Ben and rides on the Tube. Most days she was working in the House of Lords, very similar to the United States Senate, where she worked for the Liberal Democrat party researching women’s policies in the UK. On Fridays, she could be found taking classes at an English university. Ann Elizabeth Sovereign graduated from The University of Alabama in the spring with a degree in philosophy and political science. During her last undergraduate semester, she decided she wanted to study abroad while getting some kind of internship or
work experience. After some research, she found the Hansard Society Scholar Program. Their mission is to “bring undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals from around the world to study and experience British politics from the inside.”