‘Stand in the Schoolhouse Door’ to be marked by prayer breakfast, community program
Al.com – June 3
Fifty years after then Gov. George Wallace’s infamous “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” and the desegregation of the University of Alabama, the school will honor the actions of the first two black undergraduate students at the institution with two public events. “Through the Doors: Courage. Change. Progress.” will recognize the actions of Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood, the first two black undergraduates to enroll at the Capstone on June 11, 1963…An interfaith prayer breakfast will be held Friday, June 7, before the commemorative program on June 11. The prayer breakfast, scheduled for 7:30 a.m. at Sellers Auditorium in the Bryant Conference Center, is free and open to the public, though the university is requesting those planning to attend to register today.
Tuscaloosa News – June 2
Gadsden Times – June 2
Associated Press – June 2
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – June 2
UA men’s golf team makes history with first title
Tuscaloosa News – June 3
The University of Alabama men’s golf team returned home with the first national championship in program history Sunday after emerging from a field of 30 qualifying teams over six days to win the NCAA Golf Championship at the Capital City Club Crabapple Course in Milton, Ga. UA defeated Illinois 4-1 in the match play championship round. After three days of stroke play earlier in the week, the Crimson Tide reached weekend match play among eight finalists, defeating New Mexico on Friday, Georgia Tech on Saturday and Illinois on Sunday to win the title. When the team bus arrived at the team’s facility at Ol’ Colony Golf Complex, UA senior Scott Strohmeyer left the bus with the NCAA trophy in hand. “It’s still shocking,” UA coach Jay Seawell said. “We’ve been a contender for a while, so to win it shows the resilience of the players and shows that we are a powerhouse. The trophy doesn’t define who you are. (The UA men’s golf team has) done something no one else has done before here in golf. Their legacy will be here in stone.”
Gadsden Times – June 3
TideSports.com – June 3
DeKalb Times Journal – June 3
WKRG-CBS (Mobile) – June 2
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – June 2
Eating Alabama premieres on PBS Plus July 1, 2013
ITVS.org – June 3
Eating Alabama tells the story of a young couple who return to their home state and set out to eat the way their grandparents did – seasonally and locally. But after they’ve driven nearly 800 miles criss-crossing Alabama in search of a balanced meal, they realize that everything about the food system has changed since their grandparents left the farm. This dynamic documentary about the local food movement is never overly didactic. Instead, it’s an accessible and often hilarious meditation on community, the South and sustainability. Directed by Andrew Beck Grace, Eating Alabama will have its premiere on PBS beginning on July 1, 2013 (check local listings). Andrew Beck Grace is an independent documentary filmmaker born and raised in north Alabama. His films have aired on PBS and played at film festivals across the country. At the University of Alabama he teaches and oversees a unique interdisciplinary social justice documentary program called Documenting Justice.
UA collecting gift cards for Oklahoma storm victims
Tuscaloosa News – May 31
A campus-wide gift card drive to benefit survivors of the Moore, Okla., tornado has been organized at the University of Alabama. UA’s Student Government Association and its Community Service Center are sponsoring the drive in a partnership with City Care, a nonprofit organization in Oklahoma City. UA students, staff and faculty members are encouraged to buy gift cards from retailers with locations nationwide. The gift cards can be dropped off at the Community Service Center, 346 Ferguson Center. City Care will collect the gift cards and distribute them to storm survivors. Contact the Community Service Center by calling 205-348-5586 or emailing volunteer@ua.edu.
SummerTide production celebrates the music of Alabama
Pensacola News Journal – May 31
The University of Alabama’s Department of Theatre and Dance has brought professional musical theatre productions to the George C. Meyer Performing Arts Center in Gulf Shores, Ala., for the past 10 years. This year’s production is titled “Jubilee — Songs of and About Alabama,” and it opens a four-week run tonight. Performances are each Tuesday through Sunday, beginning at 8 p.m. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing and reviewing several of these SummerTide shows over the past decade, including “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Godspell” and “Smokey Joe’s Café.” Each has been superbly staged and performed at a genuinely professional level by the University of Alabama students. This really is first-class summer stock theatre. If you are a Northwest Florida resident, the drive to Gulf Shores is quick and easy, and SummerTide makes the journey well worthwhile.
Becoming the big biz on campus
Birmingham Business Journal – May 31
With 1.7 million students projected to graduate from college in 2013, an entire new workforce is entering the job market. As a prospective employer, appropriately marketing your company to the college demographic is as important as ever. Is your company ready? Here are three best practices for building name recognition for your company and creating a collegiate talent pipeline that will pay dividends for years to come. Travis Railsback, director of the career center at the University of Alabama, said companies who use this technique are at an advantage. “The companies who have the strongest appeal are those who have hired our students in the past. There is no bigger endorsement for a company than that of a student or graduate sharing their positive experience as an intern or employee in an organization,” he said.
MY TURN: Slow the addition of headstones at Arlington
Tuscaloosa News – May 30
Today, as this is being written, is Memorial Day 2013. The day has been commemorated from local observances to the presidential wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery. Even comic strip characters have paused from humor to remember the nation’s war dead. After witnessing — in person or on television — some of the ceremonies, it remains for us to probe the questions: Why war? Why not peace? War is a three-letter word, a dirty word more obscene than any four-letter word. Or in the famous (infamous?) words of an American Civil War general, “War is hell!” Nations and leaders of nations have repeatedly demonstrated the opinion that the dirty work, the hell, is worth the suffering it brings. A contrarian observation has been that war should only be declared by a majority vote of mothers of draft-age sons and daughters. (Frank Deaver is a retired University of Alabama journalism professor.)
UA theatre department founder retiring
Beaumont Enterprise (Texas) – June 1
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” — George Bernard Shaw Ed Williams founded the University of Alabama Department of Theatre and Dance in 1979. Now he’s leaving it. In between those moments, four decades passed. Most of a life happened. Shortly after the Saturday night, April 20, performance of “Show Boat,” which Williams, 69, directed as his last official faculty show on the Marian Gallaway Theatre stage, friends, family, students and others gathered to celebrate Williams at nearby Morgan Auditorium. They included John Ross, who once taught him as an undergrad, Bill Teague, who succeeded him as chair of the department, and John Nara, a second-year graduate student, one of Williams’ last directing students.