Tuscaloosa vies for GE plant
Tuscaloosa News – Aug. 26
Tuscaloosa is among the Alabama cities contending to be the home of a $40 million coatings plant for military jet engines that is expected to employ as many as 400 people. Gov. Bob Riley and GE Aviation’s president and CEO David Joyce made the announcement Wednesday…Officials from the University of Alabama, Auburn University and Tuskegee University attended the news conference. Joyce said that a university setting is crucial to the location of the plant. The company needs highly skilled and flexible workers, he said, and UA and Auburn both have engineering schools. “We have some high-end materials education facilities and we would love to be a partner with GE,” said Chuck Karr, dean of UA’s engineering school…
Associated Press – Aug. 26
Birmingham News –Aug. 26
WHNT (Huntsville) – Aug. 25
WJBF (Augusta, Ga.) – Aug. 25
WDHN (Dothan) – Aug. 25
A WordPress 3.0 theme to do more with less at The University of Alabama
CollegeWebEditor.com – Aug. 26
Offering a consistent look and feel on the Web at a big university is a challenge…At the University of Alabama; the central web communications team includes only 4 people. That’s why Andy Rainey, director of Web Communications, is a big proponent of the “teach-them-how-to-fish” approach. His team has always designed and published web resources to help the larger university community get up to speed with their web presence, using more recently WordPress as their web platform of choice. Last April they launched 3 branded WordPress themes to create the winning combo of ease of use with WordPress and consistency with a unique web template…We asked Andy Rainey, director of Web Communications at the University of Alabama, to answer a few questions about this project…
Baldwin County pre-K students get vision screenings
Mobile Press-Register – Aug. 26
…Frentz works for FocusFirst, one of the branches of Impact Alabama based in Birmingham. Volunteer screeners were in Baldwin County schools Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The student service organization was founded in 2004 by Stephen Black and involves more than 20,000 volunteers from more than 20 colleges and universities in the state…According to the website, Impact Alabama chose vision screenings as part of their program when research showed lower-income children often had little access to medical or vision care. Because vision problems directly impacted learning, some children developed behavioral problems, had reduced academic performance and low self-esteem — all linked to vision problems. Impact Alabama’s goal for 2010-11 is to increase screenings to 30,000 children in the state.
Historic Gorgas House to undergo renovation
Crimson White – Aug. 26
The Gorgas House will be under construction for the next few months and is scheduled for completion in December. The project is state-funded and is estimated to cost $750,000, said Tim Leopard, the University’s assistant vice president for construction. The building’s history dates back to 1829, two years before the University opened in 1831. It was the first structure built on campus…
Get on Board Day gets creative
Crimson White – Aug. 26
…University’s annual Get on Board Day, sponsored by the Student Organization Resource Center for Extracurricular. The 275 booths set out on the Crimson Promenade and Woods Quad led to a record amount of organization involvement and a great deal of creativity in attracting student interest…In order to make things less chaotic, Karagas spread out the booths to provide more walking space and started a new program allowing for students to come to the SOURCE table to get a tour of all the booths with a student volunteer. “We felt that, by having this program, students could get a more personal feel for the event and not feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of organizations being showcased,” Karagas said.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Aug. 25