Board signs off on Bell’s nomination: Bell to focus on research, recruitment as president
Crimson White – June 24
The first night Stuart Bell and his wife Susan were in Tuscaloosa, they had a late dinner before deciding to walk around the campus. The two made their way to the Quad where they saw two or three groups of students still hanging around after classes. They talked with a couple of students along the sidewalk. “It really felt right, and it felt really good to be back on campus,” Bell said. Bell, who was confirmed by the Board of Trustees on Thursday, June 18, as the next University of Alabama president effective July 15, spent 16 years at the University. He started as an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and worked his way up to head of the department. After 13 years away from Tuscaloosa, with stints at the University of Kansas and LSU, Bell is back. “I have always watched Alabama, because you know their programs well and you always want the institutions you’ve been at to continue to do well, and really, Alabama has done great through the expansion programs and the leadership that took Alabama to where it is today,” Bell said. “It’s been a great story.”
Three Birmingham CEOs inducted into Alabama’s business hall of fame
Birmingham Business Journal – June 23
Children’s of Alabama CEO Mike Warren, Buffalo Rock CEO Jimmy Lee III, and Arlington Properties Chairman CEO William Hulsey have been inducted into the 2015 Alabama Business Hall of Fame at the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce. They are both among the Birmingham Business Journal’s list of most influential executives. Warren practiced law with Bradley, Arant, Rose & White for 12 years before joining Alabama Gas in 1983. He became president of Alagasco in 1984 and was named president and CEO of Energen in 1997.
Boy Finds Rare Fossil, Gulf Coast Zoo Camp
Alabama Public Radio – June 23
A 12-year-old boy from Bay Minette, Alabama, recently discovered a rare fossil in Greene County. The University of Alabama says Aiden Taylor was on a week-long trip with the university’s Museum Expedition when he found a fossil of a reptile that roamed the planet millions of years ago. But the fossil is not technically part of a dinosaur. Dr. Dana Ehret, Curator of Paleontology for the university museum, says it is a neck vertebra of an Elasmosaurus. That was a large marine reptile with a long neck and paddles for front and hind limbs that lived near the end of the dinosaur age, from 90 million to 65 million years ago. Ehret says Elasmosaurus fossils are particularly rare, and the vertebra is definitely part of the same specimen another middle school student found in the same area two years ago. He says they were specifically looking for more vertebra in that area.
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – June 23
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – June 23
Phys.org – June 23
CBS 12 (Chattanooga, Tenn.) – June 23
Computer science booming in Alabama
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – June 23
Alabama is leading the nation in bringing computer science courses to the classroom. In fact, teachers are going back to school to learn how to instruct students in computer science. This is the third year for computer science training for teachers at the University of Alabama campus. 22 new schools are part of the training. These teachers know computer science is a fast growing industry, especially in Alabama. Nidia Fernandez-Lee teaches at Shades Valley High School in Jefferson County. This will be her first year teaching computer science. “I have no previous computer programming background,” she says. “This year, I am teaching a class that Alabama is offering called CS principles or computer science principles, which will soon become an (advanced placement) class.” Fernandez is one of nearly two dozen teachers at the University of Alabama campus this week, learning the basics of computer science education. “They’ve really given me an idea of what I’m going to be teaching,” said Fernandez-Lee. “It’s fabulous to know that what I’m going to be teaching is something the kids can apply immediately, they can relate it to the real world.”
Senkbeil comments on heat index
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – June 23
Jason Senkbeil is a climatologist at The University of Alabama. “The heat index is a formula derived to estimate the combined effects of intense heat and also humidity. And if the heat index is over 100 like it is today, watch your outdoor activity. Just be smart about it.”
EcoCAR 3: Year 1 update
Crimson White – June 23
Since last September, students participating in an advanced vehicle technology contest have been working on turning a Chevrolet Camaro into a hybrid vehicle. The contest, EcoCAR 3, involves teams from 16 universities, including The University of Alabama. EcoCAR 3, sponsored by the Department of Energy and General Motors and managed by Argonne National Laboratory, just finished its first year of competition. The University’s team received numerous awards while competing in Seattle throughout the past year. “The team received seven awards, including four first place awards,” said Brittany Galloway, the communications manager of EcoCAR 3, and a second-year graduate student studying advertising and public relations. She said the team learned from the competition this year and is striving to place higher next year. After the first year, the UA team was named the “Team to Watch,” and also placed first for its media relations report, outreach
presentation, Clean Cities Coalition Outreach Initiative and for executing the most creative outreach event.
These accolades assisted in
placing the team in the top half of
the competition.
Interns learn 3-D printing techniques: 3-D printing certification offered at Rodgers Library
Crimson White – June 24
Fourteen students met in Rodgers Library last Friday to learn about the basics of 3-D printing and to watch The University of Alabama’s professional equipment begin to create real models of molecules. Vincent Scalfani, an assistant professor and science and engineering librarian, led the participants in an informational session on the topic of 3-D printing, utilizing a computer lab called Scholars’ Station located in the back of Rodgers Library. “3-D printing is an additive
manufacturing process,” Scalfani said … Lydia Eubanks, a junior majoring in mathematics, said she plans to use 3-D printing in her future classrooms. “As a future math teacher, I would love to use my new understanding of the concept of 3-D printing in order to give my students a better understanding of how math can be used in the real world through interesting technologies like 3-D printing,” Eubanks said. Eubanks, along with the other participants, is a part of the Noyce summer internship program, an annual internship available to students interested in applying to become Noyce Scholars, the official designation for a student who has been granted funds from the $1.5 million grant awarded to the University by the National Science Foundation.
CERN Large Hadrow Collider Recommissioned
Crimson White – June 24
On June 3, the world of physics took a great leap forward. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, started delivering data for the first time in over two years. Since the shutdown and months of recommissioning, the LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, is now providing collisions to all of its experiments at the unprecedented energy of 13 TeV, almost double the collision energy of its first run,
according to a CERN release. “With the LHC back in collision-production mode, we celebrate the end of two months of beam commissioning,” said Frederick Bordry, CERN Director of Accelerators and Technology. “It is a great accomplishment and a rewarding moment for all of the teams involved in the work performed during the long shutdown of the LHC, in the powering tests and in the beam commissioning process. All these people have dedicated so much of their time to making this happen.” Two University of Alabama assistant professors of physics and astronomy, Paolo Rumerio and Conor Henderson, were working on the LHC when the
collisions happened. “These record high energy collisions will open up a new chapter in the story of particle physics,” Henderson said. “After discovering the Higgs boson already at the LHC, we hope these even higher energy collisions may reveal to us evidence for something new, perhaps supersymmetry or extra dimensions of space.”
Music therapy students work outside school
Crimson White – June 23
When the word therapy is mentioned, many people think of physical rehabilitation. But at The University of Alabama and other universities across the nation, students are studying a different type of therapeutics. Alabama is part of a growing group of universities that offers a program in music therapy. According to its website, the American Music Therapy Association defines music therapy as “the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.” Ellary Draper, an assistant professor of music therapy at Alabama, said music therapy can be used as a tool for improving speech, fine motor skills or even walking. “Occasionally we have a musical goal, but generally we’re focusing on the non-musical goal,” Draper said. ”[As a music therapist] I’m not so concerned that a child is singing on pitch, I’m concerned that they’re singing the word correctly. I’m not so concerned that an older adult is playing an instrument correctly, but that they’re approximating that range of motion that their physical therapist has said ‘we need to work on this.’”
Museum Expedition offers summer camps
Crimson White – June 24
Students traveled from all corners of the country to take part in a scientific summer camp hosted by the Alabama Museum of Natural History over the last two weeks. High school and middle school students from all across country traveled down to Greene County, Alabama, to take part in the expedition, which was “an effort to provide hands-on scientific field research in the areas of paleontology, archaeology and practical ecology.” The museum expedition was designed to offer the participant an opportunity to work side-by-side with professional researchers on an actual field project,” according to the camp’s website. The camp consisted of the two one-week terms, with the first week open to middle school students and the second week open to high school students. The camp was founded in 1979 and continues to provide a quality hands-on scientific experience to students. Dana Ehret, a paleontologist at the University of Alabama, helped lead the camp over the span of two weeks guiding a group of nearly 20 students during each week on the field. The days consisted of extensive all-day digging in known fossil bearing fields in Greene County and lectures during the night covering paleontological topics.
Frederick experiences Peru
Crimson White – June 24
(Editor’s note: In each issue this summer, The Crimson White will publish a column written by a student who is studying abroad in order to share their experiences in a foreign country.) Cusco, Peru, is a truly incredible place and I’ve been lucky to study here for the past three weeks with a UA affiliate program, CISabroad. My program consists of six U.S. credit hours, three for Spanish and three for an elective of your choice ranging from Business in Latin America, to Photography, to Contemporary Peruvian Culture and Society, which I am taking through the University of San Ignacio de Loyola at the satellite campus here in Cusco. The language and culture I am learning about in my classes surround me. For example the Qorikancha, or the Incan temple of the sun that the Spanish conquistadores built a church on top of, is just down the street from my University. By far the most rewarding part of my experience studying abroad is living with a host family. Not only does it challenge and improve my Spanish daily, but it enhances my Peruvian experience. I have a cute little sister and rabbit named Ponpon here, and I get to see how everyday life really is in Cusco. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m eating my host mom’s delicious homemade flan as I write this.