UA student projects awarded grants for storm recovery efforts
AL.com – Nov. 11
Three teams University of Alabama honors students have been selected as winners in a competition to fund service projects that will aid in recovery efforts related to the April 27 tornado. Receiving up to $15,000 in funding are: The Tornado EDU project, which proposed the creation of a required online education program to educate UA students on tornado safety. Recycle Tuscaloosa, Recycle, which plans to launch a recycling program in area schools in a partnership with UA Recycling and the City of Tuscaloosa. Plan First, which plans to create a service-learning course to train students as city volunteers. In the first year, students will be trained on zoning and building codes in order to serve as liaisons between Tuscaloosa business and property owners and the city.
University of Alabama student’s focus on fashion to help April 27 storm survivors
Birmingham News – Nov. 9
A University of Alabama student is using her flair for fashion to help survivors of the April 27 tornadoes. Abigail Hardin, a senior in the College of Human Environmental Services, will put on an Ann Taylor LOFT fashion show Thursday night in Tuscaloosa. For every show attendee who pre-registered via email for the show, Marie Claire magazine will donate $10 toProject Blessings, a Tuscaloosa-based nonprofit organization that helps low-income homeowners repair their homes. Project Blessings is currently helping Tuscaloosa County residents affected by the April 27 tornadoes. Already, the agency has helped 30 families and has a growing waiting list.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Nov. 10
Veterans Day observance ceremony to be held at Gorgas
Crimson White – Nov. 10
The Student Government Association and Campus Veterans Association will host a memorial on Nov. 11, Veterans Day, to honor military and veterans at The University of Alabama. The ceremony will be held in front of the Gorgas Library at the Flagpoles. Armed service veterans, their families and currently serving military members will be guests of honor at this special event. UA currently has 922 students who are veterans, service members and dependents.
Review: UA production shows obvious affection for noir style
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 11
The musical comedy “City of Angels” knocks it dead, with the book by Larry Gelbart, an old pro who wrote for everything from TV’s “Your Show of Shows” to “M*A*S*H” to films such as “Tootsie” and “Oh, God.”…In the University of Alabama production, they show an obvious affection for the style. The rhythms are mostly right on, the look cool, the music swinging and the singers smokin’ hot. Director Karen Baker, with music director Raphael Crystal and scene, light and costume designers Joshua Whitt, Tony Johnson and Brian Elliott, built an Art Deco world of smoke, sight and sound, textured and layered like classic noir, finding the palette of available shadows between black and white. Technically, the two worlds of “City of Angels” — it’s played side-by-side as the script for a film and the real-life trials of the writer — is only partially in monochrome, but Johnson works subtly with textures where the real world blends into the reel.
Theatre Tuscaloosa brings ‘Spelling Bee’ to town
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 11
Spelling bees are to the bookish what football is to jocks. While musical comedies set on the gridiron are thin on the ground, unless you count “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” or the Marx Brothers’ “Horse Feathers,” wordsmiths have the Broadway hit “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which Theatre Tuscaloosa opens tonight. . . . “It is a lot of fun,” said Stacy Alley, assistant professor of music theater and dance at the University of Alabama, who’s directing. She’s worked with Theatre Tuscaloosa frequently, including playing the lead in “Peter Pan” in 2003 and choreographing this summer’s musical comedy “The Drowsy Chaperone.”
Alabama county has filed largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy
Los Angeles Times – Nov. 11
For months, they labored to cut a deal with their creditors. But $4 billion is a deep hole to negotiate out of. And so, with a settlement seemingly out of reach, Jefferson County, Ala., relented this week, and now is tagged with a long-dreaded superlative: On Tuesday, it filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. . . . Robert Brooks, a finance professor at the University of Alabama, predicted that the filing would end up working in the county’s favor. In the out-of-court settlement talks, an Alabama municipality was facing off against powerful banking entities, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., a major creditor that in Brooks’ estimation the county had good reason not to trust. JPMorgan reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission after being accused of pay-to-play schemes related to refinancing deals. Brooks likened the settlement talks to the University of Alabama playing a high school football team. Now, with a federal judge overseeing the matter, Jefferson County will at least have a referee.
Alabama’s anti-immigrant law forces lawyers to choose between their ethics and the law
Hispanically Speaking News – Nov. 11
HB 56, Alabama’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, already threatens undocumented immigrant’s ability to live in their own homes, access utilities in their homes, or even receive library cards. . . . Sections 5 and 6 of Alabama’s law says “an officer of a court” cannot block the enforcement of immigration laws by “limiting communication between its officers and federal immigration officials.” Because the law interprets “an officer of a court” to include lawyers, attorneys worry this means officials could force them to turn over information about their clients despite the clients’ right to attorney-client privilege. . . . Susan Pace Hamill, an ethics professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, said reassurance that the state bar would not pursue ethical charges against lawyers for following the immigration law is little comfort. “That doesn’t cut the mustard for an attorney with integrity,” Hamill said. “Without attorney-client confidentiality, there is no effective legal representation.”
4 Shelton State students participate in space project
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Nov. 10
Four students from Shelton State Community College have been selected as recipients of $1,500 grants from the Alabama Space Grant Consortium (ASGC) to participate in a yearlong research project in conjunction with the University of Alabama. Chosen to participate are Mark Amason, a freshman from Northport, Alabama, majoring in chemical engineering; Justin Baker, a freshman from Buhl, Alabama, majoring in electrical engineering; Blake Dobbs, a sophomore from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, majoring in aerospace engineering; and Dalen Mullenix, a freshman from Gordo, Alabama, majoring in electrical engineering.