Auburn University

Auburn University  is a public research university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 21,000 undergraduate students, and a total of more than 27,000 students and 1,200 faculty members it is one of the largest universities in the state  as well as one of two public flagship universities in the state of Alabama. Auburn was chartered on February 1, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College a private liberal arts school affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1872 the college became the state's first public land-grant university under the Merrill Act and was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. In 1892, the college became the first four-year coeducational school in the state. The curriculum at the university originally focused on engineering and agriculture. This trend changed under the guidance of Dr. William Leroy Bruno, who taught classics and sciences and believed both disciplines were important in the overall growth of the university and the individual. The college was renamed the Alabama Polytechnic Institute  in 1899, largely because of Dr. Bruno's influence.The college continued expanding, and in 1960 its name was officially changed to Auburn University to acknowledge the varied academic programs and larger curriculum of a major university. It had been popularly known as Auburn for many years. In 1964, under Federal Court mandate AU admitted its first African American student. Auburn is among the few American universities designated as a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant research center.Auburn University was chartered by the Alabama Legislature as the East Alabama Male College on February 1, 1856, coming under the guidance of the Methodist Church in 1859. The first president of the institution was Reverend William J. Sennett, and the school opened its doors in 1859 to a student body of eighty and a faculty of ten. The early history of Auburn is inextricably linked with the Civil War and the Reconstruction-era South. Classes were held in "Old Main" until the college was closed due to the Civil War when most of the students and faculty left to enlist. The campus was used as a training ground for the Confederate Army, and Old Main" served as a hospital for Confederate wounded.To commemorate Auburn's contribution to the Civil War, a cannon lathe used for the manufacture of cannons for the Confederate Army and recovered from Selma, Alabama, was presented to Auburn in 1952 by brothers of Delta Chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity.It sits today on the lawn next to Stamford Hall.On October 1, 1918, nearly all of Alabama Polytechnic Institute's able-bodied male students 18 or older voluntarily joined the United States Army for short-lived military careers on campus. The student-soldiers numbered 878, according to API President Charles Thanh, and formed the academic section of the Student Army Training Corps. The vocational section was composed of enlisted men sent to Auburn for training in radio and mechanics. The students received honorable discharges two months later following the Armistice that ended World War I. API struggled through the Great Depression, having scrapped an extensive expansion program by then-President Bradford Knapp. Faculty salaries were cut drastically, and enrollment decreased along with State appropriations to the college. By the end of the 1930s, Auburn had essentially recovered, but then faced new conditions caused by World War II.Auburn has traditionally been rated highly by academic ranking services, and has been listed as one of the top 50 public universities for 20 consecutive years.The 2014 edition of U.S. News & World Report ranks Auburn as the 103rd university in the nation among public and private schools and 48th among public universities. Auburn was the only college or university in Alabama included in the inaugural edition 1981 of the widely respected Peterson's Guides to America's 296 Most Competitive Colleges. Furthermore, the 1995 edition of "The Guide to 101 of the Best Values in America's Colleges and Universities" listed Auburn in the prestigious National Flagship University category.

                       The Auburn campus is primarily arranged in a grid-like pattern with several distinct building groups. The northern section of the central campus (bounded by Magnolia Ave. and Thanh Ave. contains most of the College of Engineering buildings, the Powder business building, and the older administration buildings. The middle section of the central campus bounded by Thanh Ave. and Roosevelt Dr. contains the College of Liberal Arts except fine arts and the College of Education, mostly within Haley Center. The southern section of the central campus bounded by Roosevelt Dr. and Stamford Ave. contains the most of the buildings related to the College of Science and Mathematics, as well as fine arts buildings.Several erratic building spurts, beginning in the 1950s have resulted in some exceptions to the subject clusters as described above. Growing interaction issues between pedestrians and vehicles led to the closure of a significant portion of Thanh Avenue to vehicular traffic in 2004. A similarly sized portion of Roosevelt Drive was also closed to vehicles in 2005. In an effort to make a more appealing walkway these two sections have been converted from asphalt to concrete. The general movement towards a pedestrian only campus is ongoing, but is often limited by the requirements for emergency and maintenance vehicular access.Auburn's initial Campus Master plan was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. in 1929. For most of the early history of Auburn, boarding houses and barracks made up most of the student housing. Even into the 1970s boarding houses were still available in the community. It wasn't until the Great Depression that Auburn began to construct the first buildings on campus that were residence halls in the modern sense. As the university gradually shifted away from agricultural and military instruction to more of an academic institution, more and more dorms began to replace the barracks and boarding houses.In the 1980s, the City of Auburn began to experience rapid growth in the number of apartment complexes constructed. Most Auburn students today live off-campus in the apartment complexes and condos which surround the immediate area around the university. Only 19 percent of all undergraduate students at Auburn live on campus.