BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Lawson State Community College has been named as one of the top community colleges in the nation. Lawson State ranked # 5 in the Best Community Colleges category of the 2013 Washington Monthly College Rankings. The Washington Monthly included about 700 institutions in the rankings analysis and Lawson State was the only community college in Alabama to rank in the top 50.
Rankings of the Washington Monthly measure institutions based on civic engagement, research, and social mobility. In the last community college rankings of the Washington Monthly, Lawson State ranked number 39 out of more than 600 institutions in 2010.
“We are very excited and humbled by this honor, especially to have been named in the top 50 by the Washington Monthly in its last two community college rankings,” said Dr. Perry W. Ward, president of Lawson State Community College. “This is even more significant as it reflects a higher level of engagement and satisfaction from among our students and in total can be attributed to the hard work and dedicated efforts of our faculty, staff and students.”
In ranking the nation’s top community colleges, The Washington Monthly combined information from two sources, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) and U.S. Department of Education for measurements of student retention and completion.
The CCSSE survey accounts for five-eighths of a college’s ranking, and is comprised of student responses to questions on teaching practices, student workload, interaction with faculty and student support.  The remaining three-eighths measure first-year retention rates, the percentage of first-time, full-time, degree seeking students who graduate or transfer within three years of enrolling, and the ratio of all degrees awarded during a given academic year to the number of full-time equivalent students enrolled.
Information from CCSSE shows that Lawson State scored above 55 percent in six categories. These were: Active and Collaborative Learning (65.8 percent), Student Effort (59.4 percent), Academic Challenge (59.3 percent), Student-faculty Interaction (59 percent), Support for Learning (57 percent) and First-year Retention Rate (58.9 percent).  The Three-year Graduation/Transfer Rate reflected 49.3 percent and the Credential Awarded per 100 FTE students was 18.2 percent.
According to the editors of the Washington Monthly, the College Guide and Rankings, unlike U.S. News and World Report and similar guides, asks not what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the country: Are we getting the most for our money?  The first guide was published in 2005.
Washington Monthly published rankings for national universities, liberal arts college, masters universities and baccalaureate colleges.  The complete rankings can be found at: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/toc_2013.php

LAWSON STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Lawson State Community College–Honored as a “Champion of Change” by the White House (2011)
and ranked as one of “America’s 50 Best Community Colleges,” (2010) and a Military Friendly School.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) College of Arts and Sciences will continue its year-long commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the U.S Civil Rights Movement with a month of free events and shows in September 2013. All events are free and open to the public.

Thursday, Sept. 5

Tim Pennycuff presents “Order in the Midst of Chaos: The Integration of the Medical Center at Birmingham,” 6-7:30 p.m. in UAB’s Mary Culp Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th St. South. Pennycuff, UAB’s university archivist, took the title of this talk from a letter written by the hospital administrator in 1963, who stated that the community needed “order in the midst of near chaos.” Many of those injured in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church were treated at University Hospital, and the four children killed on that September 1963 day were brought to the hospital for autopsy. Pennycuff will talk about the integration of the Medical Center during the years 1962-65. The largely peaceful changes that occurred in the Medical Center were a visible and marked contrast with those elsewhere in the city. He will highlight the work of faculty to end segregation policies in Birmingham and the state. Free and open to the public. Visit the UAB College of Arts and Sciences online at www.uab.edu/civilrights.

Tuesday, Sept. 10

Media Studies presents “Birmingham Movement: A Screening of Student Films,” 7-8:30 p.m.in UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center, 1200 10th Ave. South. In spring 2013, UAB Media Studies students went into the Birmingham community to meet Civil Rights Movement leaders and foot soldiers. In a series of documentary films, they share their personal, intimate accounts of some of the most dramatic events of the 1950s and 1960s.The films to be screened: “Columns of Justice: Civil Rights Activism at Miles College” by Lacey Kennedy and Emmett Christolear; “Seeds of Hope” by Kaylyn Alexander, Xuxa Baptiste and Michael Locke; “The Klan Was the Law” by Clarence Lockett and Daniel Twieg; “Out of their Seats, Into the Streets” by Scott Hodnett and Amanda Khorramabadi; “Birmingham’s Boycott” by Nathan Ennis and Zoe Zaslawsky; “Transmission Freedom” by Bryan Bailey and Amber Taylor; and “Schism ‘63” by Nicholas Price. Free and open to the public. Visit the UAB College of Arts and Sciences online at www.uab.edu/civilrights.

Tuesday, Sept. 17

Keith D. Miller, Ph.D., “Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement: Why the National Memory is Wrong,” 7 p.m. in UAB’s Mary Culp Hulsey Recital Hall, 950 13th St. South. The UAB Department of English presents this lecture by Miller, associate professor of English at Arizona State University and the author of “Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources” and “Martin Luther King’s Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech.” Free and open to the public. Visit the UAB College of Arts and Sciences online at www.uab.edu/civilrights.

Friday, Sept. 27-Thursday, Oct. 31

Bob Adelman: an exhibition of his Civil Rights photographs, in the UAB Visual Arts Gallery, 900 13th St. South. Presented by the UAB Department of Art and Art History, the exhibition will include a free opening reception with Adelman 5-9 p.m. Sept. 27 in the gallery. Adelman volunteered as a photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality in the early 1960s, a position that granted him access to many of the Civil Rights Movement’s key leaders, including Malcolm X, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin. The images from his show at UAB will focus on the “Children’s Crusade,” when on May 2, 1963, more than 1,000 African-American students skipped their classes and gathered at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to march to downtown Birmingham. Students gathered again the next day, and Birmingham Police Commissioner Bull Conner directed police and fire departments to use force to stop the protests. Images of children and teens being blasted by fire hoses and attacked by police officers and their dogs appeared on television and in newspapers and triggered outrage around the nation and world. The catalogue for the show will present Adelman’s photographs along with essays by Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), scholar and writer Charles Johnson, Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School Principal Sidney L. Moore and others. Free and open to the public. Visit the UAB College of Arts and Sciences online at www.uab.edu/civilrights.

Saturday, Sept. 28

“The Blues” and Bill Sims, Jr., 6:30 and 8 p.m. in UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center, 1200 10th Ave. South. The UAB Department of Music will present a free screening of Martin Scorsese’s 2003 blues documentary film at 6:30 p.m. in the ASC Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall, followed by a musical performance by American blues musician Sims, with Mark Lavoie on blues harmonica, at 8 p.m. in the ASC Sirote Theatre. Sims, a guitarist and vocalist, plays a wide range of the blues, both electric and acoustic. A cultural ambassador for the blues, Sims played on the soundtrack of the film “American Gangster” starring Denzel Washington, and was a consultant on the set of “Cadillac Records,” a fictionalized film about Leonard Chess and Chicago’s famed Chess Label. Sims advised how to play in the old Mississippi style of Muddy Waters, and played guitar in some scenes. Both the film and performance are free and open to the public. Visit the UAB College of Arts and Sciences online at www.uab.edu/civilrights.

Stillman College will hold its annual Fall Convocation on Thursday, September 5, 11 a.m. in Birthright Alumni Hall.  During this event, President Ernest McNealey will deliver his annual State of the College address and welcome faculty, staff, students and friends of the College to another academic year.  In addition to reflecting upon the past year, he will highlight the College’s plans for the future.

On Thursday evening at 7 p.m., the College will hold its annual Sophomore Rite of Passage Ceremony.  The ceremony congratulates students for enduring their freshman year of college and encourages them as they continue to transition into becoming Stillman men and Stillman women.

The College is noted for its outstanding programs in biological sciences, business administration, and teacher education, in addition to its Harte Honors College and pre-professional programs in law and medicine.  Ninety-two percent of Stillman’s full-time faculty members hold terminal degrees and the student-to-faculty ratio is 15:1. The faculty is committed to excellence in teaching, advising, scholarship and service—providing a challenging curriculum that prepares graduates for employment, professional or graduate studies and viable careers in selected fields.

Fall Convocation and the Sophomore Rite of Passage Ceremony are free and open to the public.

BIRMINGHAM – Children’s of Alabama has launched the state’s first mobile application designed to identify toxic plants and venomous and poisonous animals, offering Alabamians a simple resource to identify potentially dangerous plants, insects, snakes and even common household items from an iPhone.
The app – entitled “PoisonPerils” – is free and can be downloaded from iTunes. The resource was designed to make parents, grandparents, teachers and other caregivers aware of the plants, snakes, insects and household items that the Regional Poison Control Center (RPCC) at Children’s receives calls about each year. This poison hotline (1-800-222-1222) is one of the few services at Children’s that treats adults as well as children.
“Poison Perils was designed to provide key information about Alabama’s flora, fauna, and also common household items, that is critical for parents, teachers and other caregivers to know in order to keep children, and themselves, safe,” said Dr. Ann Slattery of the Regional Poison Control Center. “We believe this is the first and only resource of its kind in Alabama and think this information is critical due to the state’s amazing array of biodiversity.”
Alabama has six types of venomous snakes, more than double that number of poisonous insects and scores of toxic plants. Additionally, poisonings from household items also result in frequent calls to the RPCC. Last year, in fact, the RPCC handled more than 32,000 calls and provided more than 75,000 follow-up calls to assure appropriate treatment and outcomes.
Dr. Slattery said the app also serves as a hotline to dial the RPCC in an emergency – users may simply click the app to dial the RPCC rather than dial the center’s 10-digit telephone number. Without an identification resource like this app, she said, parents and caregivers must rely on trying to describe an insect, plant, snake or household item in question, using precious time in the event of an emergency.
The application was developed by Appsolute Genius, a boutique Birmingham software shop specializing in the development of custom mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android phone, and Android tablet devices. PoisonPerils arrives around the first anniversary of the opening of Children’s $400 million Benjamin Russell Hospital for Children expansion and continues the organization’s increased emphasis on improving the patient families’ healthcare experience.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and UAB, helped make this resource possible according to Dr. Slattery.