i.Note ii.Prefaceiii.Vision iv.Role 1.Workplace 2.Governance 3.Personnel Policies 4.Instruction 5.Research 6.Extension & Outreach 7.Extramural Activity 8.Faculty Welfare 9.Business Policies 10.Faculty Interests
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Preface
1. History and Environment
2. Organization
3. Academic Programs
4. Sources of the University Budget
PREFACE
1. HISTORY AND ENVIRONMENT
Auburn University is a comprehensive land-grant university with a main campus at Auburn, Alabama, and a separately administered branch campus at Montgomery. The University embraces the responsibility of enhancing the educational, cultural, social, and economic development of the state through its instruction, research, and extension programs. The foremost commitment of Auburn University is the active pursuit of excellence in each of these programs.
Auburn University traces its beginning to the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts institution chartered in 1856, sponsored by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and opened in 1859. From 1861 to 1866 the college was closed because of the Civil War, although Samford Hall was used as a hospital during that period. In 1872 the Church transferred legal control of the financially troubled institution to the state which selected Auburn as the site of Alabama's land-grant college under the Morrill or Land Grant College Act of 1862. The institution was renamed Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College and became the first land-grant college in the South to be established separately from the state university.
Women were first admitted to the college in 1892, and in 1899 the name was changed from Alabama A & M to Alabama Polytechnic Institute. The name change reflected an expanded role of the institution from teaching primarily agricultural and mechanical technologies to teaching arts and sciences as well. By 1960 the institution had developed some of the oldest humanities and fine arts programs in the South, and in that year it acquired its present name of Auburn University. Auburn now has the largest on-campus enrollment in the state, more than 21,300 students as of 1993. Nonresident aliens account for 3.2 percent of these and U.S. minorities for 7.8 percent. By 1993 Auburn's enrollment included students from all states and territories and from 79 foreign countries. Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) was established as a branch campus in 1967 and enrolled over 6,400 students in 1993. Detailed information about the University's past and present enrollment, student characteristics, and degrees granted is published regularly by the Office of Planning & Analysis in a factbook titled Auburn University Facts & Figures. A brochure titled Statistical Overview contains similar information and is available from the Office of the Provost.
From the beginning, the name of the town, inevitably associated with Oliver Goldsmith's famous line, "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," has been used to designate the institution. The city of Auburn, incorporated in 1839 and located in southeastern Alabama, and its neighbor community, Opelika, have a combined population of about 60,000. The two towns, joined by a four-lane highway bordered by restaurants, businesses, a shopping mall, hospital, and medical arts complex, have different histories, economic foundations, and personalities.
The Auburn-Opelika area was once the home of Creek Indians. Opelika, the older of the two towns, is now the county seat and is proud of its many meticulously restored 19th century homes, parks, and $2.5 million Performing Arts Center. Auburn is primarily structured around the University. The Auburn public school system is accredited by the Alabama State Department of Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Participation in special accelerated programs for grade school children is based on ability, and the Auburn system also provides a full range of instructional programs for students with special needs. Eighty percent of Auburn's annual high school graduates seek higher levels of education. Information about the Auburn area's more than 50 civic, garden, historic, and other clubs as well as over 20 support groups may be obtained from the Auburn Chamber of Commerce. The nearest international airport is in Atlanta, GA (110 mi.), and interstate commercial airports are in Columbus, GA (40 mi.), Montgomery, AL (55 mi.), and Birmingham, AL (120 mi.).
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2. ORGANIZATION
Auburn University is governed by a 12-member Board of Trustees. Ten members are appointed by the Governor of Alabama and confirmed by the State Senate. The other two, the Governor and the State Superintendent of Education, are ex-officio members of the Board. The Governor is the President of the Board of Trustees, and the ten appointed Board members serve 12-year terms and are eligible for reappointment. Nine congressional districts in the state (as configured in 1961) are represented on the Board which is directly responsible to the state for the execution of plans and policy-making activities for the University, and which has ultimate responsibility for the management and control of the University. It is also responsible for the formulation and interpretation of University policy. One student from each of the two campuses serves as a non-voting advisory member of the Board. Written policy (in the Tiger Cub: Auburn University Student Handbook) states that members of the Board of Trustees encourage everyone with suggestions for policies governing Auburn University to write to individual Board members.
The President of the University is answerable only to the Board of Trustees. A Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs is the chief academic officer of the University and represents the President during his or her absence from the Auburn University main campus. An Executive Vice President oversees the nonacademic areas of the University and also has responsibilities as Chief Financial Officer. Five other vice presidents have responsibilities which are suggested by their titles: Research, University Outreach, Administrative Services, Student Affairs, and Alumni and Development. Other members of the President's Cabinet include the Assistant to the President and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, a Chancellor who supervises the University's branch campus at Montgomery, Executive Directors of Affirmative Action, Athletics, Planning & Analysis, University Relations, Governmental Affairs, and Minority Advancement, a General Counsel, the Chairs of the University Faculty, Administrative and Professional Assembly, and Staff Council, and the Student Government Association President. Communication between the central administration and the academic and other units of the University is facilitated by an Administrative Council which discusses issues relating to administrative policy and academic programs. Members of the Administrative Council include the dean from each college/school, the Dean of Libraries, Directors of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and of Personnel Services, the Chair of the University Faculty, and most individuals in the President's Cabinet. A detailed Organizational Chart for the University is published in Auburn University Facts & Figures.
3. ACADEMIC PROGRAMS
Since its designation as Alabama's land-grant institution, Auburn University has been committed to excellence in teaching, research, and extension\\public service in the agricultural and biological sciences and in engineering and the physical sciences. These two broad areas of academic endeavor remain strong at the University today, and they have produced numerous individual and collaborative research programs whose high quality is recognized nationally and internationally. The Auburn University full-time faculty numbers over 1100 (1993); approximately 80 percent of these possess earned doctorate degrees.
In addition to the sciences, teaching and research programs in the humanities, fine arts, and social sciences also flourish at Auburn, and a number of endowed chairs and lectureships are used to help provide an environment that nurtures creativity and scholarship in these disciplines. Program expansion in business and professional education has also been an important feature of the institution's development since the mid-1940s. Interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration is encouraged at all levels at Auburn University. One example of this at the level of undergraduate teaching is the University program called "The Human Odyssey," a three-semester sequence of three credit hour courses taught by ten faculty members selected from the humanities and sciences for their teaching excellence. The program is unique among major universities nationwide for using an interdisciplinary approach to explore the evolutionary, intellectual, scientific, and technological development of humankind. Development of the program was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It has a full-time director and is a part of the University's core curriculum. Similar cooperation at the graduate level has given rise to three interdepartmental Doctor of Philosophy programs.
Auburn University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and most professional programs carry the additional accreditation of their respective national professional agencies. Currently (1994), 37 Doctors of Philosophy or Education degrees are offered by 43 participating departments at Auburn University, and virtually every department offers a Master's degree. Graduate course offerings in these departments and graduate degree requirements are described in the Auburn University Graduate School Bulletin; undergraduate programs are described in the Auburn University Bulletin. A complete listing of undergraduate, professional, and graduate degrees offered by each department in the University also appears in Auburn University Facts & Figures. The same publication lists the academic programs and their respective accrediting agencies for each of the 12 colleges or schools in the University. The additional presence at Auburn of a broad formal program of extension services gives the University a unique opportunity to develop a dynamic interface between higher education and the general population in Alabama. Excellent library and archival services and collections support teaching, research, and extension activities.
In 1991 Auburn University initiated a core curriculum for its undergraduate academic programs. The core curriculum aims to provide a shared learning experience to all Auburn undergraduates through the development of analytical, communication, and multicultural appreciation skills. Coherence within the core curriculum is achieved by course sequences and by courses that provide connections among disciplines. A detailed description of the core curriculum is published in a brochure titled Auburn University Core Curriculumavailable through the Office of the Provost.
4. SOURCES OF THE UNIVERSITY'S BUDGET
The primary source of income for the University is the appropriation by the state Legislature made annually for support of all public education. Other sources of income include funds derived from the federal government under the Land-Grant Act, the Morrill fund, the Smith-Lever Act, and the Smith Hughes Act; overhead charges against competitive research proposals funded to individual investigators; support from federal agencies through contracts, grants or appropriations; fees and other charges from students; gifts, grants, and donations from alumni, private individuals, corporations, and organizations; proceeds and royalties from the sale of products from experiments, demonstrations, research, and certain creative works; county supplements to federal and state funds for local support of the Cooperative Extension Service; and earnings from endowments. The percent distribution of university revenue by source is published regularly in Auburn University Facts & Figures.
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