KeyFacts
The University of Alabama is ranked among the nation's top 50 public universities in U.S. News & World Report's 2002 edition.
The University of Alabama's graduates include 15 Rhodes Scholars, 15 Goldwater Scholars, and nine Truman Scholars. Our most recent Rhodes Scholar is Bradley Tuggle, an English major who received the award in 2001.
The University of Alabama's chapter of the prestigious liberal arts honor society Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest of the three chapters in the state.
Approximately 66 percent of UA's undergraduates receive some type of financial aid.
UA ranks as one of the top public universities in enrollment of National Merit, National Achievement, and National Hispanic Scholars. Our fall 2000 freshman class accounts for 94 of these 300 outstanding undergraduate students.
For over a decade, The University of Alabama has been one of the top public flagship universities in the Southeast in enrollment of African-American students. In fall 2000, African-Americans comprised 14.9 percent of freshmen and 14.5 percent of total undergraduate enrollment, and 13.6 percent of the student body overall. Enrollment of African-American students in UA's Graduate School has increased by 44 percent since 1996.
U.S. News & World Report has ranked the University of Alabama School of Law among the top 50 in the nation for three consecutive years while our undergraduate business program has made the top 50 nationally for two years.
Across our beautiful 1,000-acre campus, several buildings dating back to the founding of the university are still in use today—alongside other historic structures and recent construction housing state-of-the-art technology. We offer excellent facilities for study and research, including campus-wide computer labs, multimedia classrooms, and online libraries.
More than 20 percent of the university's entering freshmen and 22 percent of all undergraduates received merit scholarships for the academic year 2000-01.
The University of Alabama debate team holds 14 national championships—two more than our football team!
UA offers 215 degree programs.
Founded in 1831, The University of Alabama was the state's first university.
Web-Based Readings, Online Essays Highlight New Approach to Freshman Comp
Freshman composition has a new look this fall for some 600 UA freshmen who are enrolled in a course that includes Web-based readings,
online essays, and multimedia materials.
While they are still reading and writing essays—long the staple of English 101 at the Capstone—on an almost weekly basis, the
students in some 30 specially designed sections are doing much of this work online. Reading assignments, which formerly came from paperback
books, now come from freely available Web sources. Many can be retrieved from ReadingLinks.com,
a Web site created in May 2001 by Dr. Myron Tuman, UA professor of English.
There are three great advantages here, besides the fact that Web readings are free, notes Tuman, who coordinates training for teaching
assistants teaching these special sections. First, the readings are drawn from current sources. The first unit, on roadside attractions, is
drawing upon a feature piece in the Aug. 26 issue of Newsweek. Second, students, who are already generally familiar with Web
searching, can readily be sent on the task of finding additional sources. Finally, the materials are regularly enhanced with color photos,
graphics, and even audio and video clips, something that has proven helpful to those classes that have been busy exploring Route 66 and
Web-Based Readings, Online Essays Highlight New Approach to Freshman Comp other American by-ways.
Karen Gardiner, an instructor of English who is assisting in the program, has developed a unit on affirmative action policies and other
racial issues affecting Asian Americans and drawing upon commentaries, interviews, and responses generated by Howard University Law
Professor Frank Wu's recent book Yellow.
A third unit will have students using the Web to look up information and write an essay about two different feature films by the same
director. "This movie unit will force students to use some of the Web-based gated databases available to students through the UA library,"
Tuman said, noting that "learning the library today basically entails learning how to access materials located in private areas of the
Web."
Tuman's Web site, ReadingLinks.com,
has proved a valuable resource not only for UA students and faculty, but also for writing teachers nationwide. "We have been building what
are in effect five entire units of reading and links each week since opening the site 14 months ago. It is a huge resource for college
writing teachers across the country, and, best of all, it is free," Tuman said. "It began as an experiment to see how effective the Web
could be as a replacement for the traditional college textbook."
The final piece of the puzzle is ConnectWeb.com,
an online collaborative classroom environment specifically designed for writing classes. ConnectWeb is where students and their teachers
meet online, where assignments are posted, with links to the readings, and where students both turn in their written assignments and
interact with each other outside of the regular classroom.
"The bottomline is that we're using some cutting-edge technology to help us do some very traditional things: namely, to talk about and
respond to common topics," Tuman said. "We're still reading and writing, only more so now, as our classes continue online way beyond the
50 minutes of face-to-face interaction." Just how much beyond the 50 minutes depends on the actual course assignments, but this fall the
600 UA freshmen and their teachers are already working in a learning environment without the traditional boundaries of time and space.
"For them the future is already here," Tuman said.
