UA students drawing up plans for old mill office
Gadsden Times – Oct. 15
A dilapidated office building on an overgrown lot is the last remaining trace of the cotton mill that turned Cordova into a boom town at the turn of the 20th century. It has been decades since anyone other than vandals and wildlife showed an interest in it. However, students enrolled in Advanced Residential Design at the University of Alabama have spent the past several weeks documenting every square inch of the building in hopes that it can be given a new purpose in the city’s long-term recovery plan. They are developing measured drawings of the office in its current condition as well as potential designs for a library if the structure were one day restored. Another group of seniors taking the same course are making blueprints of Higgins TV Sales & Service on Burlington Avenue. Students will be creating plans for a business incubator in that building, which is located adjacent to Main Street but will not be part of the proposed downtown demolition. Instructor Michelle Lee said the set of plans that her students will be submitting to city leaders and the owners of Higgins TV will follow the federal standards written by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “We don’t sugarcoat anything,” Lee said. “So many times this act of documentation is tied into grants for refurbishment. Doing an accurate job of reporting what it looks like can sometimes even affect how much money is awarded for the grant.”
IPR ramps up with employee engagement research center for business leaders and academics
Individual.com – Oct. 15
Business leaders and academics focused on internal communications, employee engagement and organizational behavior now have a consolidated source for research-based knowledge as the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) Commission on Organizational Communication has launched its free online research center at instituteforpr.org/orgcomm. According to a release, the site editors are Bruce Berger, Ph.D., professor of advertising and public relations at the University of Alabama, and Lan Ye, doctoral student at the University of Alabama. Business leaders and academics can use the site to interact and comment on the research, how they will use it and what further research they would like to see. The bank of studies available through the research center cover such topics as measuring employee engagement; the link between leadership style, communicator competence and employee satisfaction; the impact of employee communication and perceived external prestige on organizational identification; and an examination of employee “silence” and the lack of upward communication.
Bentley’s wife, sororities plan UA’s Hope Week
Crimson White – Oct. 15
Alabama’s first lady, Dianne Bentley, and national sororities are coming together to celebrate Hope Week. Hope Week, which took place from Oct. 7-13, is a weeklong initiative to bring awareness of domestic violence on college campuses across the state. Bentley is featured in a PSA circulating around Alabama that promotes HopeLine, a Verizon Wireless-sponsored program that collects abandoned cell phones and turns them into lifelines for victims…She has also partnered with Alpha Chi Omega and Alpha Kappa Alpha chapters throughout the state during Hope Week. Alpha Chi Omega at the University will host its third annual “Walk in Her Shoes” event on Oct. 18 at 4:30 p.m., where men race in heels to support domestic violence awareness. The money raised from the event will go to Turning Point, a local shelter for women and children.
UA students lead ARTS workshops
Crimson White – Oct. 15
Arts Renaissance, a program offered at Woodland Forest and Matthews elementary schools, is looking to recruit new volunteers from The University of Alabama. ARTS is led by New College associate professor of anthropology Marysia Galbraith and is offered to students from kindergarten to fifth grade. It aims to share the creative resources generated at the University with Tuscaloosa elementary schools by presenting them with arts-related workshops. The program partners with Kentuck, a nonprofit community arts organization based in Northport. Volunteers may choose from a list of workshops that include dance, creative writing, decoupage and pottery making. Workshops are generally 30-60 minutes long and are held during the regular school day, usually from 12:30-2 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. Student volunteers can apply to earn credit through New College and can participate for as few as three hours. They can earn significantly more credit, however, by developing their own workshop.
University of Alabama’s Mackenzie Soldan wins national wheelchair tennis championship
Al.com – Oct. 14
It may not be surprising what Mackenzie Soldan thinks is the best part of her tennis game. What was surprising, at least to the University of Alabama junior, was that she won the Tier I singles crown at the USTA/ITA National Collegiate Wheelchair Championships on Sunday. “I was surprised,” Soldan said after receiving her trophy at the Copeland-Cox Tennis Center. “I had to forfeit my match (Saturday) morning because I was sick. I knew if I beat Pedro (Rocha), it would be a three-way tie, and I didn’t know how they were going to calculate who won. But they went by sets, and that made the winner.” Just another example of overcoming the odds for Soldan, who was given a terminal diagnosis as an infant. “I’d say my fight, I think, coming from being down – that’s my strong point,” the 20-year-old said when asked to evaluate her game. A spinal-cord tumor when she was 1 left Soldan paralyzed from the waist down…Soldan said she’d been playing wheelchair tennis for about 11 years, highlighted by representing the United States at the London Paralympics in singles and doubles play earlier this year. But tennis isn’t Soldan’s first athletic love: The Michigan native plays on the women’s wheelchair basketball team at Alabama…Soldan said she was beginning to see how her athletic efforts could influence other people in similar circumstances. “Recently, I started thinking about how I’m a role model for other people,” she said. “I just go live my life the way it works for me, and I hope others in wheelchairs find what they like to do and pursue it heavily. “I think you can do whatever you want to do if you put your mind to it, and that’s what I’ve done. So I really hope others see that in me, I guess — that anything’s possible.” What isn’t going to be possible, though, Soldan said, is catching a break for winning the national championship: At 6:30 a.m. Monday, she’ll be at basketball practice as Alabama prepares to open the season on Oct. 20.
Lingyte in wheelchair tennis title game
Tuscaloosa News – Oct. 14
Karolina Lingyte, a University of Alabama senior, will play Kate Stuteville of Arizona in the championship game at noon today at the USTA National Collegiate Wheelchair Tennis Championships. Lingyte defeated Malcom Wright from Texas-Arlington, 6-2, 6-7, 10-8, on Saturday. Also Saturday, Elisha Williams, a UA graduate student, defeated Phil Peabody 6-2, 6-3, and UA senior Cindy Ouellet defeated Jonic Binda 6-2, 6-3. Williams and Ouellet will play each other for fifth place at 9 this morning. Earlier Saturday, Lingyte beat Williams, 6-1, 6-2; Ouellet lost to Ricardo Lucien from Texas-Arlington, 6-1, 3-6, 10-7; and UA sophomore Maude Jacques fell to Juan Soto 6-1, 6-0 in a consolation match.
Leaders to be honored for work
Tuscaloosa News – Oct. 13
Five longtime community leaders will be inducted Oct. 30 into the 2012 class of the Tuscaloosa County Civic Hall of Fame…Timothy Mize Parker Jr….is on the president’s cabinet at the University of Alabama and is a member of the board of visitors of the Culverhouse School of Business…Catherine Johnson Randall…is a director of the University of Alabama Honors Program…
UA theatre department presents “Side Man”
Crimson White – Oct. 15
The University of Alabama’s Department of Theatre and Dance is set to perform the 1999 Tony Award-winning play “Side Man” by Warren Leight. “Side Man,” directed by Stacy Alley, assistant professor of musical theatre and dance, recounts the life of the main character, Clifford Glimmer. The play relates his life before he was born, highlighting how his parents’ relationship developed and devolved in accordance with the jazz industry. “Side Man” is a memory play, meaning the characters bounce back between the present and the past, between the 1950s and the 1980s. Clifford is the narrator of the play, giving voice to these events as they happen. “It’s a memory play from Clifford’s perspective, watching the characters around him as their lives unfold. He’s watching his parents’ relationship and the demise of it,” said sophomore Jacob Valleroy, who plays Clifford in the play…“Side Man” will be shown in the Marian Galloway Theatre Oct. 15-20 at 7:30 p.m. there will also be a showing on Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.
Al.com – Oct.12
Alberto Gonzalez to speak at UA
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – Oct. 14
Two well known Republicans will be coming to Alabama on Tuesday: Former U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, and former Alabama congressman Artur Davis will be speaking at different events. Gonzalez, who served under Bush, will be speaking to the Cumberland School of Law at Samford in the afternoon. Then it’s off to the University of Alabama School of Law that night.
Rick Bragg visits
The News Star (La.) – Oct. 14
Author Rick Bragg will be the guest speaker at the Friends of the Lafayette Parish Library’s annual Author Dinner on Oct. 25…Rick Bragg is a contributing editor to Southern Living magazine and a professor of writing at the University of Alabama. In 1996, he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for his stories about contemporary America. His books include “All Over But the Shoutin’,” “Ava’s Man” and “The Prince of Frogtown.”
GUEST COLUMN: When the state controls religion
Tuscaloosa News – Oct. 14
In an earlier column, I discussed what happens when religion controls the state, or theocracy. But the state sometimes controls religion. Two examples, one from fascism and one from communism, show that it’s often not very pretty. The first is Adolph Hitler’s Germany, or from about the early 1920s to 1945. The second is right in our own strategic “backyard,” Fidel Castro’s Cuba, from 1959 to now. The common theme for both is how to fit religion into the calculus of political power. And, in each instance, religion was either a competitor for power to be eliminated or reduced to obedience, or religion was co-opted. Much of Hitler’s barbarity was done in the name of Christianity, or was sold to the Germans as perfectly consistent with Christianity. That gross manipulation of Christianity seems astounding to us today, but millions of Germans bought into Hitler’s decision to exterminate the Jews because of his perverse reading of history. And this was done in the country that gave us Martin Luther, the acknowledged father of the Protestant Reformation. Christians who protested, such as the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were executed. (Larry Clayton is a professor of history at the University of Alabama.)