UA professors study campus tales
Tuscaloosa News – June 29
…If a professor is 15 minutes late to class, students can leave without penalty if the professor, indeed, shows up a bit later…’This one has been around for a long time,’ said Judy Bonner, provost at the University of Alabama. ‘I can remember hearing this when I was an undergraduate student at UA, and also when I was a graduate student at Ohio State [University]. But I have never seen such a policy in writing.’ She should know. Bonner oversees the academic side of UA, and there is no policy in the student or faculty handbook about what to do when a professor is late…two UA professors have set out to classify campus legends, find out how they are passed around and who believes them. ‘There’s a kernel of truth there, but they are embellished,’ said Claire Howell Major, an associate professor of higher education at UA. ‘Students do make meaning out of some of them. They may not believe all of them, but they do make use of them.’ Though the significance of campus legends on academic culture has been studied before, Major, along with Nathaniel Bray, also an assistant professor of higher education at UA, classified the types of legends in a paper published this spring in the academic journal, Innovative Higher Education…Bray and Major found about 150 campus-based legends, but were only concerned with the 38 set in the classroom, weeding out ghost stories, horror tales and jokes. They grouped the campus legends into four categories: rigid rules and those who break them, tales about teaching, risqué remarks and tests.
When Mommy Fakes It: Guest Blog by Michelle Gray
Discovery.com – June 30
…Dr. Marc Feldman, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, is an international expert on Munchausen Syndrome by proxy (MBP). It is his position that Munchausen by proxy is not a mental illness. It is, instead, a behavior that is driven not by compulsion, but is instead carried out by choice. “Munchausen by proxy… “Some people with Munchausen syndrome [not to be confused with MBP] do say that they feel a compulsion to lie, whether about illness or other things. But this doesn’t rise to the level of an irresistible impulse” says Dr. Feldman…
Home sales message mixed
Huntsville Times – June 30
…Grayson Glaze, executive director of ACRE at the University of Alabama, offered hope that the state’s housing market will soon see brighter days. And he noted that the 2008 numbers look bad only when compared with the “record-breaking sales trends of recent years.”…
UA Scientists Study Fuel Cells
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – June 29
University of Alabama scientists…Alan Lane and a team of scientists have been studying hydrogen fuel cells for the past decade.
I felt empowered when I set foot on Alabama campus
Huntsville Times – June 30
Orientation at the University of Alabama was the beginning of a new chapter of my life. However, at first it seemed I wouldn’t make it through the first week of college…I was thrown into the middle of a whirlwind of unfamiliar faces and important decisions when I attended Bama Bound. But because of that experience, I feel more excited and prepared for college than ever…To the shock of my parents, I found a strange empowerment and independence when I stepped onto campus. It has been a long time since I’ve been the new kid, but once I realized everyone else was as nervous as I was, the experience became much less stressful. Spending a few days on campus made me realize that life up to now has been preparing me for the coming transition into adulthood. I know now that I am completely ready to make that transition, and I cannot wait to get started.
College News
Tuscaloosa News – June 30
Robert Jackson Phares of Tuscaloosa was recently recognized as a member of Sigma Alpha Lambda, National Leadership and Honors Organization at the University of Alabama. –Area residents have completed a one-month internship in the Washington office of U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)…Patrick Adcock, the son of Phil and Donna Adcock of Tuscaloosa, attends the University of Alabama, where he is pursuing a degree in political science…