Lots of News!
June 15, 2007
I want to lead off this time with some very good news all friends of APP will be glad to hear. Our very good past year has been made possible in large part by the generous support of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, located in North Carolina, through an operational grant of $50,000. This grant has truly been the spark to take us through a significant time of transition and new initiatives.
We got the news last week that the Babcock Foundation has seen fit to provide continued support to APP through a grant of $100,000 over the next two years! This grant provides stability and the all-important capacity to, over those two years, solidify and expand our support within Alabama even as we continue to further our programs.
So many thanks go to the good folks at Babcock. This is not only the provision of financial resources, it’s a vote of confidence that we are and will continue to be effective in our work. That’s a great encouragement to me personally and to our board of directors as well!
“To Whom Much is Given”
APP is a cosponsor of an important upcoming conference on service learning in higher education – “To Whom Much is Given.”
Service learning helps students put their classroom studies to work, even as it expands the classroom experience. All that, and it does good things for college and university communities as well. The conference is for anyone interested in the topic - professors, administrators, students, and community partners.
This is a big deal and something APP is intent on addressing. We’re very grateful to our partners – the University of Alabama Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility, Impact: Alabama, and the UAB Center for Urban Affairs - for pulling this together and want to do all we can to publicize and support the event.
Check out the event website here. And then think seriously about participating as a presenter, an attendee or both! Tell others as well.
The Constitution and Poverty
Mark Berte - APP Board Member and Grassroots Education Director for the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation – recently had an opinion column published in several state papers. Mark does a great job in the column of pointing out the shortcomings of the Alabama constitution that directly impact people of low wealth and business interests as well.
Take some time to check out the article here. This kind of column is one of the ways that APP is trying to inform the public at large about the things that introduce folks into poverty and then make it hard for them to improve their lives.
Good job, Mark! And thanks.
Welcome, University of West Alabama!
I’m very pleased to announce that our latest member of the APP Higher Education Partnership is the University of West Alabama. This makes eight of our colleges and universities that are now part of this very important part of APP work.
Thanks to West Alabama President Dr. Richard Holland for catching the vision of what we can and will accomplish together. (You can visit the UWA website here.) APP continues to meet with college presidents and others to advance this partnership, so I look forward to announcing other new members soon.
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