5/7/02

Janet L. McCoy, 334/844-9999

AU STUDENT GRADUATING TOP OF HER CLASS, HEADING TO MIT

AUBURN -- When Joany Tisdale graduates from Auburn University on Saturday, May 11, she'll take her $90,000 National Science Foundation scholarship and numerous other awards to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Tisdale, a native of Conifer, Colo., and a third generation AU graduate, will be one of the most highly honored students during Auburn's commencement ceremonies Saturday at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum

The 2,443 degrees that Auburn will award during spring commencement will break the old record of 2,359 set in May 2001

Tisdale is the top aerospace engineering graduate in the 2002 class, the recipient of several scholarships, including a $90,000 NSF scholarship. And with a 3.94 GPA, she will graduate with highest honors.

Tidsdale's accomplishments -- in the classroom and with several service organizations -- so impressed her faculty and administrators that she was chosen to serve as the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering's marshal and will be recognized during AU's 10 a.m. graduation ceremony.

Tisdale's successes in the classroom have not gone unnoticed at Auburn by her professors and at MIT, where she will enroll in graduate school this fall.

MIT was so impressed with her scholarly achievements that it awarded her the only Provost's Fellowship to an engineering graduate student. The award, a one-year scholarship, is MIT's most competitive and is part of the Presidential Graduate Fellowship Program. Only five graduate students each year, representing MIT's five colleges, are awarded Provost Fellowships.

"She was the student in the College of Engineering the dean most wanted to attract," said Janet Fischer of MIT's Provost's Office.

Roy Hartfield, a professor of engineering at AU, said Tisdale is among the top 10 students he's taught during his career.

"She usually, almost always, had the highest grade in my classes," Hartfield said. "She's very motivated and interested in helping other students who don't catch on as quickly as she does. She's very bright and personable."

But Tisdale did not focus on academics alone while at AU. She's been a tireless worker for those less fortunate, raising money and even cutting her hair.

Bob Karcher, director of student services in AU's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, points to Tisdale's work with other engineering students, serving for two years as a tutor in the college.

"She tutored in a number of subjects, including calculus, physics and chemistry and she was very dependable," he said. "She's just an outstanding student."

Karcher said at her own request, Tisdale helped tutor a deaf and visually impaired student, adding, "It was something she chose to do herself." She also worked with numerous students with physical and learning disabilities.

Tisdale has been dedicated to service work as well. She organized her social sorority to form a team to walk in a diabetes walk in honor of her father, John Tisdale, who has diabetes. She also raised $2,300 for the Leukemia Society of America to surprise a friend on her five-year anniversary of surviving lymphoma.

She even cut off her hair, along with a friend and her sister, for the organization Locks of Love, which makes wigs for seriously ill children.

"Joany is an outstanding student with a powerful mind and admirable self initiative and self-discipline who is also fully committed to sharing her rich talents and limited time with other people," said Cate Giustino, an assistant professor of history at AU.

"Throughout her Auburn experience, Joany has worked with various organizations to lessen suffering from cancer and she has engaged in tutoring and mentoring activities. Few people are so self-empowering and so giving as she is."

Giustino, who has known Tisdale for five years, taught her in two world history classes during Tisdalešs first year at AU.

"I know, without any doubt, that she will excel at MIT, where she has chosen to study, and that after finishing her advanced studies, she will go on not simply personally to profit from her gifts and efforts, but also significantly to enhance the lives of a great many people," said Giustino.

Tisdale points to her parents -- Jill and Scott Deem and John Tisdale -- as her inspiration for her achievements.

"My mother, who is with the National Renewal Energy Laboratory has been a great inspiration to me," she said. "My parents always told me to be the best I can and they encourage me in all that I do."

Her mother, Jill Fisher Deem, graduated from AU in 1975, while her father, John Tisdale, attended AU. His parents, the late Nellie Fuller and Marion Tisdale of Mobile, both graduated from Auburn.

Tisdale says her future career goals are to one day teach at the college level. She plans to focus her research interests in the area of renewable energy, studying fuel cells and how to improve them.

may02: AU-tisdale

CONTACT: Tisdale, 303/601-6751 (cell); Hartfield, 334/844-6819; Karcher, 334/844-4310; or Giustino, 334/844-6630.