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TUESDAY MARCH 4, 2014 VOLUME 120 ISSUE 96 Serving The University of Alabama since 1894

CW | Austin Bigoney In 1956, the land now home to The University of Alabama Arboretum was once a little-known expanse of land adjacent to the Veteran’s Administration Hospital. Five decades later, University care and upkeep allows the arboretum to serve as a place of education and recreation.

TODAYON CAMPUS International support WHAT: International Spouse Group WHEN: 9:30-11:30 a.m. WHERE: 105 B.B. Comer Hall

NEWS | ARBORETUM

Arboretum untapped resource After 56 years, property offers outdoor learning experience By Lauren Ferguson | Managing Editor

Study prep WHAT: How to Study for Multiple-Choice Tests WHEN: 4-5 p.m. WHERE: 230 Osband Hall

Blackburn Institute WHAT: Blackburn senior presentations WHEN: 5:30-7:30 p.m. WHERE: 4 Graves Hall

Not far from the University of Alabama campus sits a small cinder-block building surrounded by towering trees, a collection of greenhouses and a wooded entrance to nature trails. Inside the office space, Monica Watkins sifts through dusty file folders as she prepares for her new position as the University’s arboretum director. “[Becoming the director] was always something that I had hoped would happen, since I really enjoyed my time as an undergraduate,” Watkins, a UA alumnus

SEE ARBORETUM PAGE 6

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WHAT: Fat Tuesday party WHEN: All day WHERE: Rounders Bar

CW File Former UA president Joab Thomas addresses faculty on March 27, 1981. Thomas died Monday at 81.

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WHAT: Honors Weekly Coffee Hour WHEN: 7-8 p.m. WHERE: Ridgecrest South Lobby

Former University of Alabama president Joab Thomas died Monday in Tuscaloosa at the age of 81. Also the former president of Pennsylvania State University and former chancellor of North Carolina State University, Thomas was a Tuscaloosa County native and spent nearly five decades in higher education. “From his days as a teaching fellow at Harvard to his tenure at the helm of three of America’s premier public universities, Joab Thomas was at the forefront as a leader in higher education,” UA system chancellor Robert Witt said in a statement. Raised in Holt and Russellville, Ala., Thomas earned a full scholarship to Harvard University, where he received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in biology.

According to an article noting Thomas’ resignation as UA president in a June 1988 issue of The Crimson White, Thomas, a native of Holt, Ala., returned to Tuscaloosa county and began teaching biology as an assistant professor at the University in 1961. During the next 14 years, Thomas served in various positions, including vice president for student affairs, before leaving the University in 1976 to become the chancellor of North Carolina State University. In 1981, he returned to The University of Alabama as president in what a CW editorial called “a turbulent time in the University’s history.” “Joab Thomas led this University to an entirely new level. The University of Alabama was a much different institution because of him,” Cathy Randall, director emerita of the Computer Based Honors Program, said in a press release.

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By Mark Hammontree and Mackenzie Brown | CW Staff

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WHAT: Forza Financial Seminars: Social Media WHEN: 7 p.m. WHERE: 800 22nd Ave.

Thomas remembered as great administrator, friend

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Former UA president, professor dies

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WHAT: I Am Not My Hair: The Importance of Hair on Identity WHEN: 6 p.m. WHERE: 121 Bidgood Hall

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horticulturalist, said. “So they approached the V.A. about that land. They had that mission for themselves. They wanted a place so that the science students could go and measure and do experiments.” According to University records, in 1956 UA president Oliver Carmichael submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare for the allocation of 136 acres of federal land from the V.A. hospital. The land donation was required to have educational and recreational components, so Carmichael’s proposal included 93 acres for an arboretum, an area for ecological study and a lake, as well as 27 acres for a nine-hole golf course.

NEWS | OBITUARY

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and former arboretum volunteer, said. “But I didn’t actually think it would work out where I would come back here and be at the arboretum, so it’s really nice that it’s worked out.” The University’s arboretum, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008, has come a long way. Before the University’s acquisition of the arboretum property, the land belonged to the federal government and had been allocated to Tuscaloosa’s Veteran’s Administration Hospital. “In the mid-1950s Dr. Henry Jay Walker, who was chair of the biology department, Dr. Gibbes Patton of the biology department and Dr. Fred Maxwell, who was in the engineering department, got together, and they had a vision for an outdoor laboratory,” Mary Jo Modica, former arboretum

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