Tuscaloosa Mayor Addresses Real Estate Fraternity
WBRC Fox 6, Birmingham -- Nov. 5
The mayor says he really wants to build an amphitheater on the river front, he wants to continue to push for more downtown development. And he wants to help bring more jobs to the city. But he says none of that would be possible without the University of Alabama…That was the message of Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox’s speech to the real estate fraternity at the University of Alabama.

Making Room at the ‘Big House’ and Beyond
InsideHigherEd.com – Nov. 6
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is being forced to play defense after the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights informed campus officials late last month that its football stadium lacks adequate access for people with disabilities…The University of Alabama’s recent renovation, completed last year, added roughly 9,000 seats to its football stadium. Thad Turnipseed, the facilities director, said 225 wheelchair-accessible seats were added. The stadium has 838 seats for disabled fans spread throughout and a total of roughly 90,000 seats overall. Turnipseed said the goal is to be able to comply with the 1 percent rule for the entire stadium — not just seats recently added or renovated — even though most were in place before the access law went into effect…

Gas prices on near $3 on near-$100 oil
Brownsville (Tex.) Herald – Nov. 6
“Gasoline is now just catching up with the price of oil and the price of oil has been high for the last several weeks,” said Peter Clark, an oil markets expert and professor of chemical engineering at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. “But again, this is all driven by speculation and this isn’t driven by supply and demand,” he said…

Making music
Eastwood Middle School strings songs together with violins and cellos
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 6 (Print edition only)
“I once had a student say he thought Strings in Schools meant he’d be making things with string,” said Dufrechou, who actually teaches Eastwood Middle School students to play stringed instruments like the violin and cello…Anne Witt, an instructor at the University of Alabama school of music and coordinator of the program, brought the idea to school board members in 2004…