Category: News

Articles about news in the College, from student and faculty accomplishments to research advances, new academic programs, and the impact of giving.


Anthropology Graduate Student Finds Rare Research Experience on Creighton Island

Cayla Colclasure uses new equipment on Creighton Island.

From the November 2017 Desktop News | If there’s anything anthropology graduate student Cayla Colclasure has discovered in her research, it’s that studying those who have gone before us is an important part of moving forward. Alongside her mentor, Dr. Elliot Blair, Colclasure is doing just that in a revolutionary way on Creighton Island, a privately-owned island in McIntosh County, Georgia. The pair is utilizing an upgraded piece of equipment to gather information from Creighton about indigenous communities from the Mississippian […]

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UA Museums Receive Competitive Grant

Dr. Dana Ehret

From the November 2017 Desktop News | Drs. John Abbott and Dana Ehret of UA Museums have been awarded $23,000 from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The grant, from the highly competitive “Museums for America” program, will allow them to move forward with the rehousing and digitizing of the UA Museums’ invertebrate paleontological collection. “Many of these specimens are still housed in the containers they were originally collected in over 100 years ago (such as cigar boxes) and […]

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Q&A: Forbes No. 1 Ranked Instructor Douglas Klutz

From the November 2017 Desktop News | A September article in Forbes named University of Alabama instructor Douglas Klutz as the top professor in the United States. In a nationwide poll conducted last month, college students voted for their favorite professors on RateMyProfessors.com. Out of the 1.7 million professors from more than 7,500 colleges on the site, one stood above all the rest: Klutz, the internship and advising director and a full-time criminal justice instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama. […]

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Comb Jellies Possibly First Lineage to Branch Off Evolutionary Tree

Kevin Kocot

From the November 2017 Desktop News | A researcher at The University of Alabama was part of a new study that provides further evidence in support of a controversial hypothesis that a group of marine animals commonly called comb jellies were the first to break away from all other animals, making it the oldest surviving animal lineage. Dr. Kevin M. Kocot, UA assistant professor in biological sciences and curator of invertebrate zoology in the Alabama Museum of Natural History, is a co-author […]

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UA to Launch Inaugural Crowdfunding Campaign

From the November 2017 Desktop News | Saturdays at the Capstone would not be the same without the show-stopping performance and enthusiastic energy that exudes from Bryant-Denny Stadium when the Million Dollar Band takes the field. Now the 400-member organization that provides the rhythm of the game hopes to enhance its sound with the help of a new digital philanthropy tool. On November 17, the University will launch UA Crowdfunding—an online fundraising platform used to generate support for the Capstone by connecting […]

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A&S in the News: November 5-11, 2017

Visiting Writers Series Author T Cooper to speak to students: Crimson White – Nov. 5 Who: T Cooper is the author of six novels and has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, CNN.com, OPRAH magazine and many more. What: A free event where T Cooper will be speaking about his novels and time as an author … Anyone interested in writing or reading is encouraged to go to this free event hosted by the College of Arts and […]

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Water Matters

  At the first SEC Campus Water Matters Challenge, a team of UA students took home the gold. Dr. Sagy Cohen, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, said the main criteria for the competition was water sustainability. The students were also supposed to take climate change effects into consideration and make sure the project was linked to current or planned developments at the university. To adhere to these criteria, Cohen said the students worked with associate vice president […]

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A&S in the News: October 29-November 4, 2017

Supremacist Rallies Roadshow of hate: Travelers fuel rallies: New York Times – Oct. 29 White nationalist and provocateur Richard Spencer had left the University of Florida on Oct. 19 when the day’s most serious trouble erupted just beyond the campus … “My general take is that the number of people who are highly motivated and dedicated to this stuff are relatively small in number,” said George Hawley, who teaches political science at The University of Alabama and is the author of […]

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Coping Power

Being pushed against a locker, tripped in the hallway, or blamed by a teacher for something you didn’t do would be enough to make anyone angry. But according to Dr. John Lochman’s Coping Power program, feeling anger isn’t necessarily the problem—acting out because of anger is. “In the past, psychology clinicians often saw aggressive conduct problems as willfulness or defiance,” said Dr. Nicole Powell, an associate research scientist in the Department of Psychology who does research with the Coping Power […]

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True Grit

Caroline James

The circumstances of Caroline James’s childhood made a college education look like a fantasy. Until she was placed in foster care as a 10‑year‑old, her home was filled with drug addiction, schizophrenia, and physical and emotional abuse. She recalls being burnt with irons, punched in the face by her father, and told almost daily that she was ugly, a disappointment, talentless, and stupid. In grade school, she didn’t apply herself and often received bad grades because she thought that by […]

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