UA undergraduates showcase research presentations at Bryant Conference Center
Tuscaloosa News – April 12
Hundreds of undergraduate students filled the floor of Sellers Auditorium in the Bryant Conference Center on Monday for the University of Alabama’s Research and Creative Activity Conference. The annual event gives students a chance to present their research to faculty and peers. “It gives our undergraduate students a chance to showcase their research and creative efforts that many of them have spent a year or more engaged in,” said Joe Benson, UA vice president for research…This year, about 300 students participated in 220 different oral and poster board presentations…Benson said that being a student at UA who is able to participate in something like the conference really gives students an edge over those who go to schools that do not promote undergraduate research. “We’ve got students here that are doing amazing things for undergraduates, in many cases doing things that would have been masters’ theses 15 years ago and this gives them a chance to showcase these activities,” he said. “It’s our hope that we can expand the number of students that are involved in undergraduate research and grow this competition.”
Slavery’s end began 150 years ago today with first day of Civil War, historian says
Birmingham News – April 12
University of Alabama historian George C. Rable, author of “God’s Almost Chosen People” and other award-winning Civil War books, says that the start of the war 150 years ago today was the beginning of the end for slavery. Rable will discuss the Civil War today in a 11 a.m. public lecture in Munger Hall Auditorium at Birmingham-Southern College. Today is the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861…”The institution of slavery starts to erode as soon as the first shots are fired,” Rable said. “It’s not like the institution of slavery suddenly went away with the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaves had a lot to do with achieving their own freedom.” As the battles got closer, slaves began to flee into the union lines, Rable said…While many argue the war wasn’t about slavery, and it’s true soldiers fought for many reasons, even Confederates who did not own slaves did not hope to see slavery abolished, Rable said. “Owning land and slaves was part of what Southerners would have called the American dream,” Rable said. “The people at the time were not squeamish about slavery. They didn’t pretend they were against slavery. They didn’t pretend the war was caused by tariffs.”
Huntsville Times – April 12
50th anniversary of manned spaceflight bittersweet for Alabama professor
Birmingham News – April 12
It’s a bittersweet moment for University of Alabama astronomy professor William Keel. Today is the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight and the 30th anniversary of the first U.S. space shuttle launch, but the future of humans in space looks bleak. “Thirty years ago, who would have thought the space program would wind down with a whimper?” Keel said. Yet Keel — whose earliest television memory was watching the first U.S. orbital flight with astronaut John Glenn, which “my mom said scarred me for life” — will celebrate 50 years of space accomplishments with a look back at human space flight and a look ahead to our post-space-shuttle future tonight at the University of Alabama, 7:30 p.m. in Gallalee Hall, Room 227. Then visitors can visit the observatory on the Gallalee Hall roof to peer through a telescope and remember what all the fuss was about, with good views of the moon and Saturn if skies are clear. “We’ll review the important moments of space flight in the last 50 years,” Keel said…He will also have a tile made for the space shuttle, some models, historical photographs and perhaps a picture of him at age 4 standing next to a Mercury space capsule that had been brought to his Nashville hometown…
Hundreds of UA students take part in hands-on Tuscaloosa
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – April 8
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 8
Hundreds of University of Alabama students lend a helping hand around Tuscaloosa. It was Hands-On Tuscaloosa service day. We caught up with a group fixing up Tuscaloosa’s One-Place. that’s a family resource center.
Tide battlefields
Tuscaloosa News – April 12 (Online only)
…we visit some of the places the University of Alabama has played basketball and other sports on the UA campus over the years. The most fascinating place to me was in what is now the attic of Little Hall which now houses the School of Social Work and is near the heart of the old campus before it began to spread east and north. There used to be a full sized basketball court up there, where Alabama played for many years after abandoning the downtown YMCA in 1915 and before Foster Auditorium was built in 1939…But there remains up there a few partial rows of bench seats, made of thick, sturdy wood in what Taylor Watson, the curator of the Paul W. Bryant Museum and our guide last week, said would have been in the “nosebleed section” of the old basketball court…there was a skylight up there, providing perfect natural light for Taylor and me to sit on the ancient bleachers and talk about part of the hidden history of Crimson Tide athletics. Also interesting was our visit to nearby Moore Hall, where the top floor, which is still in use by the Kinesiology Department…Bryant also used to have a ground floor office in the south east corner of Moore Hall. It has a fine view of Foster Auditorium and Watson says Bryant and then-U.A. President Frank Rose watched Gov. George C. Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” in 1963 through Bryant’s windows.
UA School of Social Work hosts health fair in Alberta City
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 9 and 10
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – April 8 and 9
The University of Alabama School of Social Work held a health fair in Alberta City this weekend at the Piggly Wiggly. The students teamed with the east precinct of the Tuscaloosa Police Department to put on the event. They gave away free food, clothes, shoes, and offered free HIV testing.
A Story about UA’s Arboretum
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – April 9
Mary Jo runs the Arboretum. It’s a beautiful day. There is no better place to spend a gorgeous day than here at the University of Alabama…
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 8
…some people are wondering if this recent powerful aftershock is a sign that another deadly earthquake could on the way, University of Alabama earthquake expert Dr. John Van de Lindt tells us, probably not. “Now we probably, very unlikely we’d see something larger than a 9.0 of course and so what we’re seeing now are aftershocks and there has already been hundreds, it’s just that they’ve been significantly smaller. Many, literally hundreds over a magnitude 5 and that’s completely expected.”
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 8
And the University of Alabama’s department of theatre and dance is about to open a classic musical. “Big River” opens on April 18th and runs through the 24th at the Marian Gallaway Theatre on the UA campus.
UA holds Honors Day
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 8
It was a big day for the University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences. Outstanding communication students were recognized for their work at an honors and awards ceremony. Several outstanding alumni were also honored at today’s program…