From internships to student achievements to recognition of The University of Tampa faculty and institution as a whole, the following is a running archive of UT press releases, called News Articles, and feature stories, noted as UT Life.
Posted March 23, 2018 in UT Life
While Mackenzie Harrington ’19 is in the female minority in her calculus class, it’s the complete opposite situation in her language and linguistics courses for her Spanish major.“There are a lot of stereotypes and studies that say boys aren’t as good in second language acquisition as females,” said Harrington, who worked with Assistant Professor Andrew DeMil on the research project, “Gender differences in Spanish Language Learning: Speaking Exams,” which they presented at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference in February and to the UT Board of Trustees March 22.
“We wanted to do a study of our own here at UT. In the previous year (DeMil) had studied reading comprehension of girls versus boys, so we wanted to study speaking this year,” said Harrington, of Maple Grove, MN. “The results were the same though. The boys aren’t any worse, if not the same, as females. They are just extremely underrepresented.”
Posted February 22, 2018 in UT Life
Bobby Bones is a syndicated country music radio show host, just inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, who is heard on more than 100 radio stations and will be part of the new American Idol cast. One of his regular features on his morning show includes shout outs of positivity where members of his crew give reasons why the day is good and how they can help others have a better one.Avid country music fan Jennifer Wortham, associate professor of health sciences and human performance, has self-proclaimed that she has drunk the Bobby Bones Kool-Aid.
"I believe in Bobby Bones and what he does. I'm all in," said Wortham, whose Pathways to Honors students created a research project based on the glass-half-full mentality that every day can be a good day.
"We wanted to take a look at what makes college students have a good day," said Jason Behnke '19. "Once we started gathering the data, we realized it could lead to higher retention rates. If students are having a good day or more students are having a good day, the higher your retention rate would be."
Posted February 12, 2018 in UT Life
In Sarah Lauro's Plant Hall office, on the north facing wall, is a library of books. It's a collection the assistant professor of English shares with inquiring students.
On more than one occasion, English major Noah Oakley '19 has asked Lauro about a topic - say, death and literature - and she directed him to one of the well-worn soft covers lining the shelf. And while unsure if he'd follow through with reading it, she'd see an Instagram post of Oakley reading the book in a Tampa coffee shop and smile to herself at his curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
"That's the thing about Noah. The classroom for him is the place knowledge starts. It's not the place that it ends," Lauro said. "He goes to every single extracurricular activity - if we're showing a movie he's there. If we're hosting a poet's reading, he's there. He just really takes advantage of that whole UT experience."
Posted January 08, 2018 in UT Life
Chubby Checker may have been the one to take The Twist to the top of the charts in September 1960, but did you know the song, written by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, has its origins in Tampa?
“Little Milton, Bobby Bland and I can’t tell you how many other artists have all told me that the kids on Central Avenue (in Tampa) started the Twist. That’s where Hank Ballard saw it,” says Bob Scheir, who hosted Blues with a Groove for many years on Tampa public radio (WMNF).
Ballard’s original version was released through King Records in 1959, and many people who were peers of Ballard, who died in 2003 from lung cancer, confirm the song’s origins.
The little-known origin of The Twist is just one story John Capouya chronicles in his recently released book, Florida Soul: From Ray Charles to KC and the Sunshine Band. The book’s own origins began with an article Capouya wrote for The Tampa Bay Times on the 50th anniversary of Chubby Checker’s Twist and the role Hank Ballard played.
Posted March 07, 2017 in UT Life
While there has been much talk about the farm-to-table trend, UT’s Heather O’Connor MBA ’17 and Professor Bella Galperin found a niche with little light: the movement’s potential for entrepreneurs.“This project is on sustainable farming, but also farming from an entrepreneurial perspective,” said Galperin, senior associate director of the TECO Energy Center for Leadership.