Auburn University

Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public research university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 21,000 undergraduate students, and a total of more than 27,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state  as well as one of two public flagship universities in the state of Alabama. Auburn was chartered on February 1, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts school affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1872, the college became the state's first public land-grant university under the Morrill Act and was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. In 1892, the college became the first four-year coeducational school in the state. The curriculum at the university originally focused on engineering and agriculture. This trend changed under the guidance of Dr. William Leroy Broun, who taught classics and sciences and believed both disciplines were important in the overall growth of the university and the individual. The college was renamed the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API) in 1899, largely because of Dr. Broun's influence. The college continued expanding, and in 1960 its name was officially changed to Auburn University to acknowledge the varied academic programs and larger curriculum of a major university. It had been popularly known as "Auburn" for many years. In 1964, under Federal Court mandate AU admitted its first African American student.Auburn is among the few American universities designated as a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research center.


History

Auburn University was chartered by the Alabama Legislature as the East Alabama Male College on February 1, 1856, coming under the guidance of the Methodist Church in 1859.The first president of the institution was Reverend William J. Sasnett, and the school opened its doors in 1859 to a student body of eighty and a faculty of ten. The early history of Auburn is inextricably linked with the Civil War and the Reconstruction-era South. Classes were held in "Old Main" until the college was closed due to the Civil War, when most of the students and faculty left to enlist. The campus was used as a training ground for the Confederate Army, and "Old Main" served as a hospital for Confederate wounded.

To commemorate Auburn's contribution to the Civil War, a cannon lathe used for the manufacture of cannons for the Confederate Army and recovered from Selma, Alabama, was presented to Auburn in 1952 by brothers of Delta Chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity. It sits today on the lawn next to Samford Hall.


Name change to Auburn
Recognizing the school had moved beyond its agricultural and mechanical roots, it was granted university status by the Alabama Legislature in 1960 and officially renamed Auburn University, a name that better expressed the varied academic programs and expanded curriculum that the school had been offering for years. However, it had been popularly called "Auburn" for many years even before the official name change.

Auburn University was racially segregated prior to 1963, with only white students being admitted. Integration began in 1964 with the admittance of the first African-American student, Harold A. Franklin. The first degree granted to an African-American was in 1967. According to Auburn University's Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, African-Americans comprise 1,828 of the university's 24,864 undergraduates (7.35%) as of 2013 and 49 of the 1,192 full-time faculty (4.1%) as of 2012. AU has decreased its African American faculty percentage from 4.3% in 2003 to 4.1% today, since the settlement of legal challenges to the underrepresentation of African Americans in AU's faculty in 2006.

Today, Auburn has grown since its founding to have an on-campus enrollment of over 25,000 students and a faculty of almost 1,200 at the main campus in Auburn There are also more than 6,000 students at the Auburn University at Montgomery satellite campus established in 1967.


Academics

Auburn has traditionally been rated highly by academic ranking services, and has been listed as one of the top 50 public universities for 20 consecutive years. The 2014 edition of U.S. News & World Report ranks Auburn as the 103rd university in the nation among public and private schools and 48th among public universities. Auburn was the only college or university in Alabama included in the inaugural edition (1981) of the widely respected Peterson's Guides to America's 296 Most Competitive Colleges. Furthermore, the 1995 edition of "The Guide to 101 of the Best Values in America's Colleges and Universities" listed Auburn in the prestigious "National Flagship University" category.


Auburn is a charter member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), currently composed of 13 of the largest Southern public universities in the US and one private university, Vanderbilt. Among the other 12 peer public universities, Auburn is ranked fourth in the 2011 edition of U.S. News & World Report.[45] This high ranking and reputation for academic quality is in spite of the fact that Auburn's $378.6 million endowment is currently the second smallest of the 13 SEC universities. An attempt to increase the endowment by $500 million began in 2005 with the "It Begins at Auburn" campaign. As of August 2006, the campaign had raised $523 million, making it the largest campaign in university history.

The university currently consists of thirteen schools and colleges. Programs in architecture, pharmacy, veterinary science, engineering, forestry, and business have been ranked among the best in the country.

The journal DesignIntelligence in its 2013 edition of "America's Best Architecture and Design Schools" ranked Auburn's undergraduate Architecture program No. 9 and Industrial Design program No. 6 nationally. In addition, Auburn's graduate Landscape Architecture program was ranked No. 13 nationally and Industrial Design program 4th.



The undergraduate Interior Design program in the College of Human Sciences is ranked No. 1 nationally by DesignIntelligence magazine. For its annual survey, "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools," the publication asked 277 leading architecture and design firms which schools best prepare students for success in the profession. Based on Interior Design programs accredited by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA), Auburn was ranked No. 1 in the nation, along with Savannah College of Art and Design.

Auburn's College of Architecture pioneered the nation's first interior architecture degree program; its dual degree Architecture & Interior Architecture degree was the first in the nation. Its College of Architecture, Design, and Construction pioneered the nation's first Design Build master's degree program, capitalizing on the College's Building Science program with Auburn's "Rural Studio" program where Architectural students build highly creative and ingenious homes for some of the poorest regions of Alabama. These homes and efforts have been publicized by People Magazine, Time, featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, numerous Architectural and Construction periodicals as well. Of special mention is the School's Rural Studio program, founded by the late Samuel Mockbee.

The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering has a 134-year tradition of engineering education, consistently ranking in the nation's largest 20 engineering programs in terms of numbers of engineers graduating annually. The college has a combined enrollment of close to 4,000. Auburn's College of Engineering offers majors in civil, mechanical, electrical, industrial and systems engineering, polymer and fiber engineering, aerospace, agricultural, bio-systems, materials, chemical engineering, computer science, and software engineering, and—more recently—began a program in wireless engineering after receiving a donation from alumnus Samuel L. Ginn. In 2001, Ginn, a noted US pioneer in wireless communication, made a $25 million gift to the college and announced plans to spearhead an additional $150 million in support. This gave Auburn the first Bachelor of Wireless Engineering degree program in the United States. Auburn University was the first university in the Southeast to offer the bachelor of software engineering degree and the master of software engineering degree.


Auburn has historically placed much of its emphasis on the education of engineers at the undergraduate level, and in recent years has been ranked as high as the 10th largest undergraduate engineering program in the US in terms of the number of undergraduate degrees awarded on annual basis. The Ginn College of Engineering is now focused on expanding the graduate programs, and was recently ranked 60th nationally university with doctoral programs in engineering by U.S. News & World Report. Last year, the College ranked 67th among all engineering programs . "America's Best Graduate Schools 2006" ranks the Ginn College of Engineering's graduate program in the Top 100 graduate engineering programs in the US. Auburn's Industrial and Systems Engineering, Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering were all ranked in the top 100.




Auburn's Economics Department (formerly in the College of Business, now in the College of Liberal Arts) was ranked 123rd in the world in 1999 by the Journal of Applied Econometrics. Auburn was rated ahead of such international powerhouses as INSEAD in France (141st) and the London Business School (146th). Auburn's MBA Program in the College of Business has annually been ranked by U.S. News & World Report magazine in the top ten percent of the nation's more than 750 MBA Programs. The Ludwig von Mises Institute offices were once located in the business department of Auburn University, and the LvMI continues to work with the university on many levels.

Nationally recognized ROTC programs are available in three branches of service: Air Force, Army, and Navy/Marine Corps, the latter being the only one in Alabama. Each of these units is ranked among the top ten in the nation. Over 100 officers that attended Auburn have reached flag rank (general or admiral), including one, Carl Epting Mundy Jr., who served as Commandant of the US Marine Corps. Auburn is one of only seven universities in the Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program, and has historically been one of the top ROTC producers of Navy nuclear submarine officers.

In addition to the many outstanding ROTC graduates commissioned through Auburn, two master's degree alumni from Auburn, four-star generals Hugh Shelton and Richard Myers, served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the last decade. Both officers received their commissions elsewhere, and attended Auburn for an M.S. (Shelton) and M.B.A. (Myers).


Auburn has graduated six astronauts (including T.K. Mattingly of Apollo 13 fame) and one current and one former director of the Kennedy Space Center. 1972 Auburn Mechanical Engineering graduate Jim Kennedy, currently director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, was previously deputy director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Several hundred Auburn graduates, primarily engineers and scientists, currently work directly for NASA or NASA contractors. Hundreds of Auburn engineers worked for NASA at MSFC during the peak years of the "space race" in the 1960s, when the Saturn and Apollo moon programs were in full development.