Desktop News April 2016 – College of Arts & Sciences

Dancers Awarded Summer Scholarships to Top Jazz Institution

April 7, 2016

From the April 2016 Desktop News | Three UA dance majors will spend an entire month this summer dancing in Chicago at Gus Giordano Dance—one of the best dance institutions for jazz training. “Gus Giordano is one of the oldest and largest institutions for training dancers in the professional world,” said Cornelius Carter, the director of UA’s dance program. “When a student is able to attend a school of this caliber, it really gives them the opportunity to be viewed […]

Scholarships Matter: Halle Lindsay Finds Herself by Helping Others

April 7, 2016

From the April 2016 Desktop News | Scholarships Matter is a series of stories highlighting students in the College of Arts and Sciences who have received and been impacted by scholarships. The student featured in this story is the recipient of one university-wide scholarship and one College-wide scholarship—the Hill Ferguson and Joseph W. Sewell Endowed Scholarship. Scholarships like these are made possible by generous support from our alumni and friends. For senior Halle Lindsay, becoming a leader on campus did […]

Professor to Aid National Park Service in Mapping of Florida Bay

April 7, 2016

Researchers use satellite images and "ground-truthing" to map the boat paths that are damaging the Florida Bay.

From the April 2016 Desktop News |A UA professor and graduate student are developing a map of Florida Bay in Everglades National Park in order to help the U.S. National Park Service conserve the fragile environments and animal population within it. Dr. Michael Steinberg, an associate professor in New College and the Department of Geography, said the map is crucial to slowing the habitat damage caused by boats and other external, man-made forces. “If you have a lot of boat […]

Law School Launchpad: Pre-Law Program Sending Graduates Nationwide

April 7, 2016

Students can meet law school admissions representatives at the annual law-school fair.

From the April 2016 Desktop News | Of the 160 University of Alabama graduating seniors who applied to law school last year, 152 of them, or 95 percent, were accepted. That makes an eight-percent growth in the last five years. Roughly half of the students were accepted to top-25 schools including Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California—Berkeley. Kevyn Armstrong-Wright, a pre-law alumna who was accepted to the University of California—Berkeley in 2015, said that her English major gave her […]

Professor Brings Bluegrass, Folk to Pakistan as State Department Cultural Ambassador

April 7, 2016

From the April 2016 Desktop News | When Dr. Nikos Pappas and his four-man band went to Pakistan this summer to play the traditional music of the Deep South, they knew they’d be the only Americans in most of the places that they’d visit—but that didn’t keep them from going. “Just because something looks dangerous or threatening on the outside, doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth it,” said Pappas, an assistant professor of musicology at UA. “It means there is […]

NSF Dissertation Grant Being Used to Conduct Research at Moundville

April 7, 2016

Erik Porth will be analyzing these ancient sherds from Moundville in order to learn more about the civilization's social structures and decline.

From the April 2016 Desktop News | Despite the extensive excavations that have been done at the Moundville Archaeological Park since 1939, Moundville’s decline—and its social organization—are largely shrouded in mystery. But with the help of a $9,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, University of Alabama doctoral student Erik Porth and his dissertation adviser, Dr. John Blitz, are hoping to uncover some of the secrets. “Social organization doesn’t fossilize,” said Blitz, a UA professor in the Department of Anthropology. […]