Namath Gets Degree
Associated Press National Wire – Dec. 16 (over 500 media outlets)
Joe Namath received his diploma from Alabama, where he won a national championship with the Crimson Tide in 1964. Namath, 64, completed a 30-hour program over the last five years to earn a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies…
New York Times – Dec. 16
Seattle Times – Dec. 16
Kansas City Star – Dec. 15
AOL Sports – Dec. 15
Montgomery Advertiser – Dec. 16

Photos: Joe Namath graduates
Yahoo News – Dec. 17
These are the photos that ran on the Associated Press and Reuters wires…

Namath Gets His Degree
NPR – Dec. 15
NPR's Scott Simon takes a moment to note that NFL great Joe Namath finally got his degree from the University of Alabama more than 40 years after he left.

Capstone milestone: Joe Namath among more than 900 UA graduates
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 16
More than 900 people graduated from the University of Alabama on Saturday during the school’s 177th commencement ceremony…”This event is one of those that while you’re going through it, is kind of surreal,” said Wilbur Masters, president-elect of the University of Alabama National Alumni Association. “But I assure you, later in life the details of this day will sink back and you’ll remember, ‘Hey, I graduated with Joe Namath.’ ”…

Namath Gets Degree
Associated Press National Wire – Dec. 15 (over 500 media outlets)
Broadway Joe was back on campus, finally getting a diploma to go with his football accolades. Joe Namath, who won a national championship with the Crimson Tide in 1964 but quit school before going on to become a pro football great, returned to the University of Alabama on Friday to pick up the degree he finally earned. Namath completed a 30-hour program during the last five years to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies. Bum knees aside, Namath will be one of 900 graduates to walk across the stage at Coleman Coliseum during commencement Saturday morning.
Newsday – Dec. 15
FoxNews.com – Dec. 15
New York Daily News – Dec. 15
Boston H erald – Dec. 15

Joe Namath Graduates
Note: The University of Alabama fed b-roll of Namath graduating to television stations across the country. The video was also picked up by CNN and distributed to all of their news affiliates. Below are just a few of the places that the story aired.
FOX News
CNN
CNN-Headline News
ESPN
ABC – Good Morning America
The story aired in the following cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, Miami, Cleveland, Denver, Sacramento, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Portland, Baltimore, Charlotte, San Diego, Hartford, Nashville, Columbus, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Greenville, West Palm Beach, Birmingham, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Memphis, Louisville, Fresno, Knoxville, Richmond, Ft. Myers, Roanoke, Omaha, Spokane, Madison, Davenport, Savannah, El Paso and more

Joe Namath earns his degree from the University of Alabama after 42 years
Birmingham News – Dec. 15
…After five years of study - and 42 years after he left school to become a professional football player - Namath, 64, will graduate today with a bachelor of arts in interdisciplinary studies from the UA external studies program. Standing on the stage in the media room of the Mal Moore Administration Building for a Friday news conference, Namath looked around at his advisers, deans and professors. He expounded on the virtues of teamwork and explained that without their help, he never would have accomplished what he did. On Friday, Namath was his usual charming, self-effacing, storytelling self. Rather than take credit, he thanked others: Robert Olin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Carolyn Dahl, dean of the College of Continuing Studies; Ana Schuber, his academic adviser; and Robert Halli, his English professor for his 12-hour senior project. Without a degree, Namath said, he had "a hole in my being." Today, he will fill it.
"This is an Alabama family," he said. "I feel more part of it today than I ever have. But I didn't do anything any other student wouldn't do…

Tide's most famous player finally graduates
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 15
…At 9 a.m. today in Coleman Coliseum, the Pro Football Hall of Famer will add one more thing to his long list of exploits: A college degree…Namath completed his degree through UA's External Degree Program, which is designed to help adults older than 25 earn a bachelor's degree by completing 30 semester hours from an interdisciplinary field of study. 'His story is pretty typical for people in the program,' said Jim Hall, director of New College, a division of UA's College of Arts and Sciences. 'We get folks from all walks of life that come back to complete their degrees.'… Photo: Joe Namath hugs Bob Halli before a news conference Friday at the Mal Moore Athletic Building. Namath will receive a degree today at University of Alabama commencement ceremonies. Halli is the dean of the honors college and a professor of English.

Namath center stage again
Mobile Register – Dec. 15
Joe Namath grew tired of carrying an "empty spot" in his soul. After all, he had promised two women -- his mother long ago and his daughter recently -- that he would earn a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama . "When my daughter Jessica said she would finish college before I would," Namath said Friday, "that started the process of investigating the possibility of actually finishing." …

21 steps away from fulfilling a lifelong promise
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 15
…They aren't simple steps, those 21 strides. Instead, they signify the journey he has taken in his life to get to today…“I promised my mother I would finish many years ago, and I promised my daughter that I would, too.'… 'It took a lot of effort, a lot of time. I wouldn't have been able to finish on my own, I don't believe. I am not organized enough to take the time aside from my family and my life. But the External Degree Program here is such a valuable asset for people who are adults that have been taken away from college for a variety of reasons. Don't tell me anything is too late. Nothing is too late.'…”

Graduates' employment outlook improves as baby boomers retire
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 15
…Jerry Paschal, director of the University of Alabama Career Center, agrees with the outlook, and said more companies came to UA career fairs and interviewed students this fall. There are opportunities throughout the region, he said…For Alabama, business graduates and graduates in health care fields face a good job market, Paschal said.'The whole engineering sector in the state is good, especially in Huntsville,' he said...
GRADUATION
When: 9 a.m. today
Where: University of Alabama Coleman Coliseum, live broadcast at www.ua.edu.
Graduates: 1,100
Admission: Free.
Details: No speaker. Former Crimson Tide and professional quarterback Joe Namath will receive degree.

Arguing Against Free-Market Plagiarism Prevention
InsideHigherEd.com – Dec. 17
Most academic disciplines largely trust a decentralized approach to policing potential instances of plagiarism, counting on scholars to report situations when they occur, and journal editors or academic administrators to respond to and punish breaches upon learning about them…That approach makes sense if the appropriate people are fulfilling their appropriate roles in that informal system, says Gary A. Hoover, an associate professor of economics at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. But Hoover, whose personal experiences as a victim of academic piracy have led him to study the state of plagiarism within his chosen field, argues that the system falls down if incidents don’t get reported to those with the power to punish the perpetrators, or if those with that power don’t act. And too often they don’t, Hoover argued in a presentation made to a group of government economists in Washington on Friday, based on a series of surveys and papers he has produced on the subject of economics…

Norbert Leo Butz skipped Young Frankenstein for old Mark Twain. Good call
New York Magazine – Dec. 16
Butz, 40,…got his master’s at a University of Alabama Shakespeare program and came to New York to do straight, earnest plays…Musicals became his stock-in-trade: hefty parts in Wicked, Cabaret, and the ill-fated Harry Connick Jr.–scored Thou Shalt Not (roundly panned—except for his performance). But it was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels that made him famous…

Hillcrest students give group busload of books
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 15
Eighth-graders in Traci Ferguson’s English class at Hillcrest Middle School left organizers of the Tuscaloosa Baby TALK program speechless this week. Program officials stood amid crates and boxes overflowing with books — more than 1,300 children’s books — that the eighth-graders collected, donated and delivered via a Tuscaloosa County school bus Friday…Baby TALK is a community service program that is part of the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Alabama. The program, which distributes donated books to children 3 and younger at local clinics and doctor’s offices, began in 2000…

Business briefs
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 16
…2008 Economic Outlook Conference: 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 300 Tallapoosa St., Montgomery. Annual conference presented by the University of Alabama's Center for Business and Economic Research. Dennis Lockhart, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, will be the keynote speaker…