After only about nine months from site preparation to completion, the first building in the Auburn Research Park will open in September 2008. This building captures the “image and character” of the Auburn University campus and is expected to be LEED certified, which means that it is a “green” building. “This will be the second LEED certified building on Auburn’s campus,” explained John Weete, executive director of the Auburn Research Park. “LEED certification has been a major topic at recent national research park meetings I have attended, and I am finding that LEED certification is important to the types of companies that we wish to attract to the park.”

N. Hari Narayanan, professor in the Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, is collaborating with the University of Wisconsin Madison, Kansas State University and Bentley College to design a virtual science experimentation platform for middle school science instruction. The project is supported by a one-and-a-half million dollar grant to the four institutions from a highly competitive research program of the Institute of Educational Sciences, US Department of Education.

All Phase I submissions for the Alabama Launchpad Business Plan Competition are due September 26, 2008. The registration for Phase I began on September 2nd. This optional and non-competitive Phase I allows participating teams to submit an executive summary of their business idea and receive feedback/suggestions from a panel of experts experienced in university start-ups and entrepreneurship. Those who choose not to participate in Phase I may enter the competition until November 14, 2008.

The Office of Animal Resources conducted an evaluation of the protocol review timeline for Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee protocols. Based on this evaluation, the IACUC has generated some helpful tips to reduce the amount of time required for protocol review. This document can be accessed via the IACUC website at http://www.auburn.edu/research/vpr/animals/.

On August 28th members of the Office of the Vice President for Research gave a luncheon for Ralph Zee, former acting associate provost and vice president for research and current associate dean for research in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. He was presented with an eagle statuette for his work and given well wishes by all in the OVPR. Zee resumed his position as associate dean for research full-time on September 2, 2008.