UA Acquires Extensive Collection of American Historical Documents, Photos and Books

The University of Alabama Libraries has acquired one of the most extensive collections of Americana and Southern history in private hands: the A. S. Williams III Collection of History and Culture of the South.

The collection, highlighted by more than 20,000 books and 12,000 photographs, represents a lifetime’s efforts by Williams, former executive vice president and treasurer of Protective Life Corp. in Birmingham. For more than 40 years, Williams, a Eufaula native and UA alumnus, amassed rare examples of Americana — primarily books, manuscripts and photographs relating to the history of the United States, Alabama and the South.

The collection will be housed on the third floor of Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library and will open to the public in October 2010.

Williams hopes that the collection will provide rich learning opportunities for UA students, faculty and staff as well as the local community.

 “Much of the content of the Williams Collection is unique and hence not available at other libraries or through online sources,” said Dr. George C. Rable, professor and Charles Summersell Chair in Southern History. “The Williams Collection will support a vast array of research projects based on manuscript, print and visual materials.”

A trip to Williamsburg, Va., in the early 1960s sparked Williams’ passion for collecting. Starting with his Presidential Collection, Williams acquired books written by and about the presidents, as well as books they signed or inscribed. He eventually expanded this collection by acquiring one or more documents written or signed by every former president.

He later broadened his scope to include material related to the history of Alabama and the South in general. The collection contains unpublished letters, diaries and documents written by Alabamians from the 1820s forward. These letters describe political and historical events as well as daily life.

“For those of us who study Southern discourse, the manuscripts in this collection will be of tremendous value for both research and teaching,” said Dr. Catherine Evans Davies, professor of linguistics and chair of the Department of English.

“The Williams Collection is a treasure trove of material that will lend itself to new research initiatives for our faculty and students, and it will make our special collections library a destination of choice for many researchers from other institutions,” said Dr. Michael Picone, professor of French and linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics.

Wartime history includes all aspects of the Civil War. The collection is especially strong in military manuals, histories and travel accounts, textbooks and novels.

In addition to presidential and historical documents, the collection also includes Indian land grants; unpublished archival collections of 19th-century business records; some 3,000 works of Southern fiction from the earliest examples to contemporary authors; and several literary archives. The collection is rich in first editions, signed copies, limited editions, association copies and rare books and manuscripts.

Grad Student Goes to Oxford University with Clarendon Scholarship

Daniel Mullins, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology from Montgomery, recently received a Clarendon Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in England to pursue a doctorate degree in the cognitive science of religion.

Mullins represents one of the top 7 percent of applicants selected from the 2010 Clarendon Scholarship applicant pool. The scholarship, valued at $160,000, will cover tuition, fees and living expenses for three years.

 “While this scholarship has the obvious benefit of affording me a world-class doctoral education, it is most significant as a testament to those who have taught me so much, those who believed in me and have taken risks on my behalf, and those who raised me with love and kindness,” Mullins said.

As an undergraduate student at UA, Mullins double-majored in religious studies and anthropology. He received the "Outstanding Student" award from the Department of Religious Studies in 2008.  Just this year, his on-going work in religious studies won him the second place prize in the annual Theta Alpha Kappa Graduate Fellowship program, an award granted by the nation's premier honor society in the study of religion.

Mullins will be leaving in late September for Oxford’s Michaelmas Term. In October, Mullins said he will also be taking a seat in the Centre for Anthropology and Mind within the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, which is one of the institutes within the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford University.

His supervisor will be Dr. Harvey Whitehouse, one of the leading anthropologists in the world, Mullins said.

Chemistry Professor Receives Award for Hydrogen Research

A Department of Chemistry researcher whose work could lead to more affordable hydrogen-powered vehicles on the roadways has been recognized for his contribution to the overall efforts of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Center of Excellence in Chemical Hydrogen Storage.  

Dr. David Dixon, professor and Robert Ramsay Chair, received a 2010 Hydrogen Program Research and Development Award for Outstanding Contributions to Hydrogen Storage Technologies in June at the Center’s Annual Review Award Lunch in Washington, D.C.  

The award recognizes Dixon’s work in computational chemistry in support of chemical hydrogen storage technologies under development by the Center. 

His research has predicted reliable thermodynamics for thousands of compounds for hydrogen release and spent fuel regeneration, factors that could dramatically reduce the time and efforts required to design and develop new materials.  

Dixon’s team at UA included Daniel Grant and Edward Garner, graduate students; Dr. Myrna Matus, a post-doctoral fellow; Minh Nguyen, a visiting professor, and Darryl J. Outlaw, Kevin Anderson, J. Pierce Robinson and Jacob Batson, undergraduate students. 

The Chemical Hydrogen Storage Center of Excellence is a collaboration among multiple university and industrial partners across the country, including The University of Alabama, and with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington.  

UA Receives Federal Grants to Enhance Quality and Diversity of Graduate Students

The University of Alabama has received five, three-year grants totaling nearly $2.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need Program that provide fellowships to assist graduate students pursuing fields of study that are in national demand.

Applications for GAANN fellowships at UA are being accepted for fall 2010.

Three of the five grants were awarded to departments within the College of Arts and Sciences and two were in the College of Engineering.

A total of 64 GAANN grants were awarded this year to universities across the country. The colleges administer the fellowships to graduate students with excellent academic records who demonstrate financial need and plan to pursue the highest degree available in a field designated as an area of national need.

The following three UA departments were each awarded $175,020 per year for three years:

Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering

Project Director: Dr. Susan Vrbsky, associate professor

This award will allow support for five fellowships for computer science doctoral students who are capable of assuming leadership positions in software engineering research and education. The project will provide participants with experiences in basic research, applied research and teaching, allowing students to advance the fundamental principles of software engineering. Interested applicants can e-mail Vrbsky at vrbsky@cs.ua.edu or Dr. Nicholas Kraft, assistant professor, at nkraft@cs.ua.edu.

Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Project Director: Dr. Ajay K. Agrawal, Robert F. Barfield Endowed Chair and Professor

This award will support five to six fellows who will pursue a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering. They will receive teacher training, complete an industrial internship and perform research in one of the mechanical engineering topics. The fellowships include a stipend of up to $30,000 per year (based on need) and cover tuition and other educational expenses. Interested applicants can contact Agrawal at aagrawal@eng.ua.edu or 205/348-4964.

Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences

Project Co-directors: Dr. Si Blackstock, professor, and Dr. Stephen Woski, associate professor,

The grant will fund five graduate fellowships in chemistry per year for three years. The fellowships will help recruit top U.S. graduate students to the department’s doctorate program. It also will help increase the number of students who are traditionally underrepresented in the program, including women and African Americans. The fellowships include a stipend of up to $30,000 per year (based on need) and cover tuition and other educational expenses. For more information, visit http://bama.ua.edu/~blacksto/GAANN/the_Program.html.

The following two departments were each awarded $131,265 per year for three years.

These grants will fund four graduate fellowships per year for three years in each respective department. The fellowships will help recruit top U.S. graduate students to each department’s doctorate programs while increasing the number of students from traditionally underrepresented populations. The fellowships include a stipend of up to $30,000 per year (based on need) and cover tuition and other educational expenses.

:

Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

Project Director and Co-director: Dr. Robert H. Findlay, Bishop Professor of Biology, and Dr. Patricia Sobecky, department chair and professor

Interested applicants can e-mail Findlay at rfindlay@as.ua.edu

Department of Mathematics, College of Arts and Sciences

Project Director and Co-director: Dr. Vo Liem, professor, and Dr. Zhijian Wu, department chair

Interested applicants can e-mail Liem at vliem@as.ua.edu or Wu at zwu@as.ua.edu.

Theatre Professor to Perform One-Woman Show in New York, Edinburgh

Allison Hetzel, assistant professor of theatre and dance, will present her one-woman show “Considering Georgia O’Keeffe” this month at the East to Edinburgh Festival in New York City and in August at Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of the top theater festivals in the world.  

Hetzel’s show explores the life and art of O’Keeffe, a major 20th-century American artist and looks at the struggles she endured as a painter in a man’s world and with the man in her life, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Hetzel performed the show in 2009 in Edinburgh as well.  

“A unique and honest look at O’Keeffe’s life, through an actor’s voice, Allison Hetzel’s theatricality made the play about her life highly engaging,” according to a Three Weeks E Daily Review in 2009. “Allison owned the stage with her powerful voice, her performance enhanced by beautifully composed background music.” 

Hetzel teaches acting, voice and speech courses in the undergraduate and graduate theatre programs in the Department of Theatre and Dance.. 

Davis Honored as ETS Visiting Scholar

Dr. Priscilla Davis, professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders, recently spent a month at Princeton University as part of the 2010 Educational Testing Services (ETS) Visiting Scholars Program.

Through the program, scholars from under-represented groups visit the ETS campus in Princeton, N.J., each summer, studying issues that relate to questions on tests that master’s degree students in speech pathology and audiology must pass in order to become certified.

“It’s quite an honor to be able to work with this program to review and have input on test materials,” said Davis, whose research interests include child language, multicultural awareness and communicative disorders in children with sickle cell disease. “We’ve worked for years on trying to include underrepresented populations and make the test more equitable. A lot of tests in the 1960s and ‘70s weren’t standardized for minority populations, and we still see gaps as they relate to ethnicity and race.”

The scholars also will work on developing test questions and related materials for a variety of assessment programs. Davis joined 19 others accepted into the program from across the United States.