Classic look for University of Alabama nursing college’s new building
Birmingham News – Sept. 2
Birmingham’s TurnerBatson Architects has designed a $16 million nursing college for the University of Alabama that is set to serve as a gateway building for the Tuscaloosa campus. Construction on the three-story, 62,000-square-foot Capstone College of Nursing will begin in February. Plans are for it to open in fall 2010…While the external look was important to everybody, Sara Barger, dean of the college, said it was what was designed for the inside that mattered most to her faculty’s mission. “Nursing education has changed so much over the last decade and I’m sure it will change even more over the next decade,” she said. “We needed space that would take us into the future.”…
Doctor, collector holds smoking gun’ on tobacco and health at University of Alabama center
Birmingham News – Sept. 1
Dr. Alan Blum knows where the smoking gun lies in the case of who-knew-what-when in the dispute over tobacco and lung cancer. In fact, there really is a cardboard cutout of a smoking gun among the thousands of documents, tapes and memorabilia composing the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society at the University of Alabama. The gun is an old advertising gimmick for Philip Morris cigarettes. It’s the kind of item prized by Blum, the center’s director…
Teaching kids about money by getting them involved
CNN.com – Aug. 30
…Jan Brakefield, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama, ran Camp Cash at the school for the first time this summer and hopes it will become an annual program…I just believe that at this age it’s more likely to stick with them for life,” Brakefield said.
Birmingham’s August temperatures register much cooler than year ago
Birmingham News – Sept. 1
…”I’m sure every year you can find record hot temperatures and record cold temperatures from different places on Earth,” said David Shankman, a professor of physical geography at the University of Alabama. “You can’t look at any single event or any single year to draw conclusions about long-term climate change.”…David Brommer, an assistant professor of geography and climatologist at the University of Alabama, said the Bermuda high pressure system that blankets the Southeast every summer was less intense this year than last. Brommer said the system was unusually strong in 2007 and pushed the rainy weather Alabama normally receives into Texas. “The Gulf of Mexico is our moisture source,” Brommer said. “The high pressure was forcing it to go around farther to the west. It’s like a rock in a stream. If the rock is big enough, the water has to go around it. The air can’t flow like it normally would.”…
Republicans take center stage this week at GOP convention
Mobile Register – Aug. 31
…The bar was set high” by Democrats after a series of prime-time speeches in Denver, said David Lanoue, a political science professor at the University of Alabama…”It’s going to be tough to top,” Lanoue said…
Jerry Underwood – Jefferson County’s sewer debt problem providing lessons in financial seminars
Birmingham News – Aug. 31
…Bob Brooks, a finance professor at the University of Alabama who has been watching it all unfold, offered some hints on why industry professionals find the story of Jefferson County’s problems so compelling…
Financial Report
Florence Times-Daily – Aug. 31
.Growth in tax receipts has slowed significantly during the first eight months of the current budget year, based on data collected by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama…
Rants and Raves
Montgomery Advertiser – Aug. 30
RAVE: For the good showing by Auburn University and the University of Alabama in the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings of top public universities. Auburn was ranked 45th and UA ranked 37th. In a separate ranking in which the magazine surveyed high school guidance counselors around the country, AU ranked 58th and UA 89th.
Tuscaloosa becomes haven for evacuees
Tuscaloosa News – Sept. 1
…A group of graduate students from the University of Alabama also came to the shelter, but for a different reason: to volunteer. ‘I just felt like we needed to do something,’ said Nick Parker, a student from Winston Salem, N.C. Liz McWhirter, a grad student from Indianapolis, said she was inspired by a sermon Sunday. ‘I was at Vineyard Church, and the sermon got me fired up,’ McWhirter said. ‘It said to get up and go help people.’ McWhirter and the other graduate students called friends and family for money to give to the Red Cross. They were also prepared to sign up as volunteers…
Education briefs
Birmingham News – Sept. 2
On Friday, University of Alabama alumnus Dr. Michael B.A. Oldstone will present the lecture, “How Viruses Changed our Country, Continent and Culture: Past, Present and Future Plagues,” at 2 p.m. in 127 Biology Building on the UA campus. Oldstone is a professor and head of the viral-immunobiology laboratory in the department of immunology and microbial science at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
Professor named association leader
Montgomery Advertiser – Sept. 2
Dr. Berry H. Tew Jr., an adjunct professor of geological sciences at The University of Alabama and director of the Geological Survey of Alabama, has begun a one-year term as president of the Association of American State Geologists…