University of Alabama to sponsor Civil Rights photo exhibit
Al.com – May 28
A collection of photos depicting Alabama’s civil rights movement will be displayed at the University of Alabama in June, including some images never publicly viewed before. The free exhibit, running from June 3-14 in the Bryant Conference Center, is compiled from The Birmingham News archives. According to a UA press release, the exhibit includes images of leaders of the civil rights movements, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and former Gov. George Wallace’s infamous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, among others. Following UA’s display, the exhibit will travel around the state. “These images depict one of the most important times in our nation’s history that occurred right here in our state, just 50 years ago,” said Carolyn Dahl, dean of the College of Continuing Studies… The exhibit is part of the ongoing “Through the Doors” series as UA and the community commemorate the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of the university on June 11, 1963…The exhibit is jointly sponsored by the UA College of Continuing Studies, The Birmingham News and AL.com.
Symposium to highlight medicine’s role in civil rights
Crimson White – May 29
On Tuesday, The University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences will host a symposium highlighting the changes in medicine over the years. The event will be part of the University’s “Through The Doors” series, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door to honor the desegregation of the University in June 1963. The symposium will take place at the University Church of Christ, 1200 Julia Tutwiler Drive from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. While the event is free and open to the public, an RSVP is needed at events@cchs.ua.edu. Pamela Payne Foster, associate professor for the College of Community Health Sciences, said the program is different from other events and seminars because of the mentoring component that will be included at the end of the symposium. This aspect is intended to help students get motivated about going into medicine and having the confidence to try. “The program intentionally networks and mentors high school students,” Foster said. “As health professionals, it is very important to help increase diversity in the profession.”
UA business school dean Hardin named to GMAC board
Birmingham Business Journal – May 28
J. Michael Hardin, dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce at the University of Alabama, has been elected to the board of directors for the Graduate Management Admissions Council. GMAC is the organization that administers the GMAT test that is required for admission to most business schools around the world. The GMAT is taken more than 200,000 times every year. Hardin will be one of 15 representatives on the GMAC board from member schools as well as industries. Hardin has been the business school dean at UA since 2011 and recently spoke at the BBJ’s C-Suite Awards honoring the chief financial, chief operating and chief information officers of Birmingham area companies.
University Fellows travel to Black Belt region
Crimson White – May 29
For the fifth year, a group of hopeful, rising sophomores in the University Fellows Experience program descended upon the Marion community in Perry County with new ideas to impacting the lives of its residents. Located in Alabama’s impoverished Black Belt region, Marion’s citizens are united by a classic small-town sense of community but are plagued with a crippling generational poverty. It’s something Abby Paulson had to see to believe. A rising sophomore majoring in chemical engineering, Paulson was one of many students chosen to participate in the University Fellows Experience’s community service trip to Marion and was intent on making a difference…Partnering with Sowing Seeds of Hope, a nonprofit health awareness group based in Marion, Paulson helped collect data from 130 residents concerning their healthcare needs…At Francis Marion High School, Derek Carter, a rising sophomore majoring in economics, finance and math, worked with teens hardly younger than himself. Under Carter’s instruction, the kids experimented with a liquid nitrogen lab, built rockets and raced pine wood derbyars…Khortlan Patterson, a rising sophomore studying Spanish and religious studies, worked with teens on her project. After taking an African-American literature class during her freshman year, Patterson said she realized a great deal of black culture is excluded from the syllabus in traditional courses. This led her to design a course, “Deconstructing the Myth of Absence,” for eighth grade students at Francis Marion Junior High School…Other projects included inventorying the signs on Marion streets, introducing Marion High School sophomores to the college admissions process and leading service projects performed by high school juniors and seniors.
Robotic technology on the rise
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – May 28
A new report by the country’s leading roboticists finds that by 2030 – a mere 17 years from now – robots will be everywhere. They’re already in leading industries here in Alabama, including the automotive and medical fields. Researchers say robots will not only match human skills, they will likely surpass them…Kenneth Ricks is an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Alabama. Ricks says the dawn of the robot era is closer than we think. Robotic systems already have a foothold in the automotive industry, causing some concern that machines are taking jobs away from humans.
University of Alabama offering 943 class sections in June
Al.com – May 28
Some University of Alabama students returned to hit the books today as full summer class terms kicked off. Though the university offers compressed “mini-mester” classes for several weeks in May, today kicked off the traditional summer term. Students can take courses in Summer I during June or Summer II during July. Some classes span both terms. University spokeswoman Cathy Andreen said today that enrollment figures will not be available for any summer session until mid-July, but 943 sections of classes are being offered in the Summer I term and 811 will be offered during the Summer II term. The May interim term offered 144 classes. The university charges resident (or in-state) undergraduate students $395 per hour and nonresidents (or out of state) undergraduate students $965 per hour. UA scholarships do not typically cover summer tuition.
Workshop helps local youth tap creativity, curiosity
Crimson White – May 29
Every summer, the College of Education at The University of Alabama holds their Summer Enrichment Workshop for gifted and talented youth. The three-week program is held at Matthews Elementary School in Northport, Ala., in June hosting two daily sessions, each one hour and 45 minutes long. The program was started 35 years ago by Carol Schlichter as a way to provide enrichment activities for gifted students whose needs were not always being met in the classrooms. One of the directors of the program, Jane Newman, said the workshop was also started as a practicum for masters students in the College of Education.
Projects underway to revitalize, enlarge, repurpose
Crimson White – May 29
At a school where the cutting edge and the up-to-date are areas of pride, the campus of The University of Alabama is a consistent construction zone with new projects always on the horizon…Tim Leopard, assistant vice president of construction administration at the University, said there are anywhere from 12 to 15 major construction projects currently taking place on campus. The most notable include the continued construction of the second Presidential Village housing community, the renovation and repurposing of the Bryce compound, and the expansion of the Ferguson Center. The second installment of Presidential Village, and its accompanying student recreation center, is the biggest single project at the moment.
Students, groups send supplies to Oklahoma
Crimson White – May 29
Following the tornado that devastated Oklahoma last week, several Tuscaloosa and University of Alabama community members have been doing what they can to help with relief efforts, feeling a connection to their own experiences with the April 27, 2011, tornado that tore through the state of Alabama. The Silent Tide, an organization originally formed to protest the Westboro Baptist Church’s recent visit to the University, is organizing a wine and cheese benefit at Hotel Capstone to benefit tornado relief efforts in Oklahoma and Kansas, Cassandra Kaplan, a senior majoring in public relations, said. “The group was founded a week before Westboro Baptist Church came to Tuscaloosa,” Kaplan said. “[We] put together The Silent Tide as a peaceful, nonconfrontational protest for that day. We planned on this being a one-time event, but when the tornadoes happened, we decided to find a way to help.”
Education, literacy key to state health
Crimson White – May 29
In a state where 1 in 4 adults is functionally illiterate, high rates of obesity, diabetes and hospitalization may not be as arbitrary as they seem. According to the National Adult Literacy survey by Center for Health Care Strategies, 75 percent of Americans who reported having a long-term illness also had limited literacy. This means they are less likely to understand how to dictate, diagnose and treat their own symptoms … Koushik Kasanagottu, a junior at The University of Alabama and president of the Diabetes Education Team, has worked to set up several diabetes educational opportunities in the Black Belt region for residents. He said he has consistently seen better outcomes in diabetes management in areas with higher literacy rates as opposed to places with lower literacy rates, such as the Black Belt. “The people whom we serve in the Black Belt are not as educated and are on the lower socioeconomic status,” Kasanagottu said. “They usually realize they have diabetes when it’s too late, which leads to serious complications such as seizures, amputations and neuropathy.”
Retiring journalism dean sad to go, but proud of his work
OnlineAthens.com – May 28
A portrait that hangs in Culpepper “Cully” Clark’s office tells a lot about the retiring dean of the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication … His first book was about a journalist, South Carolina’s Francis Warrington Dawson. Race in the South has been another focus. His third book was called “The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at the University of Alabama.” And Clark hopes to explore the South’s recent racial history again in another book, once he finishes a centennial history of the Grady College. Clark spent more than 30 years at the University of Alabama, where he was hired as a history and communications professor as administrators there looked for a good coach for the debate team. At Alabama, Clark rose to become head of the communications department, executive assistant to the president, and then dean of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences.