November 1, 2004

• "Dreams" Revealed to 10-Million-Plus
• UA Language Symposium Receives Grant for Work that Bridges Sciences and Humanities
• Bar Passage Rate High for UA Law Graduates
• President-Elect of American Chemical Society Visits UA

"Dreams" Revealed to 10-Million-Plus

The final segment of UA's "Dream a Little" promotional/commercial campaign, which began as a 30-second spot in fall 2001 (see Dialog, Dec. 10, 2001, http://dialog.ua.edu/dialog20011210/ads20011210.html), hit the airwaves during the CBS Sports broadcast of the Alabama vs. Tennessee football game on Oct. 23. The spot will run on television and radio broadcasts of UA sports events through football season and into basketball season.

The potential television audience for the first week of airing the new commercial was estimated at close to 10 million viewers, including the CBS national audience, Comcast Sports Southeast, Comcast locally (which runs the spot throughout the day on its cable stations' programming), and WVUA 7. Another 200,000 heard a radio version.The new spot features 10 UA freshmen who express their "dreams" for the future. Each has a specific career aspiration — a lawyer, a medical doctor who will make a difference in the world, and more.

The spot widens from these students to a wide, high shot of the entire 2004 freshman class on the Quad.

"Dream a Little" has been a UA success story. The campaign, driven by a partnership with UA's Office of Undergraduate Admissions, became a successful recruitment DVD last fall (see Dialog, Sept. 29, 2003, http://dialog.ua.edu/dialog20030929.html) when only a handful of universities were using this technology. In addition to extensive information and video clips, it presents a virtual tour of the campus, one of UA's recruitment strengths.

Stay tuned this fall to see the "Dream a Little" spot during sports events. The DVD can be seen in the Office of Admissions. Call 348-2921 for more information.

UA Language Symposium Receives Grant for Work that Bridges Sciences ande Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a $100,000 grant to fund the postconference phase of Language Variety in the South, a symposium organized and directed by UA linguists Dr. Michael D. Picone, professor of French and linguistics, and Dr. Catherine Evans Davies, associate professor of linguistics.

The NEH designated LAVIS a "We the People" project — an initiative to encourage and strengthen the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture. The initiative supports projects that explore significant events and themes in the nation's history and culture, as well as advance knowledge of America's defining principles.

Last spring a three-day symposium was held on the UA campus, which included more than 100 different presentations on languages and dialects of the South. Presenters looked at both historical and contemporary aspects of English dialects, indigenous languages, French dialects, Spanish dialects, creole languages and more.

The post-conference phase includes the publication of papers from the LAVIS symposium and the creation of a permanent website that will serve as a public resource on the topic of Language Variety in the South.

Linguistics bridges the social sciences and the humanities. While funding for the post-conference phase is coming from NEH, funding for the LAVIS conference itself was provided by the National Science Foundation, as well as regional humanities centers and the UA College of Arts and Sciences.

Bar Passage Rate High for UA Law Graduates

An impressive 98.5 percent of the May 2004 graduates of UA's School of Law who took the Alabama bar exam in July passed. In raw numbers, 134 of the 136 new UA law graduates who took the exam were successful.

According to the Alabama State Bar, 95.6 percent — or 130 — of Law School graduates who took the exam for the first time in July are certified for admission to the bar. Four additional graduates will be eligible as soon as they have taken and passed a separate required ethics exam. The statewide certification rate for first-time takers was 86.4 percent.

When both first-time takers and those repeating the test are included, 94.2 percent of the UA graduates who took the exam in July were certified, compared with an overall state rate of 70.2 percent.

"This superior bar passage rate is a testament to the quality of our students and teachers," said UA School of Law Dean Ken Randall. "This achievement is indicative of our commitment to academic excellence at the Law School. I congratulate the UA Law Class of 2004 for their hard work and success."

President-Elect of American Chemical Society Visits UA

Dr. William F. Carroll, president-elect of the American Chemical Society, visited UA recently to talk about how to make the next generation of students more "chemically literate." In the picture above he was speaking to a chamistry majors' class about trends in the chemistry profession. He also gave a general lecture. Carroll is vice president of the Dallas-based Occidental Chemical Corp.The ACS is the world's largest scientific society.

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