Category: Collegian

Articles from the Collegian, the College’s magazine for alumni and donors


Coping Power

Being pushed against a locker, tripped in the hallway, or blamed by a teacher for something you didn’t do would be enough to make anyone angry. But according to Dr. John Lochman’s Coping Power program, feeling anger isn’t necessarily the problem—acting out because of anger is. “In the past, psychology clinicians often saw aggressive conduct problems as willfulness or defiance,” said Dr. Nicole Powell, an associate research scientist in the Department of Psychology who does research with the Coping Power […]

Read More from Coping Power

True Grit

Caroline James

The circumstances of Caroline James’s childhood made a college education look like a fantasy. Until she was placed in foster care as a 10‑year‑old, her home was filled with drug addiction, schizophrenia, and physical and emotional abuse. She recalls being burnt with irons, punched in the face by her father, and told almost daily that she was ugly, a disappointment, talentless, and stupid. In grade school, she didn’t apply herself and often received bad grades because she thought that by […]

Read More from True Grit

Where Art and Science Meet

Dr. Juan Lopez-Bautista's artwork.

Though Dr. Juan Lopez-Bautista, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, completed his graduate and doctoral degrees in biology more than 15 years ago, he is far from done with his formal education. Back in the classroom as a master’s student once more, Lopez-Bautista is now studying abstract painting in UA’s Department of Art and Art History. “I have been painting most of my life,” Lopez-Bautista said. “In the beginning, I painted still lifes, pretty flowers, and landscapes, but […]

Read More from Where Art and Science Meet

Infant Size in the Peruvian Highlands

Dr. Kathryn Oths in Peru

Despite the failed crops, drought, and climate change of recent years, infants in the Andean highlands of Peru weigh more and are taller than ever. “It’s counterintuitive,” said Dr. Kathryn Oths, a professor of anthropology who has been studying the villagers of Chugurpampa for the last 30 years. “But we think we’ve found what’s going on.” Oths’ explanation for the apparent paradox, which will be published in the American Journal of Human Biology, surprisingly has little to do with nutrition. […]

Read More from Infant Size in the Peruvian Highlands

Doing It All

Russia-native Maria Gerasikova came to UA on a waterskiing scholarship. But after a back injury that ended her competitive career, she picked up three majors, joined UA’s competitive ballroom team, and filled her life with everything from theatre to mock trial.

Recent graduate Maria Gerasikova—a Russia native who was professionally waterskiing by age 15—said her first exposure to the summer sport was at an indoor pool in the middle of winter. “In Russia, athletes ski on a cable in the swimming pool during the winter so they can keep training even in cold weather,” Gerasikova said. “I saw them training for the first time when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was a swimmer at the time, and when […]

Read More from Doing It All

Dancing with the Stars

Joy Denver Spears

The first time Joy Spears stepped onto a stage she didn’t want to get off. She was 3 years old, her dance number at the Christmas show had finished, and although all the other kids had filed off at the end of the song, she remained standing in front of her audience in a little green tutu. “I just wasn’t ready to leave,” Spears recalled. And from 3 years old to 30, not much has changed. Now, the 2011 UA […]

Read More from Dancing with the Stars

Literature in the Making

On Being a Writer It takes a certain kind of bravery to be a writer. There are the obvious challenges—the sobering chance of success, the dismal publishing landscape—but also the not-so-obvious: the hard, lonely hours spent piecemealing thoughts and words, the gut-wrenching feeling of having a publication accept your work only to learn later that its editors changed their minds, the risk of investing your time and soul into something that may never be read by anyone but yourself. And […]

Read More from Literature in the Making

Making “The Philadelphia Story”

The Philadelphia Story cast and crew

On Valentine’s Day, more than 200 people ushered into the Marian Gallaway Theatre to watch 19 actors and actresses turn back time to 1939, when a young wealthy perfectionist named Tracy Lord was getting married for the second time. The 150-minute production took the cast two months to prepare—from memorizing lines and blocking stage directions to learning how to walk, talk, and carry themselves like they were in the 1930s. However, their work represents just a small fraction of the […]

Read More from Making “The Philadelphia Story”

Composing across the Globe

Half an hour before the premiere of a 5-minute marimba solo he created, then freshman Tyler Entelisano was sitting in Dr. Amir Zaheri’s office in the Moody Music Hall. It was the first time one of his compositions would be played for a live audience, and it was his first week in college. Not surprisingly, Entelisano was nervous. “Dr. Zaheri asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee,” Entelisano recalled. “And though at that time I wasn’t a big […]

Read More from Composing across the Globe

More than the Brownie

William Christenberry, 1936-2016

Famous for the photos he took on his small Brownie camera, William Christenberry captured a poignant vision of Alabama. In fact, in 2013, William R. Ferris, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, referred to Christenberry as one of the three most important photographers of the South. His work recorded the decay of dilapidated tenant houses and the growth of invasive kudzu in Alabama’s Tuscaloosa and Hale counties, where he was born and raised. However, the UA […]

Read More from More than the Brownie