Desktop News – Page 8 – College of Arts & Sciences

Criminal Justice Professor Raising Awareness of Human Trafficking

January 25, 2021

From the January 2021 Desktop News | Dr. Brittany Gilmer and students from her class on human trafficking are hoping to make a difference in their communities by raising awareness throughout Tuscaloosa about human trafficking. Gilmer, an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, first became interested in and started studying the issue of trafficking through her research on Somali pirates. Because of her expertise in the area, Gilmer was asked to create and teach a class […]

Rediscovering the Renaissance

November 9, 2020

From the November 2020 Desktop News | Most people head to the conference room to conduct business, but for actors and playwrights in Renaissance England, they headed to the bar. It has long been suspected that William Shakespeare and the playing companies he worked for did not confine their business of casting, buying plays, and more to the playhouse, but it has not been entirely clear where they would make those decisions. Dr. Elizabeth Tavares is working to uncover that. […]

Professor Receives NSF Grant for Archaeological Work in Maya Settlements

October 15, 2020

Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine, an assistant professor in UA’s Department of Anthropology, was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for his archaeological project exploring the cultural and societal changes surrounding the shifting political and cultural allegiances of an ancient Maya settlement in Guatemala. The $143,000 grant will help Tokovinine and his colleagues excavate La Sufricaya, an ancient Mayan archaeological site that was a suburb of Holmul, the largest city in the region at the time. Like most ancient […]

A&S Student Services Wins Sam S. May Award

October 13, 2020

From the October 2020 Desktop News | The College of Arts and Sciences Office of Student Services was awarded the Sam S. May Award for Outstanding Customer Service for their innovative and creative approaches to serving students throughout 2020. The advisors, registrars, and administrative staff helped prospective and current students navigate their academic and co-curricular experiences throughout the spring, summer, and fall semesters, answering thousands of questions and emails. Their commitment to students remained their first priority, addressing pressing concerns, […]

A&S Dean Raising Funds for Scholarship Through Mask Sales

October 13, 2020

A red mask with a white elephant next to a sign

From the October 2020 Desktop News | When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Dr. Lisa Dorr knew she had to do something to help her family and her community. As someone from a long line of quilters, Dorr decided to put her hands to work and create a variety of masks. “I’ve been a quilter for many years, as has my mom—she runs a quilt store in Michigan,” Dorr said. “Quilters always joke about their fabric library, which is all the […]

UA Professor Wins International Classics Award

September 30, 2020

From the October 2020 Desktop News | Dr. Kelly Shannon-Henderson, an associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics, was recently awarded the C.J. Goodwin Award of Merit for outstanding publications for her book Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals. The award comes from the Society for Classical Studies, an international organization dedicated to the research of Greek and Roman antiquity. The society grants three Goodwin Awards of Merit annually, each going to a distinguished publication appearing within […]

Exploring the Worlds of Work: Researchers Help Shape Career Fair for Eighth Graders

September 30, 2020

From the October 2020 Desktop News | Two Arts and Sciences researchers are working to study the future of West Alabama’s workforce through Worlds of Work, an event which helps eighth grade students in the area to explore different work fields, careers, and technical training programs through their schools. Dr. Joan Barth, a senior research social scientist in the Institute for Social Science Research, and Dr. Pamela Young, Director of Community Engagement and Economic Development, partnered with the West Alabama […]

A&S Grad Assisting With Saliva-Based COVID-19 Test

September 30, 2020

From the October 2020 Desktop News | When Anne Watkins started her master’s of public health at Yale University, she never thought she’d work with any sort of sports team, let alone a whole league. Now, she and her colleagues are partnered with the National Basketball Association to create a new COVID-19 testing procedure that she hopes will make testing more accessible and affordable for all communities. Watkins, a 2019 graduate of UA’s Department of Biological Sciences, is working in […]

Media and the Public Opinion of Torture

September 2, 2020

From the September 2020 Desktop News | According to Dr. Erin Kearns, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of Alabama, recent polls say that about half of adults in the United States think torture is acceptable in counterterrorism. The academic understanding is that torture is not effective, so why does the American public think this way? In her new book Tortured Logic, Kearns and her coauthor, American University professor Joseph Young, explore […]

Department of Gender and Race Studies Recognized for Graduate Student Food Bank

September 2, 2020

From the September 2020 Desktop News | When COVID-19 hit the United States and temporarily closed many restaurants, bars, and stores in March, Dr. Utz McKnight realized that many graduate students in the UA community would lose their main source of income. Because of this, he wanted to find a way for faculty to give back to the graduate student community. “The project was created around an idea to try and commit faculty and staff at UA to the graduate […]