UAB in the news

Looks like we are consolidating before we restructure:

The University of Alabama at Birmingham plans to restructure two of its schools, dropping one department in each, officials said today.

The proposal will help with efficiency and collaboration, said UAB Provost Eli Capilouto, who presented it to the academic affairs committee of the UA System Board of Trustees in Huntsville. The committee approved the plans and the full board will vote Friday.

Under the proposal, the school of business will go from four departments to three: Accounting and Finance; Management, Information Systems and Quantitative Methods; and Marketing, Industrial Distribution and Economics.

The school of social and behavioral sciences will drop from six departments to five. Anthropology will join the history department, and what is now the department of anthropology and social work will become the department of sociology and social work.

And this interesting tidbit is in the comments - is it true?

UA Football is not funded by the general revenues of the UA System. UA Football and the entire UA Athletic Dept is self sufficient. UA Athletics actually contributes at least $1 million annually back to UA academics.

Your statement would be correct if you change it to:

How about UAB academic programs not having to support UAB athletics.

Check out the UAB budgets and you will find that UAB Athletics receives millions of dollars (at least $7 million in some recent years) from UAB general funds. I am sure the Provost can provide you with the exact amounts that UAB Athletics has drained from UAB Academics.

Meet a real facebook stalker

In today's Alabama News:

Court records show Vance gained control of his victims' Yahoo, Hotmail, Facebook and MySpace accounts using several means. In interviews with the FBI, Vance said he would contact his victims through instant messaging and pretend to be a friend or a relative. He convinced some victims to give him their login and password information, saying he was locked out of his own Facebook, MySpace or e-mail account.

He also pretended to be a secret admirer and got his victims to answer intimate questions about their bodies and sexual experiences by promising to reveal his identity after they provided the answers. He then threatened to publicize the information if the victim didn't provide password information.

In more complicated instances, Vance hacked into his victims' e-mail accounts using information from public Facebook pages, which included information such as birth dates, the names of the victims' schools and their hometowns. Password protection on the e-mail accounts would use standard questions such as ZIP code, date of birth or school mascot. Once Vance had control of an e-mail account, he would go to Facebook, pretend he forgot the password and have Facebook send a link to the victims' compromised e-mail account. Vance changed the passwords, locking the victims out of their accounts.

Vance threatened to expose embarrassing details he learned if he didn't get nude photos. He also promised some victims he would relinquish control of the accounts in exchange for nude photos. Most did not meet his demands, but at least two minors and one adult did.

ACDA Download Video

Downloading MP3's from ACDA National Website from philip copeland on Vimeo.

Jauchzet for Chamber Choir

Here it is!

Other holy mp3 magic.

PFC Reid, Christopher G

Everyone,

Chris Reid sent me a hand-written letter from Fort Sill, Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to post it on the blog.

I give it to you now and encourage you to write him:

Dr. Copeland,

I hope all is well with the choir. Being here in Basic Training with no access to music of any kind is killing me. I miss hearing quality music. Hell, I'd even settle for crappy music. I have my address finally. Please pass it on to Dr. Kris and any member of the choir that might wish to have it (and faculty members too).

PFC Reid, Christopher G.
E. Battery, 1/19 FA, 3rd Platoon
402 N.E. South Boundary Road
Fort Sill, OK 73503-8014

Make sure they know not to send anything but letters or pictures (nothing obscene).

I miss everyone at UAB and hope the music program continues its successful path.

Sincerely,

Chris Reid
PFC, US Army

Chris is a great guy . . . please write him and tell him how proud you are of him.

Check out 1:00

Sunday at Bluff Park

Reminder . . we sing Sunday at Bluff Park.  Arrive:  8:00.  Service at 8:45 and 11:00.  Breakfast in between.

Introit:

Glory be to God
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Offertory:
1.  Os Justi
(Anton Bruckner)

Text:

Os justi meditabitur sapientiam,

et lingua ejus loquetur judicium.

Lex Dei ejus in corde ipsius:

et non supplantabuntur gressus ejus. Alleluia.

Translation:

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,

and his tongue speaks what is just.

The law of his God is in his heart;

and his feet do not falter. Alleluia

2.  Alleluia

József Karai (b. 1927)
Kiyoshi Scissum, tenor

Anthem:

Beautiful River
William Hawley (b. 1950)

Coffee People are Good People

Read about the good coffee drinkers here in Birmingham - paying it forward:

Sharon Dierking was at a Starbucks on U.S. 280, placing an order for a mocha frappucino. When she pulled up to the window, the barista told her the driver in the car ahead of her had paid for her order.

"I was completely dumbfounded," Dierking said, "but I was thrilled."

Dierking wanted to return the kindness to another, but her car was last in line. A few days later, she was able to pay it forward at a Starbucks in Inverness.

"It makes you feel good and it brightens your day," she said.

Random acts of kindness are popping up at Birmingham area coffee shops, as customers are anonymously picking up others' tabs.

Stacie Elm, a barista at an Alabaster Starbucks, said a line of five cars recently paid it forward. Customers are in a bit of disbelief when they discover their order has been paid for, she said. "Most are like, 'You're kidding.'"

But the shock gives way to generosity as people are compelled to pass along the kind gesture.

Baristas at Starbucks shops in eastern Birmingham, Hoover and Vestavia Hills also reported episodes of paying it forward -- actually, backward, since the person in the front car paid for the person's order in line behind him.

new version of vimeo - choralnet daily

Introducing ChoralNet Daily from philip copeland on Vimeo.

great oxford photo

ChoralNet 2.0 Intro Video

ChoralNet 2.0 Instructional Video from philip copeland on Vimeo.

Three Ballads

Found this description from these program notes.

Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927) was a Swedish composer. His
setting of three poems by the Danish author Jens Peter Jacobsen
(1847-1885) deserves to be more widely known.

In the union of Jacobsen’s words and Stenhammar’s music we have a
beautiful marriage – one that is not challenged at all by the fact that
the poems have been translated into English from the original Danish.
The prosody of the two languages is pretty similar. If you want proof,
I can show you the Danish poems – but not right now!

The poems are lyrical, that is, they are short expressions of emotion.
They do not need to be explained, they just need to be experienced in
order to be enjoyed. The first poem evokes a season that we often sing
nostalgically about, as we “Try to remember a time in September.”

If I had known the second poem earlier, I might have learned from it
rather than from Mozart’s opera what a seraglio is. It is the Italian
word for a harem. And what is a harem? Well, if you don’t know you
can ask any of the singers ... after the concert. This poem imagines a
world that northern people have a great affinity for: the far-away, everwarm,
“stately pleasure dome” world of Turkish days and nights.

The third song is Jacobsen’s re-creation of a folksong. It’s a happy,
joyous outburst, tinged with a little Scandinavian melancholy: for the
singer never had a grandchild, or a daughter, or “hives full of honey and
lots and lots of money.” Neither did Jacobsen. As for Stenhammar, I
may have to wait until Elizabeth and I meet her Swedish cousins in the
old country before I find out what kind of happy or sad life he had.

I bet you can't do this

Sparkman HS to join us on Spring Concert

I invited Sparkman High School to join us for our Spring Concert today.

They will sing a set and then we will all gather on the stage to sing Whitacre's "Water Night" as a finale to the concert.

Both UAB Choirs will learn the work between now and then. I'm looking forward to it!

Jeannie! PBS and Conspirare

"What If" by Conspirare from KLRU / Conspirare on Vimeo.

Oxford Itinerary

Friday, April 3rd

Noon Bus Departs Birmingham
5pm Arrive Oxford
5-6p Dinner on Square
6p Bus Departs for NOBC
6:30 Warm up in Sanctuary
7p Sanctuary Closed
8p Concert
Post Concert students go to homes

Saturday, April 4th
Breakfast at homes
8a Bus Departs for Birmingham. The bus will be parked behind Newk’s on University Ave., just down the hill from the Square.
12 noon - Bus arrives Birmingham

thankyou, nancy, for this video

How do we engage the Net Generation?

Check out this SlideShare Presentation. Harry and I thought it was cool.

How do we engage the Net Generation?

View more presentations from Robert Bashforth.

The Net Generation

I'm reading about "digital natives" aka the "net generation." Check out this SlideShare Presentation if you want to learn more about you:

The Net Generation

View more presentations from nathanr07.