UA to start adapted golf team
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – July 25
The University of Alabama is giving more students with disabilities a chance to play sports. The school is starting an adaptive golf program next year. That means it’s open to students with disabilities. People who use wheel chairs, have bad hips or knees and amputees can participate. And the golfers can learn more than fundamentals of the sport. The adaptive golf team will hold a fundraiser in the spring before competing in two tournaments sometime next year.
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – July 25
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 25
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – July 25
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 24
WSFA-NBC (Montgomery) – July 24
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Family celebrates special day with special child
Tuscaloosa News – July 26
Four years ago, Jerry and Amanda Lee moved their family to Tuscaloosa to offer their son Jonathan, who has Down syndrome, the opportunity to thrive as a preschooler. On Thursday evening, the 6-year-old was among 18 graduates of the University of Alabama’s Rise program at the Stallings Center, a preschool serving children ages 8 weeks to 5 years old with special needs and their peers without special needs. The program is part of UA’s College of Human Environmental Sciences…Every year, a few families like the Lees uproot their lives to move to Tuscaloosa so their children can attend Rise, Director Martha Cook said.
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – July 25
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – July 25
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – July 25
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 25
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Scholarship will honor longtime University of Alabama journalist
Tuscaloosa News – July 25
The University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences has announced a new scholarship honoring alumnus and longtime staff member Jim Oakley. The scholarship announcement is in conjunction with Oakley’s upcoming induction into UA’s Communication Hall of Fame, according to a release from the university. The Jim Oakley Family Scholarship, created by alumni of the college in honor of Oakley, will be a tuition scholarship awarded annually to outstanding undergraduate students participating in summer internship programs. “For 28 years it has been a real pleasure to interact with our students in helping them find their way to a rewarding future and a good life,” Oakley said. Oakley, a 1958 UA graduate who worked in newspapers before joining the college’s staff in 1985, serves as career counselor and internship placement director for the College of Communication and Information Sciences, according to the release.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 25
University of Alabama journalism professor named top educator
Tuscaloosa News – July 26
A division of the nation’s largest professional organization for journalism and mass communication educators has named University of Alabama journalism professor Wilson Lowrey its 2013 Outstanding Educator, according to a release from UA. The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s newspaper and online news division will present Lowrey with the award next month at its business/membership meeting. Lowrey is an associate professor who also serves as graduate program coordinator for the journalism department. He joined the UA faculty in 2003, according to his university profile. The award is open to any journalism professor who is a full-time faculty member of a bachelor degree-granting institution of higher education, according to the release from UA.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 25
UA media resources built into Bryant-Denny Stadium
CBS 12 (Montgomery) – July 25
University of Alabama officials say Bryant-Denny Stadium will be home to a $14.6 million media center beginning next year. School spokeswoman Cathy Andreen says university officials decided that building the 50,000 square-foot media center into the stadium was a way to ensure that all of the school’s media assets were brought under one roof. She tells the Tuscaloosa News (http://bit.ly/15ioZkp ) that consolidating the school’s media resources into one space will translate into better operational efficiency. The two-story space is expected to include studios, office and control rooms, editing suites, a conference room and more. The space will house three University of Alabama media properties: WVUA-TV, the Center for Public Television and Radio, and Crimson Tide Productions. Officials say reconfiguring the school’s media resources will also provide room for collaboration.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 25
Trussville to establish $18 million line of credit for new football stadium
Al.com – July 25
The Trussville City Council on Tuesday authorized Mayor Gene Melton to establish an $18 million line of credit for construction of a new football stadium and a road and bridge leading to the facility. The third phase of an archaeological study at the stadium site is expected to be finished early next week, said Matt Gage, Director of the Office of Archaeological Research at The University of Alabama. “The city then has to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make sure they have fulfilled all of their requirements for obtaining a permit to build the bridge and stadium,” Gage wrote in an email to AL.com today. “Both groups have been working diligently to make this as smooth a process as possible and we’ve been very fortunate to have the chance to work with them.”
Willie Reed, brave witness for a boy killed out of race hate
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – July 26
The truck was going “real fast,” Willie Reed testified, as it came down the main road near Drew, Mississippi, on an August morning. A green and white 1955 Chevrolet – that year’s model – it passed Reed as he was walking to the store, turned into a nearby plantation and parked in front of a barn. In the cab, Reed said, were four white men. In the rear were three black men, plus a fourth – a black youth hunkered down in the very back of the truck. Soon afterward, Reed said, he heard “somebody hollering” and “some licks like somebody was whipping somebody” coming from the barn. The youth in the truck was named Emmett Till, and he would not be seen alive again. The next month, the 18-year-old Reed, after braving intimidation from one of the suspects and walking through the thicket of Klansmen massed outside the courthouse, testified in open court to what he had seen and heard … “He was really the best eyewitness that they found,” David T. Beito, a historian at the University of Alabama who has written about the Till case, said Wednesday. “I don’t want to diminish the role played by the other witnesses, but his act in some sense was the bravest act of them all. He had nothing to gain. He had no family tied to Emmett Till; he didn’t know him. He was this 18-year-old kid who goes into this very hostile atmosphere.”
Author Discusses Great Mexican Migration to Chicago as part of “One Book, One Chicago” Program
Gapers Block – July 25
Author and scholar Michael Innis-Jiménez will discuss his book, Steel Barrio: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915-1940, at the Vodak-East Side branch of the Chicago Public Library, 3710 E. 106th Street, on Saturday, July 27 at 1pm. Innis-Jiménez’s presentation of Steel Barrio, a history of the thousands of Mexican-Americans who lived, worked, and formed communities in South Chicago’s steel mill neighborhoods in the 20th century, is sponsored in partnership with the Southeast Chicago Historical Society and the City’s popular “One Book, One Chicago” program…Innis-Jiménez is assistant professor and director of graduate studies at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on Latino/a immigration to the American Midwest and South, Latino/a labor, and urban studies.