UA program has blossomed into a model for others
Tuscaloosa News – Feb. 24
Brent Hardin arrived at the University of Alabama more than a dozen years ago with an idea, but no budget. He wanted to start a wheelchair basketball team, but he didn’t have so much as a single wheelchair. “We didn’t have anything but a great idea,” he said. He applied for grants to get money for equipment and started a women’s team, which made it to nationals in the first season. Alabama won its first national championship in 2009, and has won three more since. As the program grew, men’s basketball and tennis teams were added, and each won a national title in 2013. Now the UA adapted athletics program has a $600,000 annual budget that funds scholarships and allows full-time coaches in all three sports, as well as paying for bus trips and uniforms. Earlier this month, the UA board of trustees approved funding for a $10 million facility that will be built adjacent to the Student Recreation Center.
UA wheelchair basketball player heading to Paralympics
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Feb. 24
On Friday, Alabama’s men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams will host Texas-Arlington at Foster Auditorium. A total of three athletes will be headed to the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro this summer. Yanik Blaire, an Australian native and current Crimson Tide athlete, competed for the Australian national team in the 2012 London Paralympic games, and now looks forward to going to Rio de Janeiro this summer.
Wills for Heroes Clinic in Tuscaloosa
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Feb. 24
The Alabama State Bar will host the Wills for Heroes Clinic for the Tuscaloosa Police Department. The bar is working with the Tuscaloosa County Bar Association and students from The University of Alabama School of Law to hold the event . The Alabama State Bar Volunteer Lawyers Program offers first responders free, basic estate planning services. The clinic begins Thursday morning at 8 and runs until 5 PM in the Tuscaloosa Police Department Community Meeting Room. The address is 3801 Trevor S Phillips Avenue in Tuscaloosa.
WDAM 7 (Moselle, Miss.) – Feb. 24
Police misconduct costs prompt cities to increase taxes
Herald and Review (Decatur, Ill.) – Feb. 24
The costs of police confrontations with citizens are mounting in U.S. cities, forcing many to spend millions more on training and some to seek tax increases to pay for federally mandated reforms in departments that used excessive force … “There’s never been a concerted national effort to really spend a lot of money to address police misconduct,” said Stephen Rushin, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law who studies consent decrees. “We’re finally coming to the recognition that correcting police misconduct is an expensive proposition.”
West Hawaii Today – Feb. 24
Columbia Herald (Tenn.) – Feb. 24
UA art students help fight hunger
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Feb. 24 (Clip not available)
Art students and restaurants plan to use their talents to help fight hunger. A ceramics class at The University of Alabama is donating bowls for the fundraiser at University Presbyterian Church this Friday at 11 a.m. People who donate $10 can select a handmade bowl and get a meal of soup and bread made by local restaurants. Proceeds will go to the church’s food pantry which helps feed people in need in the Tuscaloosa area.
Health Occupations Career Fair expects high turnout
Lagniappe – Feb. 24
The Bay Area Healthcare Coalition and the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce will once again help students interested in health care careers to experience and learn about specific sectors through the annual Health Occupations Career Fair. … According to the June 2015 State of the Workforce Report released by the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, registered nurses are first on the list of high-demand occupations, with personal care aids ranked third and home health aides coming in at fifth.