Articles about news in the College, from student and faculty accomplishments to research advances, new academic programs, and the impact of giving.
When recent graduate and first-time Olympian Alex Amankwah moved to the United State as an eight-year-old, he said that he expected to see futuristic marvels like flying cars and hoverboards. He had grown up in a poor part of Ghana, and his mother brought him to Los Angeles, California, so he and his family could have a better life. But in L.A., Amankwah didn’t find the high-tech fantasy he’d dreamed of. Instead, he found a poor neighborhood full of gangs […]
Tuscaloosa, Ala. —Bachelor of Fine Arts students Kat Bornhoft and Graham Harrison will showcase their sculptures at The University of Alabama Gallery in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa Nov. 1–30. A free, public reception will be held Friday, Nov. 4 at 5 p.m. Bornhoft, who presented a 3D printed piece as a part of the gallery’s EnterConnect show in 2014 and the 2016 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition, will be featuring mixed-media sculptures that explore the relationship […]
Read More from Student Sculpture Exhibited at UA Gallery’s BFA Show
This year’s criminal justice community forum “Mass Incarceration in Modern America: Where Do We Go From Here?” will include a panel of experts with the prison system to discuss mass incarceration on Oct. 19 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Room 1000 at North Lawn Hall. In response to President Barack Obama’s announcement that the government will end private prisons and the fact that the U.S. has the highest number of prisoners in the world, the criminal justice department is […]
Read More from Community Forum to Discuss U.S. Mass Incarceration
From the October 2016 Desktop News | Since 2001, the number of undergraduates majoring in the Department of Criminal Justice has increased more than 300 percent. Last year alone, more than 2,000 students took Introduction to Criminal Justice, and the department now holds some of the most popular majors on campus. “Our growth is due in large part to the efforts of our dedicated and diverse faculty,” the department’s chair, Dr. Lesley Williams Reid, said. “As the demand for our courses has […]
From the October 2016 Desktop News | Dr. Forrest Scogin, a professor of psychology at The University of Alabama, received the American Psychological Association Committee on Aging’s Award for the Advancement of Psychology and Aging at its annual convention in August. Scogin, whose primary concentration is clinical geropsychology, researches mental health and aging, as well as psychotherapy and depression. He’s also affiliated with the Alabama Research Institute on Aging, a UA-based interdisciplinary research group that promotes the quality of life for older adults. […]
Read More from Psychology Professor Honored for Contributions to Geropsychology
From the October 2016 Desktop News | For years, manufacturers of some pharmaceuticals and everyday items made of plastic have relied on non-renewable petrochemicals that gush from the bowels of the Earth—black gold, Texas tea—as a key ingredient. Now Dr. Anthony J. Arduengo III, a University of Alabama chemistry professor, and an international group of scientists are working to replace petrochemicals with a much more chemically complex component that grows, rather than springs, from the ground. The component? Wood. “Wood, a renewable […]
Read More from Researchers Explore Biomass Potential to Replace Petrochemicals
From the October 2016 Desktop News | For a fruit fly, what its grandparents ate may affect how much it weighs. And, according to Dr. Laura Reed, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, similar relationships between generational diet and obesity may hold true for humans as well. To study obesity, Reed and her team experiment with the diets of fruit flies. They feed some of the larvae a high-fat diet while they give the control group a regular diet. Then, […]
Read More from Fruit-Fly Diet Impacts Descendants, UA Researcher Finds
From the October 2016 Desktop News | Shelby Baron was helping unload cars during freshman move-in day at The University of Alabama when she got a call from Team USA wheelchair tennis coach Dan James. It was Aug. 12, her 22nd birthday, so Baron thought James was calling to wish her a happy birthday. “He said, ‘You want the good news or bad news?’” Baron said. “I was confused, but I took the bad news first. He said, ‘We didn’t order […]
Read More from Student Represents Team USA in Paralympic Games
From the October 2016 Desktop News | In January 2015, The University of Alabama’s cheerleading team made history when it became the first division 1A team to win first place in both the coed and all-girl categories at the College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship put on by the Universal Cheerleaders Association and the Universal Dance Association. Orlando-native Jed “Trey” Vaughn was part of UA’s winning coed cheer squad that year, helping to blaze a trail at UA and in his […]
Read More from Three Brothers Cheer Together for First Time at UA
Goldie 1971 – The Fallen Robot Atlas Obscura – Sept. 30 When the Sloss Blast Furnaces closed in 1971 the site had been an anchor of Birmingham’s industrial life for nine decades. As one of the South’s largest manufacturers of pig iron, the obsolete hulk that was left behind was an inspiration for then-graduate student Joe McCreary, who created a rusting giant for the University of Alabama campus. Called “Goldie 1971,” the creature has stopped to rest in the sculpture […]