University of Alabama team welcomes Auburn University Hoverbowl Challenge
Tuscaloosa News – April 22
The University of Alabama will confront Auburn University on Saturday — but not in a usual sports competition. Instead, a team of University of Alabama engineering students will compete against a team of Auburn engineering students in a hovercraft race at Lake Lurleen State Park. The competition is part of the University Hoverbowl Challenge. The race, hosted by the Hoverclub of America, will pit the UA Hoverteam against the Hovering Tigers. Amateur hovercraft racers from across North America will also compete. Racing starts at 10 a.m. and should end about 4 p.m. The event is free, but admission to the state park is $3. Hovercrafts are amphibious vehicles that ride on a small cushion of air capable of traveling over most relatively smooth surfaces. For the race at Lake Lurleen, the hovercrafts will glide over the lake and its shore.
University of Alabama’s ‘Last Lecture’ event is tonight
Tuscaloosa News – April 22
Cassandra ”Cassie” Simon, associate professor of social work at the University of Alabama, will give her “Last Lecture” tonight as the recipient of the 2013 Last Lecture Award. Simon was chosen from a group of seven finalists for the annual award, according to the University of Alabama Graduate School. Faculty members from across campus are nominated each year by students; finalists and the winner are chosen by an eight-person student committee. Students are asked to nominate the professor that they would most like to hear deliver a lecture based on this premise: “If this were your last time to address a group of UA students, what would you say?” The award was established in 2007. Simon’s “last lecture” is titled “Through the Doors: Lessons Learned from an Unexpected Life Journey” and will be given at 6 p.m. in Room 159 of Russell Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Crimson White – April 22
UA opens foundry
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – April 19
The University of Alabama combines art and engineering at its new foundry. Schools officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the occasion.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 19
UA holds A-Day
WCFT-ABC 33/40
Today in Tuscaloosa, thousands rolled out to Roll Tide at Bryant Denny Stadium. That’s where we find ABC 33/40’s Sherrie Evans, who’s spent the afternoon talking to fans thrilled to see the back to back champions and Coach Saban back on the field, fans packed the thrilled to see the back to back champions and Coach Saban.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 19
University of Alabama wins National Poetry Championship; Cantonment resident places
NorthEscambia.com (Fla.) – April 21
The University of Alabama has brought home another national championship trophy, while a Cantonment native also placed nationally. Tuscaloosa native Thaddeus Fitzpatrick won first place in Poetry Interpretation at the American Forensic Association-National Individual Events Tournament this month and also finished ninth in the individual sweepstakes out of 198 total students. It marked back-to-back championships for Fitzpatrick, who was national champion in prose interpretation in 2012. Fitzpatrick’s performance led the Alabama Forensic Council, UA’s speech and debate team, to a fifth place national finish. Junior Collin Metcalf, a gradate of Tate High School, is a member of the team, which placed in the top five for the first time since 2006.
Prototype generators emit much less carbon monoxide
Energy Daily – April 19
Portable electric generators retrofitted with off-the-shelf hardware by the University of Alabama (UA) emitted significantly lower levels of carbon monoxide (CO) exhaust, according to the results* of tests conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Compared with standard portable generators, CO emissions from the prototype machines were reduced by 90 percent or more, depending on the specific hardware used and operating conditions. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), unintentional CO poisoning claims more than 400 lives a year. More than 20,000 people visit the emergency room and more than 4,000 are hospitalized due to exposure to toxic levels of the colorless, odorless gas.
Space Daily – April 19
Graduate credits professors with success in fashion
Crimson White – April 22
UA alumna Amanda Perna has passion and a dedicated work ethic, both of which have contributed to her success as talented fashion designer. Perna graduated from the College of Human Environmental Sciences with a degree in apparel design. She said it was here at The University of Alabama when she realized she wanted to work in the fashion world. “Once taking my first sewing class with Ms. Paula Robinson at The University of Alabama, I fell in love with the idea of being a fashion designer,” Perna said. She said she owes a lot of her success to her time spent at the University. “My amazing faculty in the department of clothing and textiles gave me a well-rounded skill set, which helped me excel in the fashion industry in New York City,” Perna said. “They also helped me to achieve many of my career goals, preparing me for my first design job at Calvin Klein, as well as Dr. Sue Parker giving me the confidence me to follow my dreams of owning my own business.” Sue Parker, a professor of entrepreneurship and e-commerce, was close to Perna and still remains in contact with her. Parker said she would describe Perna as an excellent student and leader. “Very passionate, very goal-oriented, knew what she wanted to do and worked very hard to accomplish those goals,” Parker said. “A very intelligent student – one that took advantage of opportunities that we have to offer at The University of Alabama.”
Paisley song sparks cultural storm
Rocky Mountain Telegram (N.C.) – April 19
Southern white men don’t usually drive racial dialogue. For as long as race has riven America, they have been depicted more often as the problem than the solution. So after country music star Brad Paisley recently released his new song “Accidental Racist,” what happened next was hardly surprising: days of widespread criticism about his attempt to detail the challenges facing a “white man from the Southland” and his recruitment of LL Cool J to rap a black perspective. Being Southern comes with its own set of assumptions and stereotypes, some of them negative ones created by the low points of the region’s history. Southern pride largely is a defensive reaction to such stigmas, said Eric Weisbard, a music critic and American studies professor at the University of Alabama. So while some might see “Accidental Racist” as a ham-handed attempt to start a dialogue, it’s part of a long tradition in which Southern musicians “try to talk about who they are in answer to what others dismissively assume they are,” Weisbard wrote on npr.org. Much of the friction around the song comes from people who don’t understand this history, Weisbard said in an interview: “We’re as segregated culturally as we often are socially.”
Can Virtual Reality Treat Addiction?
Popular Science – April 19
When the addicts enter the room, they haven’t met the people inside. They’ve never been there before, but the setting is familiar, and so is the pipe on the table, or the bottles of booze on the ground. Soon enough, someone’s offering them a hit, or a drug deal’s going down right in front of them. They’ve been trying to get better–that’s why they’re doing this–but now they have cravings. It’s about then that a voice instructs them to put down the joystick and look around the room without speaking, “allowing that drug craving to come and go like a wave.” The voice asks them periodically to rate their cravings as, after a couple minutes, they start to relax. The craving starts to dissipate and they hear a series of tones: beep-boop-boop … Amy Traylor, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama who’s worked with Bordnick and conducted virtual reality studies of her own, says “the thing we don’t really take into account [with traditional cue reactivity studies] is that the environment itself can serve as a cue.” And Traylor says the patients, even if they still realize where they really are, buy it. Both her and Bordnick bring up a subject who tried to reach out for a virtual drink while strapped in to the machine.
Daily Mail (U.K.) – April 19
Tuscaloosa heritage event captures city as it began to come of age
Tuscaloosa News – April 22
After an absence of six years, the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society’s heritage celebration is making a comeback in a new form, with a new name and a new focus…On Saturday several Tuscaloosa landmarks built during the era will be open to public tours, for instance Tuscaloosa City Hall, which was built in 1909 as the city’s post office. Also on Saturday area museums will offer exhibits celebrating the Golden Age, including: Turn-of-the-century football memorabilia at the Paul W. Bryant Museum, 300 Paul W. Bryant Drive; Demonstrations of electricity at 11 a.m. and baseball by University of Alabama professor Richard Megraw will be from noon-1 p.m. at the Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum, 1901 Jack Warner Parkway; The Tuscaloosa Public Library, 1801 Jack Warner Parkway, will present “A History of Broadway,” a musical examination of early musical theater and its influence on 21st century America from 2-3 p.m, with a discussion from 3-4 p.m.; Smith Hall on the UA campus will showcase early photography, and the Murphy-Collins House, 2601 Paul W. Bryant Drive, will feature an exhibit, “A Very Special Doctor.”