University of Alabama professor’s treatment methods yield results
Tuscaloosa News – Sept. 8
A University of Alabama professor’s positive intervention methods yielded positive results for boys on the Vacca campus of the Alabama Department of Youth Services this summer. Randy Salekin, a psychology professor and clinical child psychologist, brought the components he uses for treatment at the UA Disruptive Behavioral Clinic on campus to the DYS to help more severe conduct cases. Salekin utilizes the biology behind the brain and behavior, making goals and working toward them, and positive reinforcement…The young people on the DYS Vacca campus are court-committed. They receive various services that are important to positive youth development, according to the Vacca website. The children have a variety of problems, such as defiance and conduct disorders…Within the clinic, Salekin and his team saw a lot of success in their program throughout the three assessments they gave the youths on campus.
Graduate student documents role of food culture in South
Crimson White – Sept. 9
Mark Johnson, a graduate student at The University of Alabama, will research and produce a 25- to 30-page paper on barbecue in Alabama. Johnson is a cultural historian with interests and experience in studying race, class and gender – the way “people present themselves” – and his next project will focus on a food he said relates directly to his field. “Barbecue was originally viewed as barbaric and savage, something that Europeans portrayed Native Americans as doing, so they distanced themselves from it,” Johnson said. “But then it became the food of the people, and as the country became more democratic, it soon crossed class lines that everyone from slaves to the gentry would eat. It had different meanings for different people.” Johnson’s research into barbecue’s cultural impact is part of a larger project on Alabama foodways being overseen by Joshua Rothman, a UA history professor and director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South. “I think [barbecue is] something people still particularly associate with the South; it’s not unique to one race or culture, and it’s something that in the last 20-30 years has become a phenomenon that has really blown outside the boundaries of the South,” Rothman said.
Bryant Museum to celebrate Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant’s 100th birthday
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Sept. 6
The Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa is sprucing up for a big birthday bash. Sept. 11 would have marked Paul “Bear” Bryant’s 100th birthday. The museum is preparing for brand new Bryant exhibits, as well the release of a new book and a documentary about the legendary Alabama football coach.
WAKA (Montgomery) – Sept. 6
New sentencing guidelines to impact non-violent offenders
Dothan Eagle – Sept. 7
Under a new sentencing guideline system, which officially goes into effect the first of next month, a 32-year-old Dothan man faced a lighter sentence for the felony drug charges he recently pleaded guilty to in court…Joseph Colquitt, chairman of the Alabama sentencing commission, called the purpose of the guidelines a means to eliminate unwarranted sentencing disparity. Colquitt, who is a retired judge and law professor at the University of Alabama, wrote in an e-mail, history shows that like offenders committing like offenses may well be punished by the imposition of significantly different sentences. “Sentences imposed by different judges or in different places or at different times, or prosecuted by different prosecutors quite commonly are ‘ different,’” Colquitt wrote. “In non-structured settings, sentences for like crimes by like offenders can range from the very lenient to the very severe. The goal of structured sentencing is to eliminate unwarranted disparity and create more uniformity while permitting discretion if factors warrant different sentences.”
Big sale to benefit Rise Center
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Sept. 6
It’s called “Buy for Rise, and the money raised goes to the Rise School on the University of Alabama campus. People who are familiar with the Rise School say there’s nothing else out there quite like it. The school is a mix of children with and without special needs, and those children learn in the classroom together.
Tuscaloosa’s VA Medical Center holds welcome home celebration
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Sept. 8
Everything from step shows, to music, to moon bounces, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were welcomed home with a big family picnic…Shane Thomas served in Iraq and is now back in Tuscaloosa attending the University of Alabama. He helped out with a group called Red White Blue, aimed at helping new veterans. “We got to spread our word a little bit, got to try and recruit some people, and hopefully get some more people going as far as our next activities going on,” he said. “You don t really get the feeling of taking little stuff for granted, like being able to go down the street to Wendy’s to go get a frosty or anything like that, till it gets to the point that you can’t do it for a long time.”
Library brings ‘Shoutin’ author to Forsyth County
NorthFulton.com – Sept. 8
Forsyth County readers who participated in a countywide initiative will get to hear from the author on Sept. 17. Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling non-fiction author Rick Bragg will discuss his work at the Lanier Tech Forsyth Conference Center, 3410 Ronald Reagan Boulevard in Cumming. Bragg’s discussion of his book is a part of the countywide program, Forsyth Reads Together, in which a book is chosen to be read with the goal of starting a conversation on literature in the community…Bragg wrote for the New York Times, where he was awarded his Pulitzer, and has authored four other non-fiction books in his career. He now works as a writing professor at the University of Alabama.
Fashion and football
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Sept. 9
Are you looking to learn a bit more about fashion and football? Well the ladies of the Houndstooth may be able to give you a lesson. The Tuscaloosa chapter of the Alumni Association hosted their first annual Ramma Jamma Bama Glama event today, in honor of the late coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s 100th birthday. The Ladies of the Houndstooth hosted more than 18 vendors today and all the money raised at this event will go to a scholarship fund for the University of Alabama.