Semesters catch few off guard
Music Department head dies
Haley fire misses classrooms
Kaplan/Newsweek rates AU high
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AU REPORT |
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| Headlines Semesters catch few off guard Music Department head dies Haley fire misses classrooms Kaplan/Newsweek rates AU high |
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Semester's early start catches few off guard
Early reviews from deans and academic counselors indicate a near seamless transition from quarters to the semester system for most of Auburn's 22,000 students and 1,200 faculty.
With classes starting Aug. 22, a month earlier than in past years, the largest group experiencing problems was approximately 1,100 students whose class schedules were canceled after they missed paying the first of two installments on their tuition. Most of those had to reschedule after paying both the past due and the currently due amounts of tuition.
Faculty and other staff cite lessons learned from other universities, planning within individual colleges and schools and the work of the university's transition committees as keys to the otherwise uneventful switch.
"Overall, I feel the semester transition has gone very smoothly given the magnitude of the change," said John Jahera, interim dean and Colonial Bank Professor in AU's College of Business.
"The university was able to draw upon and learn from the experiences of other universities, particularly in Georgia, that had also switched from quarters to semesters and to avoid some of the pitfalls based on that information."
Betty Fendley, associate dean for academics in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, cited academic planning by students as a key to a "remarkable" transition.
"We started well over two years ago individualizing a curriculum sheet for our students, letting them know where they were academically and what they need to do so that they could prepare for the transition and not lose track of their academic progress," Fendley said. "So far, we've had no complaints from students, which I think is remarkable. It's really gone much better than I expected."
Jo Ann Loden, an academic advisor for Electrical and Computer Engineering, said it's business as usual from her vantage point in the College of Engineering.
"Throughout this whole process, the students have all cooperated and followed instructions," Loden said. "They've met with us and asked the appropriate questions and we've had a really good transition overall. I'm dealing with the normal things that I would deal with at the start of the school year ‹ schedule adjustments and making sure that students in certain courses have the proper prerequisites, those kinds of things."
John Fletcher, interim vice president for student affairs, cited the campus-wide planning efforts as key to seamlessness of the change.
"I think it's been so smooth because of the level of involvement in the process," Fletcher said. "Everyone who had a stake had a say ‹ administrators, faculty, staff and students."
Fletcher singled out the work of the executive and university transition committees as key to the transition effort.
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darker square. Haley Center is at top of map. |
A recommended site for a new student union is on the agenda for Thursday's 9 a.m. meeting of the AU Board of Trustees in Dixon Conference Center.
The proposed site between Wallace Center and the Transportation Services
Hangar would accommodate a 240,000-square-foot building on the eastern
edge of the newly expanded west-side student parking area.
The site was recommended by a project building committee from among five sites considered. The board's Property and Facilities Committee visited the site in early July and also recommended its selection.
Several student organizations had sought a site closer to the core of campus, first in the vicinity of the Eagle's Cage and later west of Jordan Hare Stadium. Advocates of other sites expressed concerns that the committee's selection was too far from most classroom buildings.
However, supporters of the Thach Avenue-Old Wire Road site noted little difference in walking time to the campus core between that site and the site west of the stadium.
The Property and Facilities Committee described the Thach Avenue-Old Wire Road site as the one best able to meet the need of a site large enough to accommodate a building of that size, with adequate parking and green space included.
The new student union, which will be on campus transit system routes, will replace the existing Foy Student Union which was built in 1953-54, with an addition in the early 1970s.
Kaplan/Newseek rates AU academics among region's best
High school guidance counselors list Auburn as one of the most academically competitive schools in the Southeast, according to a survey by Kaplan Books in the 2001 edition of the Kaplan/Newsweek College Catalog.
The annual publication listed Auburn as one of the top eight academically competitive schools in the eight-state region of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
AU was the only institution in Alabama listed in the "academically competitive" section of the publication.
Other schools in the region listed were Duke University, Georgia College and State University, Georgia State University, Murray State University, University of Georgia, University of Florida and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
The list was compiled from survey data from high school guidance counselors who were asked to select universities they considered unique or attractive because of academic reputation, selectivity or competitive academic environment.
In its capsule review of Auburn, the catalog says, "Southern guidance counselors praise the strong engineering and agricultural programs at Auburn" and that Auburn's most popular majors are business, engineering, education, health professions and psychology.
The 1,400-page volume is available at newsstands for $25. Kaplan Books is a division of Simon and Schuster of New York, N.Y.
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Haley Center fire misses classrooms
A fire on Aug. 21, the day before fall semester classes started, damaged a cafe in the basement of Haley Center, but the blaze was quickly extinguished and caused no injuries.
The fire started at approximately 10:30 a.m., Monday, in the Haley Underground, a dining area operated for the university by Sodexho Marriott Services.
"It started in a deep-fat fryer. I was right there in front of it," said Dave Wallace, director of operations for Sodexho Marriott. "We think (the cause) was an equipment malfunction, maybe a thermostat that got hung. We doused it with a fire extinguisher and it ignited again, so we called 911 and started clearing our people out of there."
"We were actually doing some training before classes start tomorrow, so we had four or five managers there plus the eight or nine hourly employees."
Jim Ferguson, vice president for administrative services, said the Haley Underground will be closed indefinitely, but Facilities workers last week were attempting to reopen an adjacent student lounge.
Hot time for bookstore almost became hotter
For Catherine Lee and her 100 AU Bookstore employees, Aug. 21 was shaping up as a busy but manageable day, even though they would be bustling with a record number of freshmen and the lingering unfamiliarity of the semester system.
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"Our employees kept smiles on their faces," she said Aug. 22, amid sounds of a brisk sales pace. The AU Bookstore, along with the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Education, was evacuated for over four hours after the fire as Auburn Fire Division and Facilities crews cleared smoke and soot from the 10-story building.
"Even on the concourse, as faculty and students waited to get back inside Monday, everyone kept good humor and patience. Today, we hit the ground running and were able to contain the damage in the store. Our customers won't see the soot in the basement," Lee added.
When Haley reopened, the AU Bookstore's first task was to restore power and computer systems, not only for sales but to help students match their course schedules with text requirements.
"In those lost midday hours, we missed a significant number of sales and inconvenienced hundreds if not several thousand students," Lee said. Between the reopening of Haley doors and the last customer walking out at 6 p.m., the bookstore recorded nearly $150,000 in business.
The textbook reservation system, which enables students to make their selections in advance, may have limited the day-before-classes shopping frenzy, but Lee said the bookstore cannot easily determine its long-term business loss. Clothing and other soft goods in the store's basement storage area will be inspected for smoke damage, but not until the student textbook rush abates.
"Freshmen tend to develop traffic or shopping patterns early," Lee said. "We hope that anyone inconvenienced because of the fire gives us another chance. We have the books and supplies, competitive prices and a well informed staff ready to serve our customers."
Lee has managed the AU Bookstore for three years. She spent eight years in book retailing with Barnes & Noble, managing several stores in Cleveland, Ohio.
Stephenson remembered by friends, colleagues
Friends and colleagues of Joseph Stephenson held a memorial service Friday at Peet Theatre for the longtime music professor and noted pianist who died the previous Monday after collapsing in his office.
Stephenson, 57, had been head of AU's Department of Music since 1991 and an Auburn faculty member since 1967.
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Howard Goldstein, an associate professor of music at AU and an eight-year friend of Stephenson, said, "Joseph was the protector of the Music Department and the faculty. He was always looking out for our best interest, and if he could lend an ear, he would help you in any way, personally or professionally.
"We loved his exuberance, his cynicism and his sense of humor," Goldstein said. "He excelled at music, he really loved music and he was an inspiration to many people."
Mary Jo Howard, who retired in June after 31 years of teaching music at AU, said Stephenson was "a wonderful person and an excellent department head under extremely difficult circumstances.
"He truly cared for the department more than his own ego. He loved the department and it was his mission. He did his best to give every teacher what they needed to do their work and let them do it," she said. "That might sound simple but it's not always the case. He trusted his faculty to do their job well."
Stephenson received his education as a pianist at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore where he also taught piano in the Peabody Preparatory Department. At Peabody he studied piano with Mieczslaw Munz and Walter Hautzig.
During his career on the AU music faculty, he taught music theory, applied
piano, piano literature, music analysis, and music appreciation.
As a member of the board of judges for the National College of Musicians,
Stephenson was a popular judge of piano contests throughout the
Southeast.
John S. Jahera Jr., who was chair of the Department of Finance in the College of Business,
has been named interim dean of the college.
Jahera, who also holds the title of Colonial Bank Distinguished Professor,
succeeds Wayne Alderman, who stepped down from the post after eight
years to return to fulltime teaching and research. Alderman holds the
SouthTrust Corporation Endowed Professorship in the college's School of
Accountancy.
Jahera named interim dean of College of Business
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"Dr. Jahera is widely respected in both academic and business circles throughout the United States," said Walker. "He has provided excellent leadership to the Department of Finance, and we look to him to provide the same high level of leadership to the College of Business as interim dean."
An AU faculty member since 1980, Jahera holds three degrees from the University of Georgia, including a Ph.D. in finance. He has been head of the Department of Finance in AU's College of Business since 1988 and has held the Colonial Bank Distinguished Professorship since 1995.
"It is my hope that I can contribute to the continued growth and development of the College of Business as we move forward following the direction set by Dean Wayne Alderman," said Jahera.
"Under the leadership of Dean Alderman, the college has made unprecedented progress toward our goal of becoming a truly outstanding business school," he added.
"I am looking forward to the challenge of working with the many stakeholders of the college as we seek to pursue opportunities to contribute to the economic well being of our state and region through excellence in instruction, research and outreach."
AU starts year with single new academic program
One program was added to Auburn's course offerings for fall semester 2000, a master's degree in technical and professional communication.
The new program is the sole addition this fall to an academic inventory that was trimmed from 319 programs to 226 over the past five years. The program inventory was reduced as part of AU efforts to redirect funds to higher priority programs from low priority programs and those with few students.
Those decisions were based on the university's mission and needs of students as determined by committees of faculty, students, administrators and members of the Board of Trustees.
The program addition ‹ a master's level program offered through the Department of English ‹ is an extension of an undergraduate degree program in the same field, said Don Cunningham, a professor of English and coordinator of technical and professional writing.
"The master of Technical and Professional Communication is designed for students to study the theory and practice of technical and professional communication," Cunningham said. "It is the work of transferring information from a technical to a non-technical audience."
The program's specific objectives are to educate students in the theory and practice of the complex tasks performed by technical and professional communicators and to prepare students for positions as writers and editors, information analysts and communication managers in industry, business, government and academics. In addition, the program was designed to prepare students for teaching positions where the master's degree is the minimal academic qualification.
Cunningham said he's finding an increasing number of high tech firms seeking graduates who can translate very complex information so the average consumer can understand and use the product. Technical communicators can write user manuals, reference guides even software programs. They work with engineers, designers, scientists and medical professionals to translate complex information.
He said the undergraduate program in technical and professional communication has been in place for eight years and is very successful. "We've had remarkable success in the placement of our undergraduate students.
"Our undergraduates have established careers as technical writers and editors in industries such as publishing, banking, software and health care," he said. "For the past seven years, we have invited recent graduates to return to campus and describe their experiences. We also make annual visits to workplace sites of our graduates."
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AU drops SSN from students' ID cards
Auburn is no longer printing Social Security numbers on student identification cards. The change will remove a potential source of identity theft, said Jim Hanson, who chaired the ad hoc committee that recommended the policy change.
Auburn has also discontinued using students' Social Security numbers on class rolls.
"This was one of the ways that Social Security numbers were distributed whereby the public might accidentally gain the information," said John Fletcher, AU's interim vice president for Student Affairs, who served on the committee with Hanson. "By dropping the numbers, we are making that possibility more remote. We are doing this in the interest of keeping Social Security numbers as confidential as possible."
Where use of the numbers can be avoided, the university is pursuing alternatives, but, he says, use of the numbers is almost unavoidable in certain instances.
Hanson, an associate professor of physics, said students with old ID cards have the option of replacing their cards. "If any student who started at Auburn prior to this summer loses his or her card or chooses to go ahead and get one of the cards without the Social Security number, then they can get one of the new ones for a small fee," he said.
The move to minimize the use of Social Security numbers as student identifiers at AU began in 1997 through recommendations by the University Senate and the Student Government Association.
The committee chaired by Hanson was formed in February 1998. "The committee's main concerns regarding Auburn's use of Social Security numbers were identity theft and certain legal issues that had been raised at another school," said Hanson.
"Identity theft is when people masquerade as other people using their illegally obtained Social Security numbers. People have had their credit ratings ruined, among other consequences. It really hasn't been a problem locally, but it is of growing concern nationally."
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Lab buildings to again be locked on football days
Campus laboratory buildings and others containing sensitive research equipment and materials will be locked when not in use for academic purposes on football game days this fall.
The university will follow the policy implemented last year, when those
buildings were locked for the first time on football game days.
The policy provides security measures for on-campus buildings that
contain laboratories and sensitive research equipment and materials, says
Jim Ferguson, vice president for administrative services.
Ferguson says the policy is intended not only to prevent building damage and safeguard costly and irreplaceable equipment and research materials, but also to safeguard the public against exposure to chemicals and various other potential safety hazards.
Even with the safety and security policy in place, there were incidents last fall of building and equipment damage, says Christine Curtis, associate vice president for research. Some of those areas sustained broken doors and windows and water damage, she said.
"During home football games, Auburn hosts large numbers of fans," she said. "In a state of excessive enthusiasm, some of these fans have caused damage to these facilities. In two separate incidents where this occurred, valuable scientific data were lost and valuable research samples were destroyed.
A list of buildings that will be open to the public on home football game days is posted on the web.
Students' old hangtags are good until Sept. 5
Parking permits for the new academic year will not be issued to Auburn students until Sept. 5 ‹ two weeks after the start of the fall semester.
In the meantime, returning students will be able to park in authorized student parking lots with 1999-2000 hangtags, and freshmen will be able to park in authorized student parking lots with student identification cards, said Bill Nevin, director of AU Department of Public Safety.
With AU's conversion to semesters, authorities noted that the new, earlier academic term started this year before 1999-2000 parking permits expired.
Nevin says the 1999-2000 hangtags and student ID cards will also be honored on Aug. 31 in authorized student parking lots during the day when Auburn opens its home football game with a Thursday night game against the University of Wyoming.
Other officials said students are being asked to vacate reserved parking lots assigned to the AU Athletics Department by 4 p.m. on Aug. 31.
U.S. senators to address business students
U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., will speak to AU College of Business students on Sept. 1, as part of the college's Distinguished Leaders in Government and Business Series.
Sessions and Enzi will also attend the Auburn-Wyoming football game on Aug. 31.
The two senators will have breakfast with AU President William Muse on Sept. 1, then speak from 9 a.m.-10 a.m., in Lowder Business Building room 009 as part of the lecture series sponsored by the MBA Program.
"Sen. Enzi and I look forward to meeting with the Auburn MBA students and giving them our perspectives on the relationship between business and government," said Sessions.
Daniel Gropper, director of Auburn's MBA Program, said the Distinguished Leaders in Government and Business Series is beneficial to Auburn students "because it allows them to interact directly with business and government leaders."
"We have strong links with business and government and it's helpful when we have people in leadership positions to come in and talk to our students," he said.
Magazine wins award for quality
Auburn Magazine and Craftmaster Printers, Inc., of Auburn have won a Pewter Award in the 13th annual Gold Ink Awards co-sponsored by Publishing & Production Executive and Printing Impressions magazines.
AU's quarterly alumni publication and Craftmaster won in the "Specialty Magazines/Sheetfed category." The winners were selected from nearly 1,600 entries submitted within 39 different categories. Winners were selected on the basis of print quality, design, quality of color separations, technical difficulty, and overall visual effect. The award will be presented in Chicago on Sept. 25.
Auburn couple give new meaning to sharing
Connie Tisdale had long known what she would do if the time and opportunity ever came to help her husband Scott in his lifelong battle with kidney disease. For the Auburn couple, the occasion is Sept. 6, when Scott is scheduled to receive a kidney from his wife in dual operations at a Birmingham hospital.
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Scott Tisdale and Connie Love met in the early 1990s while studying engineering at AU, married five years ago following graduation and remained at Auburn to work in different sections of the Division of University Computing. Scott's kidneys had been unable to function fully since he was a child, but the disease had progressed so slowly that he was able to live a normal life.
In recent months, Scott noticed that he tired more easily and was becoming increasingly unable to keep up with their two-year-old son, Braden. Doctors confirmed that kidney deterioration was at fault.
Earlier this year, doctors informed the couple that Scott would soon have to begin dialysis -- regular, lengthy and frequent attachment to a machine that cleanses the blood -- to do the work that his kidneys were increasingly less able to accomplish. He was on a medical waiting list for a kidney transplant, but recipients often wait years for a donor. Many never make it to the top of the list.
Potential donors have to be in very good health, have the same blood type
and match on one or more of six antigens -- indicators of the body's
willingness to accept a transplant. For that reason, the first hope for
potential transplants is usually the recipient's parents or siblings.
Scott's parents and sister were tested but were ruled out by doctors
because of a combination of matching and potential health problems.
It is rare for a spouse to meet the donor requirements, but Connie said she wanted to be tested, anyway. She matched for blood type and one of the antigens. She immediately volunteered to donate one of her kidneys to her husband.
"I've always been willing," she said. "It was just a matter of when we would need to do a transplant and whether or not we would have a match. I was surprised that we had a match, but it was a pleasant surprise."
The operation at the University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham will be more complicated for Connie than for Scott because more surgery is required to remove a kidney than to replace one. She will need several more weeks than Scott to recover from the surgery, while he faces intensive drug therapy to help the transplanted kidney ward off the body's natural attempts at rejection.
"The doctors tell me that with modern drugs, we have a very good chance of success," said Scott.
During the surgery and recovery, Connie's parents will help take care of Braden. Scott listed keeping up with Braden as one of the greatest anticipated benefits of the transplant.
Scott said he had concerns about accepting the gift from his wife until the
doctors assured him that the risk to donors is minimal.
"And they told me that after the recovery, I shouldn't notice the
difference," Connie added.
The Tisdales said their experience so far has convinced them of the need for more people to become organ donors. Although most people would not need to give during their lifetime, many lives could be saved if more people agreed beforehand to transfer of their organs following death.
"I hope our situation encourages everybody to become organ donors and make sure their families know," said Connie. "It's that important."
Pioneering staff member retires after nearly 50 years
Long before James Franklin blazed his trail as Auburn's first African American student in 1964, Helen Harvey Felton helped open another path of opportunity.
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"I never really thought of myself as a trailblazer," said Felton, who retires from Auburn on Aug. 31 after nearly 50 total years of service ‹ more than 33 in her current position as a laboratory technician in the College of Agriculture's Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences. "I was just thankful to have a good job to come to every day."
Felton started at AU's horticulture farm in her mid-teens, while she was still in high school.
After a break during which she got married, She started again at the horticulture farm before moving to her current job in animal and dairy sciences in 1966.
Felton says she joined two other black women who were lab techs on Ag Hill at the time: Mabel Robinson, who worked in animal and dairy sciences with Felton, and Dorothy Slaughter, who worked in poultry science.
"There may have been others around campus," she said, "but those are the ones that I know about."
Since she's been at Auburn, she says a lot of things have changed -- most notably, the number of students. Auburn's enrollment in 1966 was 11,903. Since then it's nearly doubled.
"It's amazing how many more students there are now than there were when I started," Felton said. "That's one of the biggest changes. Also, it's less difficult to do your job now because of better equipment and technology."
Felton has also witnessed the growth in opportunities at Auburn for African-American students, faculty and staff. "I'm pleased to see more doors open to African-Americans here at Auburn," she said. "But there's still more that could be done."
Looking back on her years at AU and all of the accomplishments, Felton says what she'll cherish most are the lives of the students that she touched.
Liberal Arts adds new department chairs, head
Four new department chairs and one department head have taken their places in the College of Liberal Arts with the start of fall semester.
The four new chairs -- William Trimble in History; William Davis in Philosophy; Paul Johnson in Political Science and Lewis Barker in Psychology -- join new Journalism Department head Hal Foster for the 2000 academic term. In addition, the college has hired 18 tenured or tenure-track faculty this fall.
Eight of the 13 departments in the College of Liberal Arts are led by
department chairs, while the remaining departments have heads.
Chairs can serve for no more than two three-year terms, and are selected
by a majority of faculty within their department.
Trimble, who began teaching at AU in 1985, spent last academic year as the Charles Lindbergh Professor of Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. Davis has been a faculty member in Philosophy at AU since 1966, and Johnson joined the Political Science faculty in 1991.
Barker came to Auburn July 1 after 28 years at Baylor University, and Foster joined the Journalism Department over the summer from Sam Houston State University in Texas.
Health program in Pharmacy turning lives around
Two years ago during a physical examination, Bill Felkey's physician found elevated enzymes in his liver that eventually became serious enough that a liver biopsy was recommended.
Felkey was familiar with the AU School of Pharmacy's plans for a pharmacy care center that would offer advice on diet and exercise to help manage weight. He convinced his doctor to postpone the biopsy to see if changes in habits recommended by the center might alter his prognosis.
A 234-pound Felkey on Feb. 1 began his regimen of lifestyle change ‹ including a modified diet and an exercise program that includes biking more than two miles to and from work. Today, he's 34 pounds lighter and was recently given a completely clean bill of health by his physician. The liver biopsy is no longer needed.
In addition, Felkey saw his cholesterol level fall from more than 220 to 126.
"The results of this whole process have been pretty amazing," said Felkey, who has participated in the Healthy Habits weight management program of director Kimberly Braxton-Lloyd's AU Pharmacy Care Center since it opened. "It makes me wonder how many conditions or maladies out there are totally lifestyle-driven."
Felkey's is the most significant of a number of success stories fostered by the AUPCC's Healthy Habits program, which, along with the other programs the Center offers, is free to AU employees and to family members of employees who have insurance through AU.
Healthy Habits is a weight-loss program that focuses on logical changes in diet and exercise designed to allow the patient to reach his or her preferred weight.
Kraska honored by her alma mater
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Marie Kraska, a faculty member in AU's College of Education, has received a Distinguished Alumni Award for 2000 from the University of Wisconsin Stout.
Kraska received a master of science degree in vocational education from the Wisconsin institution in 1975 and later earned her Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. An associate professor in AU's Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology, she has been a member of the Auburn faculty since 1988.
The Wisconsin award cites Kraska as a UW-Stout alumnus "who exemplifies the objectives of the university by outstanding professional accomplishments and significant contributions to society."
Kraska, who has authored or co-authored numerous journal articles and four textbooks on industrial and technical education, was cited for leadership and professional contributions at the state, national and international levels in her field.
Apple to host sessions
Apple computer company will introduce its new campus support personnel and host sessions on networking and free support to Macintosh users on Sept. 6-7 at Dixon Conference Center. Apple will also offer some of the company's new video editing software. Information is available at the Auburn University Mac Support web page. Click News & Events to see a schedule of the training sessions offered during the Mac Days.
BC/BS representative on campus
AU's Blue Cross/Blue Shield representative will be on campus in Ingram 212 from 10 a.m.-noon, Sept. 12, to meet with faculty and staff who have questions or need assistance concerning their BC/BS insurance coverage. No appointment is necessary.
Campus Views: Historic ag site to co-exist with museum
By Charles Mitchell, Extension Agronomist-Soils
and Professor, Department of Agronomy and
Soils
The front page of the July 31 issue of the AU Report featured the "...look of a moonscape as men and heavy equipment sculpt the former agricultural research field into a site for AU's Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art." In all of the excitement of the new art museum, no one has acknowledged the historical contribution of this site to Southern agriculture.
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In the late 1800s, most of Alabama and especially this part of East Alabama was planted to cotton. John P. Alvis and his brother-in-law, J.A. Cullars, owned and farmed the land where the new art museum is being constructed. Like everyone else, cotton was their cash crop. But the sandy soils on this site presented a problem -- a problem very common to all cotton on sandy soils of the Coastal Plain region of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama. In late July and early August, the leaves would become blighted, turn rusty brown and fall off, severely reducing the yield. This disease which plagued cotton throughout the South was called "cotton rust" or "cotton blight."
Professor George F. Atkinson, a biologist at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama at Auburn, devoted years to studying bacteria and fungi which were found on the rust-infested cotton. Some of his samples came from the nearby Alvis and Cullars field.
In the late 1880s he established some on-farm research plots where he applied various soil amendments including kainite, a potassium-bearing mineral. Although not specifically stated in his publications, some of these plots must have been on the field of Alvis and Cullars because soils on this site are the most "porous" and rust-prone cotton soils in the area. In one on-farm test, Professor Atkinson noted that "...the whole field blighted in August and September (1886) with the exception of the three rows where the kainite was applied." He quoted another farmer as saying, "Kainite causes the cotton plant to retain its leaves after they have blighted where none is used."
As a result of these on-farm tests and collaboration with other
researchers in South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, Professor
Atkinson concluded that potassium fertilization could reduce or eliminate
the rust and blight problems. Atkinson's research led to widespread use of
potassium (or potash) fertilizers that are so important to today's
successful crop production on all soils in the southern U.S.
Alvis and Cullars continued to allow Alabama Polytechnic Institute use of their field for ongoing research with crop fertilization. In 1938, the "Alvis Field" was sold to Alabama Polytechnic Institute by Bessie Alvis Emerick and Lillian Alvis Miller, daughters and heirs of John P. Alvis.
Today the "Cullars Rotation" experiment (a cotton-corn-soybean rotation on 42 research plots) is the (1) oldest, continuous, soil fertility study in the South, (2) the second oldest cotton experiment in the world (the nearby "Old Rotation" is the oldest), and one of the oldest, continuous field research plots in North America.
The Cullars Rotation on the Alvis Field is probably the site where Professor Atkinson did most of his early work with cotton rust. Today, this is the only site in the South where students can study plant nutrient deficiencies (especially potassium deficiencies) on five different crops during the course of a year. It is visited each year by dozens of agricultural scientists who come to Auburn from all over the world.
Because of the documented history on each of the 42 plots, soils from these plots are used for biological, chemical, and physical studies and are shared with scientists all over the world. Along with the nearby, "Old Rotation" experiment (c. 1896), the "Cullars Rotation" documents changes in agricultural practices for sustainable crop production of the future.
While much of the field has been dug up in preparation for a lake and the
new art museum, a 40-foot border around the Cullars Rotation experiment
has been protected. Now, agricultural history and art will share the
"Alvis Field."
Unsung Hero: Karie Dalton, Lab Animal Health
This week's Unsung Hero is Karie Dalton, administration assistant in the Office of Lab Animal Health, where she has worked for three years. She was asked:
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What is the most rewarding part of your job? "Working with my co workers at Lab Animal Health, and meeting new people. Knowing that what I do may make a difference in someone's life."
What is the most challenging part of your job? "Working with a team to achieve the same goal."
If you weren't doing this job, what would you most like to do? "Be a stay at-home mom."
What makes Auburn special? "The family atmosphere that the campus offers."
What was your first impression of Auburn University? "The people -- they were very friendly, and helpful."
How has that impression changed? "It hasn't."
What do you like to do in your free time? "Spend it with my family -- William, Michelle and Hannah."
What person or persons do you most admire and why? My sister Kelly -- she has been through so many things, and through it all she has not lost her sense of humor or her faith in God."
What is your favorite line from The Auburn Creed and why? "I don't have
any particular one. They all mean something to me."
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AU Report Editor: Roy Summerford. Contributing editors: Bob Lowry, Janet McCoy and David Granger. University Relations Executive Director: Pete Pepinsky. The AU Report is the faculty/staff newsletter of Auburn University and is published by the Office of University Relations at Auburn University. Direct correspondence to AU Report, 23 Samford Hall, Auburn University, Ala. 36849-5109. Telephone 334/844-9999. Electronic mail: summero@auburn.edu |