Humanities and the Fine Arts

Perhaps more than any other campus building, Woods Hall symbolizes the soul and spirit of the College of Arts and Sciences and The University of Alabama. Named for the University's first president, Alva Woods, Woods Hall was the first structure to be built after the campus was destroyed by federal troops during the Civil War. This 300-foot-long, four-story, neo-Gothic building has at various times housed most of the University's components, including administration, the library, dormitories, classrooms, the post office, and the bookstore. Today, the building contains faculty offices, studios, and classrooms for the Department of Art. Nearby Garland Hall, Manly Hall, and Clark Hall, all constructed in the late 1800s, complete a quadrangle of historic buildings with a central courtyard long known as Woods Quad.

The University of Alabama Sarah Moody Gallery of Art is located in Garland Hall. The gallery offers a program of exhibitions, lectures, and films. Works of contemporary artists, faculty and graduate students, and items from the permanent collection of paintings, sculpture, photographs, prints, ceramics, and drawings are periodically exhibited. Garland Hall also contains the offices for the Department of Art and art classrooms.

The Language Resource Center, located in B. B. Comer Hall, serves the Department of Modern Languages and Classics. The facility provides multimedia computer stations, linked through a central control system by which an instructor may monitor and assist students individually or in groups. B. B. Comer Hall also houses administrative offices and classrooms for the Critical Languages Center and the Department of Modern Languages and Classics.

Morgan Hall houses the Department of English, including the freshman English and creative writing programs. Morgan Auditorium is the site of fiction and poetry readings and of performances of the College of Arts and Sciences dance program. The Writing Center, also located in Morgan Hall, provides a free writing tutorial service for students in all fields and at all levels of study. The Writing Center helps students develop their writing skills as they work through specific writing assignments or projects. The English Computer Lab (ECL), the oldest and largest of the College of Arts and Sciences computer facilities, is also in Morgan Hall. The ECL, which is networked to all other A&S computer labs, provides two computer classrooms for online classes as well as general computer access for all English faculty and students. It also coordinates the computer-based writing instruction that has been required of freshman composition students since 1986.

Manly Hall houses the administrative and faculty offices of the Department of Religious Studies and the Women's Studies Program.

The Strode House, a gift of Hudson and Therese Strode, is located on 23 acres in a residential area of Tuscaloosa. It currently houses the director of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies.

The German House, Russian House, and Spanish House provide students with living accommodations convenient to campus. The houses are open to students interested in intensive exposure to these languages and cultures. Residents of each house speak the language of that house and participate in weekly cultural programs. Each language house student must register for the language course numbered 205 or 206 and is expected to be enrolled in one other course in the language.

The Department of Theatre and Dance is located in Rowand-Johnson Hall. This building houses the Marian Gallaway Theatre, a 338-seat proscenium theatre in which four to six mainstage productions are presented each year. The Allen Bales Theatre, a thrust-stage, 170-seat facility used for studio productions, is also located in the building. The College of Arts and Sciences theatre program involves creative activities and public service. The primary objectives include providing training and theatrical experience; fostering the development of individual talent; imparting knowledge of the great works of dramatic literature; developing new works of theatre art with new techniques, styles, and perspectives; and searching for new relationships among the theatre arts, other arts, and the environments in which they function.

Dance facilities are provided in a 3,400-square-foot studio on the third floor of historic Clark Hall. The studio has maple flooring, ample mirrors and barres, and soaring Gothic windows. It is used both for dance instruction and rehearsal. Morgan Auditorium is the primary performance site for the dance program.

The Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences is located on the first floor of Clark Hall.

The School of Music offers an extensive series of concerts in the Frank Moody Music Building. The 1,000-seat concert hall, which houses a mechanical-action Holtkamp organ (86 ranks, 4 manuals), is the regular venue for performances by faculty, visiting artists, and University ensembles. Student recitals are presented in the 140-seat Huey Recital Hall. The building also contains music classrooms, practice rooms, a comprehensive electronic music studio, rehearsal spaces for all University ensembles, and the studios and offices of School of Music faculty.

The Archive of American Minority Cultures, located in the Special Collections Building, serves students, faculty, community members, and other researchers interested in ethnic, folk, minority, and women's interdisciplinary cultural studies, particularly through the techniques of folklore and oral history. The archive initiates and supports both academic research and public programs. It functions as a regional resource center for primary multimedia materials; a clearinghouse for information on state and regional research and programs; a support service for field research, media documentation, presentations, and related activities; and a sponsor of public outreach programs. The archive also houses the holdings of the Women's Studies Program's Preservation Project for Southern Women's Culture and the minority and folklore collections of the Department of American Studies.