Auburn University
Auburn University (AU) is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama with over 23,000 students and 1200 faculty. It is the largest university in Alabama. Auburn was chartered on February 1, 1856 as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts school affiliated with the Methodist Church. The college was donated to the state of Alabama in 1872, when it became the state's public land-grant university under the Morrill Act and was called the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. In 1892, the college became the first four-year coeducational school in the state. The college was renamed the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API) in 1899. In 1960, its name was changed to Auburn University.
Auburn's interim president is Ed Richardson, who was appointed after the resignation of former President William Walker in January 2004. Walker stepped down under pressure after a scandal in which he interviewed a prospect for the school's head football coaching job without first telling Tuberville that his job was in danger.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the university on probation in December 2003, citing micromanagement from the university's board of trustees, including prominent trustee Bobby Lowder, chairman of Colonial Bank in Montgomery, Alabama.
Academics
Auburn has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the highest-ranked public university in the state of Alabama for 11 consecutive years and in the 2004 rankings was 44th among the nation's top 50 public universities. The university's core curriculum has been recognized as one of the best in the nation.
The university currently consists of thirteen schools and colleges. Programs in engineering, architecture and business have been ranked among the best in the country and Auburn also boasts strong programs in veterinary medicine, mathematics, science and journalism. The Old Rotation on campus is the oldest continuous agricultural experiment in the Southeast, and third oldest in the United States, dating from 1896. In 2003, Auburn started the first Bachelor of Wireless Engineering degree program in the US.
Schools and year originated:
- College of Agriculture, 1872
- College of Architecture, Design and Construction, 1907
- College of Business, 1967
- College of Education, 1915
- Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, 1872
- School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, 1984
- College of Human Sciences, 1916
- College of Liberal Arts, 1986
- School of Nursing, 1979
- James Harrison School of Pharmacy, 1885
- College of Sciences and Mathematics, 1986
- College of Veterinary Medicine, 1907
- Graduate School, 1872
Athletics
The school's sports teams are known as the Tigers, and they participate in the NCAA's Division I-A athletics and in the Western Division of the 12-member Southeastern Conference (SEC). Auburn is very competitive nationally in many sports in which it competes including football, baseball, women's basketball, and swimming & diving (men's and women's).
Auburn's football team, currently coached by Tommy Tuberville, won a national championship in 1957. Two Auburn players, Bo Jackson in 1985, and Pat Sullivan in 1971 have won the Heisman Trophy. The Trophy's namesake, John Heisman, coached at Auburn from 1895-1899. Auburn played the first football game in the Deep South in 1892 against the University of Georgia at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. The Tigers' first bowl appearance was in 1937 in the Bacardi Bowl played in Havana, Cuba - the only bowl game to ever be played outside the United States. AU Football has won five SEC Conference Championships and four western division championships.
In the last decade under head coach David Marsh, Auburn's Swimming and Diving program has become a virtual dynasty in the SEC and threatens to do the same nationally, with consecutive national championships for both the men and women in 2003 and 2004. The most recent championship marks the third in a row for the women. The Auburn men have won the SEC Championship ten out of the last eleven years and have previous national championships in 1997 and 1999. Coach Marsh has been an US Olympic coach and AU swimmers have represented the US and several other countries in recent Olympics.
The Auburn women's backetball team has been consistently competitive both nationally and within the Southeastern Conference, generally considered to the premier conference for women's basketball. Despite playing in the same conference as perenial powerhouse Tennessee and other competitive programs such as Georgia and Vanderbilt, Auburn has won four regular season SEC championships and four SEC Tournament championships. AU has made sixteen appearances in the NCAA women's basketball tournament and only once, in the Tigers first appearance in 1982, have the Tigers lost in the first round. Auburn played in three consecutive national championship games from 1988-1990 and won the Women's NIT in 2003. When Coach Joe Ciampi announced his retirement after twenty-five years at the end of the 2003-2004 season, the resulting search snared the highly experienced, former Purdue and US National and Olympic team head coach, Nell Fortner. Standout former Auburn players include; Ruthie Bolton-Holyfield, Vickie Orr, Carolyn Jones, Chantel Tremitiere and Monique Morehouse.
Auburn Baseball has won six SEC championships, three SEC Tournament championships, appeared in sixteen NCAA Regionals and reached the College World Series (CWS) four times. In addition to Bo Jackson, Auburn has supplied several other stand-out players to Major League Baseball including Frank Thomas, Gregg Olson, Tim Hudson, and Mark Bellhorn.
Statistics
Schools and colleges: 13 Campus: ~375 buildings on 1,840 acres Library Total Volumes: 5,316,652
2003 Fall Enrollment: 23,152
- Undergrad: 20,048 - Graduate: 3104 - Student to Faculty Ratio: 16 to 1
2003 Applicants/Entering Freshmen:
- Applied: 12,439 - Accepted: 9,653 - Enrolled: 3,706 - avg ACT: 24.4 - avg HS GPA: 3.51
Notable Alumni
- Don Logan ('66); Chairman, Time Warner's Media & Communications Group
- Rheta Grimsley-Johnson; syndicated newspaper columnist
- Cynthia Tucker ('76); syndicated columnist, Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor
- Anne Rivers Siddons ('58); best-selling author
- Ken Mattingly ('58); former astronaut
- Kathy Thornton; astronaut
- Fob James ('57), former Governor of Alabama
- Samuel Mockbee ('74), architect, founder of Auburn's Rural Studio, 2004 AIA Gold Medal
- Paul Rudolph ('40), architect, chairman of Yale Department of Architecture - 1958 to 1965