September 9, 2002
AU, SACS settle court case
Freshman enrollment sets record
France honors AU professor
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September 9, 2002 |
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| Headlines AU, SACS settle court case Freshman enrollment sets record France honors AU professor |
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Campus, city remember 9-11 terrorist attacks
Auburn University and the City of Auburn will honor the memory of those who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with day-long activities aimed at remembrance and understanding.
"Though last year's terrorist attacks took place hundreds of miles away, Auburn did not escape without loss," said AU President William F. Walker. "We lost alumni, supporters, family and friends and, like the rest of the country, we lost a sense of security.
"It's only appropriate that we should take time on the anniversary of one of the defining events of our lifetimes to honor the memory of those lost and pledge ourselves to doing all that we can here at Auburn to bridge gaps of understanding that contribute to such crimes against humanity."
The "Day of Remembrance" will begin at 7:30 a.m. with a gathering for the raising of the U.S. flag at Samford Hall. The flag will be raised by representatives of the police and fire departments and the military, many of whom will attend the ceremonies.
Approximately 300 AU ROTC students in uniform will be present for the ceremony. From 10 a.m.-3 p.m., the Red Cross will conduct a blood drive at Colonial Mall in Auburn. The Landscape of Sorrow photographic remembrance of the attacks opens at 2 p.m. at Greystone Mansion, located at 434 E. Magnolia Ave., in Auburn. And, at 3 p.m., AU and the city of Auburn will participate in a national moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of last year's attacks.
The evening's events begin at 5 p.m. with a PEACE (Programs Emphasizing Acceptance, Change and Education) Dinner sponsored and prepared by AU's International Student Organization. The free dinner is open to everyone and will feature Turkish, Chinese, Egyptian and Indian foods.
The culmination of the day will be an evening memorial ceremony beginning at 7 p.m. on the Samford Lawn featuring remarks by Walker and Peter Verga, the Pentagon's senior official on homeland security.
The evening event will also include music by the AU Orchestra, AU Concert Choir and soloist Tim Jackson, an F-16 fly-over, a 21-gun salute and presentations of flags to Auburn Mayor Bill Ham and the family of John Michael Spann, an AU alumnus and former Marine who, as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, became the first U.S. combat casualty in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks. The ceremony will close to bagpipe music.
"We will conclude the day on Samford Lawn, gathering much like we did last year with a candlelight vigil in the days immediately after the attacks," said Nancy McDaniel, AU assistant vice president for student affairs.
"The students in our Student Government Association, Black Student Union, International Student Organization and others have worked very hard to plan events that will properly memorialize those who lost their lives," said McDaniel. "I encourage everyone connected with the university and everyone in the city of Auburn to join us in this day of remembrance."
AU, SACS settle issue over visit
A federal court judge has approved a plan by Auburn University and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools that provides for an independent, court-appointed investigator to review issues related to Auburnšs accreditation.
Auburn and SACS have worked together in recent weeks and reached agreement on terms for the review. U.S. District Court Judge J. Owen Forrester of Atlanta accepted the jointly proposed plan.
"The proposal approved by Judge Forrester is clearly in Auburn's short- and long-term best interest," said AU President William Walker. "It ensures that a fair and independent process will be used to examine issues relevant to accreditation guidelines.
"Our goal is to quickly and objectively resolve these issues for the benefit of Auburn and its mission of providing an environment conducive to learning and top-quality educational programs," Walker added. "We will work with SACS to implement this plan."
Last year, SACS announced that it would conduct a review of Auburn after receiving a letter of complaint filed by the ad hoc Joint Assessment Committee regarding several campus issues. However, Walker and AU's legal counsel determined that SACS was not following its own procedures, thereby depriving the university of due process.
Forrester earlier this year agreed with Auburn and ruled that SACS must adhere to its own policies and provide due process. The plan approved by the court moves the process forward by stating the guidelines and timeframe for the Auburn review and for Auburn to respond to the investigator's report.
The judge specified that three of the 10 issues in the letter of complaint are appropriate for SACS review. The first is current compliance with criteria for accreditation concerning board and administration responsibility. The second issue is current compliance with criteria for accreditation requirements concerning majority control of Auburn's governing board, and the third issue is current business dealings among members of Auburn's Board of Trustees and AU.
Forrester also said that all other issues which SACS intended to review were beyond SACS' legitimate scope.
Richard Y. Bradley, managing partner in the Columbus, Ga., law firm of Bradley and Hatcher, was named the independent investigator by Forrester. Bradley is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a former president of the State Bar of Georgia.
"I am pleased with Mr. Bradley's appointment, and I am confident that he will conduct an impartial review in a professional manner," Walker said.
The president said the appointment of an independent investigator represents "real progress" for Auburn in its relationship with SACS.
"We are working to resolve and move beyond the SACS issue so that the Auburn family may continue building upon the positive things happening on campus," said Walker.
"Auburn is academically stronger now than ever," he said. "And we are constantly improving the way our university is run, and that includes recent actions by the board to place faculty members at the table with trustees."
Crisis team helps AU accommodate surge in new freshmen
Is this too much of a good thing? That question came to Auburn's top academic and admissions officers this past summer as they saw a huge surge of new freshmen developing for the fall. While other universities were struggling to fill their freshman classes, Auburn saw its freshman class swell by more than 10 percent in one year.
A record 4,153 new freshmen were in classes for the start of fall semester on Aug. 19, up from 3,746 last year. That increase also contributed to a record total enrollment of 23,263. The previous record for new freshmen was 3,864 in 2000 and 22,469 total enrollment in 2001.
Enrollment staff spotted recognized early in the summer that something was amiss. Although there had been no change from previous years in admissions standards or in the numbers accepted, this year more students were showing up for Camp War Eagle orientation, where they registered for classes.
Provost John Pritchett attributed the increase to several factors. High-quality academic programs and faculty were attractions, as in years past. The recruitment program in Student Affairs and word-of-mouth from satisfied students also played a large role this year, he said.
Pritchett noted that this year was also the first in which the university implemented a plan to help colleges and schools fill their enrollment needs by admitting students with clear career objectives in their areas of study.
In July, academic officers saw that they would have to come up with more instructors to teach core courses. The 400 additional students would need three to five courses each, primarily in core subjects within the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Sciences and Mathematics. Classrooms were available, but faculty in the core courses already had a full course load.
"Early on, we determined that we were going to meet the demand, but we were not sure how to do so," said Pritchett. "We knew we had to act quickly, so we created an enrollment management crisis team. This team came up with a great solution that enabled us to offer a full courseload to every freshman."
The solution: Get faculty in the core areas from the main campus and Auburn University Montgomery to teach extra courses at Auburn for extra pay.
"It was a simple solution but not one you want to implement every year because the faculty already have a lot to do," said Pritchett. Still, he said, faculty at both campuses responded beautifully to the request.
"I want to thank all the faculty who stepped forward," said Pritchett. "In all these areas, they made a personal commitment to seeing that the academic needs of the students were met."
The emergency enrollment management crisis team is chaired by Pritchett and consists of Greg Kowalski, interim associate dean of Liberal Arts; Larry Witt, associate dean of Sciences and Mathematics; Linda Glaze, assistant provost; Wes Williams, vice president for Student Affairs; and John Fletcher, associate vice president for enrollment management in Student Affairs.
With a potential enrollment crisis averted this fall, the team has turned its attention to spring semester and beyond.
The team meets each week in the Provost's Office to identify and head off other potential problems as the enrollment bubble works its way through the core courses. Those courses are concentrated in Sciences and Mathematics and in Liberal Arts during the first two years of classes, after which students disperse throughout the university for courses in their majors.
Looking ahead both to spring semester and the 2003-04 academic year, the team is developing recommendations on ways to slow enrollment growth until the bubble is gone. Among the changes is tighter review to admit fewer transfers for next spring semester.
Team members say they also expect Auburn to accept fewer new freshmen for admission next fall in order to ease the demand for core courses in the 2003-04 academic year.
A standing university committee on enrollment management will develop goals that incorporate the objectives of the colleges and schools into general university guidelines for enrollment.
Faculty member gains national audience on TV
When NBC's Today Show hosted its annual "Today Throws a Wedding" on Sept. 4, there was a special Auburn connection -- the minister.
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Johnny Green has worn a lot of hats for Auburn University -- undergraduate and graduate student, faculty member and now special assistant to the provost. But it was his ministerial robe that got him attention when he performed the marriage ceremony for Marcus Landry and Cynithia Slay, both of Washington, D.C., on national television on Wednesday.
The newly married couple attended Tuskegee University and met while attending Tuskegee's homecoming football game in 1997. Slay also did graduate work at AU, and met Green while attending the local White Street Baptist Church, where Green is minister. Green has kept up with Cynithia through mutual friends since she left White Street Baptist Church.
Landry is a veterinary technician and his bride-to-be is a special education teacher. Green says a mutual friend initially contacted him days after the Today Show selected the couple. He thought someone was playing a joke on him, but it was Green's wife, Diane, a fan of the show and its wedding series, who told him Cynithia had been selected as the Today Show bride and that the call was serious.
The local minister and AU faculty member said he encountered no significant restrictions from the network, but the ceremony could not last longer than nine and a half minutes.
Green was ordained as a minister in 1982 and has been the pastor of White Street Baptist Church since 1995. He has been teaching since 1988 in AU's Department of Political Science. Earlier this year, he was appointed special assistant to the provost. In that post, he coordinates several diversity efforts for the university.
Architects to present design ideas for student village
The AU community this week will get a glimpse of ideas being floated by several architectural firms that seek to design AU's new student village complex.
Eighteen firms that have expressed interest in winning the contract for the new student village are expected by Student Affairs officials to participate in an exhibition Thursday and Friday, Sept. 12-13, at Foy Student Union, Room 217.
Representatives of each firm will have displays to showcase their experience, commitment and talent, and will be available to answer students' questions. Students will be provided forms to allow them input on their preferred design teams.
"This is a unique opportunity to involve Auburn students in the selection process for the architect for the new student village," said Debbie Shaw, director of AU's Foy Student Union. "This is the first time this has occurred on our campus, and we feel it is very appropriate with a building that is for the students, paid for by students. Student involvement is key to this important decision."
The architectural firms' exhibits will be available for viewing from noon-9 p.m. on Thursday and from 8 a.m.-noon on Friday.
"The Building Committee, chaired by Christine Curtis (associate provost for facilities) and myself, will take into serious consideration the input from the students who visit with the firms," Shaw said.
The student review of the design firms is part of the first step in the process toward approval of an architect for a new student union at Auburn. The building committee, with the input from students, will select three to five firms to interview.
"After we've interviewed those firms, we will send recommendations to Dr. Walker, who will then send his recommendation to the Board of Trustees for approval," Shaw said.
Reed named head of Truman Pierce Institute in College of Education
Cynthia J. Reed, an AU faculty member since 1997, has been named director of the Truman Pierce Institute in Auburn's College of Education.
She succeeds Frances Kochan, interim dean of the College of Education. Both are also faculty members in the college's Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology.
The Truman Pierce Institute is the college's research and outreach center and works with school systems around the state in programs to improve their structure and quality of education. The institute is named for a nationally prominent education dean at Auburn during the 1960s and 70s.
Reed, an associate professor of educational leadership, assumed the directorship during the summer. In announcing the appointment last week, Kochan said the institute is important to the college and to educators and public officials in many counties of Alabama
"We are very pleased that Cindy has taken over in this position," said Kochan. "She brings creativity, dynamism and a commitment to creating partnerships with schools, universities and communities that will strengthen the Truman Pierce Institute and the College of Education."
Reed is also co-director of the West Alabama Learning Coalition. The coalition is a consortium of eight school districts in partnership with institutions of higher education, community and faith-based agencies and local businesses for the purpose of simultaneous educational improvement and economic and community development.
The AU faculty member has a doctor of education degree in educational policy, planning and evaluation from the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds degrees from the Oswego and Cortland campuses in the State University of New York system. From 1978-88, she was a teacher and principal in public schools.
Dyann Robinson named Scholar-in-Residence
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Dyann Robinson, a faculty member in the Department of Theatre who retired early this year, has been named Scholar-in-Residence with the AU Theatre in a one-year special appointment.
"Dyann will contribute immensely based on her great talents to the cultural diversity of this campus," interim Provost John Pritchett said. "I believe her appointment is especially significant given the campuswide diversity initiatives that are under way at this time."
"Dyann's work transcends teaching and, whether in the classroom teaching dance or choreography, she brings an artistry to bear on our students and community," said Worth Gardner, chair of the Department of Theatre.
A professional dancer who performed on Broadway, Robinson will direct a play she has written called "Strange Fruit: The Story of an Alabama Lynching," which will be the 2002 season opener for the Department of Theatre Oct. 2-6 and 8-11 at Telfair Peet Theatre.
In 2001, Robinson received one of four Governor's Arts Awards from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Robinson, who taught dance and directed plays in AU's Department of Theatre, began teaching at AU in 1987. The associate professor created five original full-length dance dramas for the department.
A Tuskegee native, Robinson returned to her birthplace following a successful Broadway dance career that included a position as assistant choreographer for the hit musical, "Bubbling Brown Sugar." She also taught and performed at the National Center for African-American Artists in Boston and at the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York City.
Before joining AU, she was Director of Tuskegee's Department of Cultural Affairs and staged "Bubbling Brown Sugar" for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Robinson is also the founder of the Tuskegee Repertory Theatre Inc. School and Dance Company and the Jessie Clinton Arts Centre in the city's old post office.
France honors Dobson for work in science
The French government has named Auburn Professor Stephen Dobson as a Chevalier dans l'Order des Palmes Academiques for his outstanding contributions to the scientific culture of France.
The designation is the French equivalent of a knighthood and is one of the highest honors given by the French government.
Dobson, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Sciences and Mathematics, received the award -- which included a medal, a certificate and a Chevalier pin -- in July at the University of Paris. Jacques Lang, the minister of culture under Francois Mitterrand, and the minister of national educations under Lionel Jospin, participated in the ceremony.
Dobson's major research is in behavioral ecology. For the past seven years, he has been working collaboratively at the University of Paris on mammalian social behavior, and with Pierre Jouventin of the National Scientific Research Center in Montpellier on the behavior and genetics of marine birds and mammals in the French Antarctic territories. His international research activities have also included projects in Canada, China, Paraguay and Tibet.
"I was doing ecological field work in Alberta, and I got an e-mail from my colleague, Claude Baudoin, a professor at the University of Paris," said Dobson, a professor of biological sciences. "He told me that I had received an award, the Palmes Academique.
"When I first heard about this I was excited and flattered, but I didn't really understand the significance of the award. I was surprised that the award was the title of Chevalier, because this usually goes to French scientists and often at the end of their careers. Of course, I knew that the Chevaliers were the Knights of France, and I was awestruck by the honor that they were according me."
In addition to Dobson's teaching program, he is on the board of editors for the journals of Ecology and Ecological Monographs, and sits on various department and college committees.
Garrison named to fellowship post in London
Roger W. Garrison, an economics professor at Auburn, will be the first Hayek Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science in spring 2003.
Garrison has been invited to spend a month -- starting in mid-May -- at the school's Suntory and Toyota International Centers for Economics and Related Disciplines.
The newly instituted visiting fellow program is named for Austrian-born Friedrich von Hayek, who taught at the London School of Economics in the 1930s and 1940s and won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974.
Garrison has written and lectured on Hayekian ideas for several years. His latest book, "Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure," extends the theory of business cycles into a more encompassing capital-based macroeconomics. As a Hayek Visiting Fellow, Garrison will lec ture and conduct seminars at the London institution.
International conference coming to Auburn
AU will be the site of the Sixth International Congress on Behaviorism and the Sciences of Behavior on Sept. 18-21, the first time the conference has been held in the U.S.
Coordinated by Peter Harzem, Hudson Professor of Psychology at AU, the congress will bring to campus some of the scholars on behaviorism as a philosophy of science.
The four-day congress will feature 28 invited addresses and 39 submitted papers. Seventeen countries will be represented. Several lectures contain information of general interest and will be open to the public.
"The congress, which is held biannually, provides a forum for the discussion of conceptual and empirical issues related to behaviorism and its place in the sciences of behavior," Harzem said.
Among AU offices that were instrumental in bringing the meeting to campus are the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, College of Liberal Arts, the Department of Psychology and the Littleton-Franklin Lecture Series.
The congress has been previously held in Guadalajara, Mexico; Palermo, Sicily; Yokohama, Japan; Seville, Spain; and Jalapa, Mexico. In 2000, an additional congress was held in Taiwan.
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While others watch birds, he watches the trees
Each year for more than a decade Auburn's Landscape Services crews have fought battles they know they will lose in a campaign they expect to win. Since the late 1980s, the Facilities Division unit headed by Charlie Crawford has been waging a campaign to extend the life of a declining number of graceful old oaks, other hardwoods and evergreens that once dominated the campus.
The campaign to plant new trees and prolong the life of mature ones is paying off as trees planted more than a decade ago are getting large enough to yield shade. While adding more trees each year, Landscape Services has strived to extend the life of mature trees that are nearing the end of their lifespan.
Crawford says the goal is not to do the impossible -- keep trees alive far beyond their expected lifespan -- but to keep the mature trees healthy and alive as long as possible. "We have made conditions a lot better for the older trees on campus," said Crawford, a 1972 AU graduate. "Many of them are in weakened condition either because of their age or traumas they have suffered in the past, but we have made progress."
Although the largest trees are regarded as historic by many people, few trees on campus are more than 100 years old. Photos from the early 1900s show only saplings in Samford Park and a treeless plain extending to the east and south. By the mid-20th century, Auburn became noted for a canopy of large trees that provided shade and beauty. Neglect, periodic drought, storms and construction combined to take their toll on the mature trees in the following decades.
The counterattack launched in the 1980s sustained a setback in 1995, when Hurricane Opal wiped out many large trees across campus. Many of those trees were already weakened and would have died by now, anyway, but Crawford said conditions are better today for the remaining mature trees than they were before Opal.
Drought, rather than hurricanes, has caused the most tree loss over the decades, Crawford notes. The impact of drought has been reduced by the widespread installation of irrigation systems on campus during the 1990s. Landscape crews also remove dead limbs and treat endangered trees for disease and insects as soon as signs are spotted.
A tree preservation committee started in 1989 brings faculty from the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences together with landscape workers to monitor and improve conditions for campus trees. "We are working with some of the top people in the field, and we are making good progress because of their support," Crawford said.
The remaining old trees in Samford Park and at Toomer's Corner are on the watch list because of their historic and cultural significance at Auburn. The Toomer's Corner trees are frequently draped in toilet paper by Auburn fans following athletic victories, but Crawford said other circumstances create equal or greater stress on the trees. Those two trees are at greater risk because they are Live Oaks, which are not native to the area.
In addition, being at a busy downtown intersection, they are subject to stress from paving-over of roots as well as auto pollutants and damage from construction. A few months ago, a car even smashed into the larger, healthier of the two trees, ripping away a way a chuck of bark the size of a stadium seat.
Crawford said he takes special note of the trees in Samford Park and at Toomer's Corner because of their prominence. Although football crowds are the most visible stress factor in those areas, he noted, "The trees have lived under these conditions for decades."
A greater threat, he said, is nature. "Even with irrigation, a severe drought can raise the soil temperature and do a lot of damage to trees that are already weakened." As the largest trees die, the university moves quickly to replace them with young trees that are larger than most of those planted in commercial areas. Depending on location and need, Landscape Services will replace a large dead tree with native hardwoods, usually oak, that have diameters of 3 to 7 inches.
Crawford said trees with larger diameters are sometimes needed for immediate impact. However, he noted, the stress and mortality rate of transplantation increases with the size of the tree.
"We are ready to replace a dying tree quickly when we need to, but our top goal is to keep the mature ones alive and healthy as long as possible," he said.
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