This Week @ AU

Auburn University and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering will host a groundbreaking ceremony for a new $21 million facility that will house Auburn University's new Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI, Research Center on Thursday, Feb. 4, at 2 p.m. The facility will be located in the Auburn Research Park on Devall Drive. The event, which is free and open to the public, will include remarks by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, Auburn University President Jay Gogue, Auburn Board of Trustees member Charles McCrary, as well as Jeffrey Bundy, vice president, MRI, for Siemens Healthcare. To read more, see the news release.

The Committee of 19, Auburn University's student leadership group for the War on Hunger, is donating $15,000 to the United Nations World Food Programme for Haiti relief. The money was collected over the past 18 months through various fundraisers by Auburn's individual schools, colleges and organizations, as well as campus-wide activities. The World Food Programme, or WFP, is the largest humanitarian agency in the world, feeding on average over 90 million people in 82 countries annually. As a first responder in the current crisis, WFP is attempting to bring weekly rations to more than 2 million people in Haiti over the next few weeks. The latest donation by the Committee of 19 brings the total amount contributed to WFP as a result of the Auburn University War on Hunger to $45,000. The entire news release can be read at this link. For more information on the War on Hunger student campaign, go to this link.

Aubie was invited to compete in the Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship in Orlando, Jan. 15, and placed second in the Mascot National Championship, behind University of Colorado's Bolder Chip. A video of the competition can be viewed at this link.

Auburn University students won a competition Friday, Jan. 15,  for the design of a pedestrian bridge that Volkswagen Group of America will build as part of its new assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. Of eight awards given, Auburn Design-Build students won four.  Volkswagen announced the winners at the Hunter Museum in Chattanooga. Auburn’s first-place team received $2,500.

The Auburn University chamber choir, a premier vocal ensemble in the Department of Music, will sing for the Alabama Music Educators Association state conference in Tuscaloosa on Friday, Jan. 22. The 30-member choral group is the newest choir in the music department under the direction of William Powell, director of choral activities. The highly selective ensemble consists of mostly music majors and minors, and upperclassmen. The group received the prestigious invitation after a detailed audition process, and it is one of only three college choirs in the state that will sing at the convention. The chamber choir will perform a 30-minute program which will include published works by Eric William Barnum, Eric Whitacre, Jack Halloran, Darmon Meader, and Auburn professor Rosephanye Dunn Powell. The performance is Friday, Jan. 22, at 4 p.m. in the Moody Concert Hall at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. For more information, contact William Powell at 844-3166 or powelwc@auburn.edu.

Auburn University more than doubled its number of newly enrolled National Merit Scholars this year, ranking 34th nationally, according to a new National Merit Scholarship Corporation Annual Report. Auburn enrolled 64 new scholars last summer and fall, which is an increase of 106 percent over the previous year’s number of 31. The 2009-2010 figure places Auburn fourth in the Southeastern Conference, up from ninth last year, according to the report. Nationally, the university advanced to 34th from 56th. National Merit Finalists at Auburn receive full tuition for four years; a $1,500 technology allowance the first fall semester; the Auburn Academic Guarantee, which includes automatic admission to the Honors College and an enrichment experience stipend valued at $4,000 one semester after the second year; and an on-campus housing allowance for four years.

Auburn University's Bass Sports Club is ranked second among bass fishing colleges in the nation in the January/February issue of FLW Outdoors Magazine. FLW surveyed all 2009 National Guard FLW College Fishing anglers in the country about their clubs, their schools and their fishing lifestyles. They scored their findings based on factors they thought as most important to a college angler, including proximity to bass fisheries, tournament opportunities and club activities. They also interviewed club officers and tournament winners from each college. They combined all their results to create the "editor's rankings" and ended up with the top 25 bass fishing colleges.

Auburn University was named Scholarship Provider of the Year at the 2009 National Scholarship Providers Association Annual Conference in New Orleans for its Provost Leadership Undergraduate Scholar program.

The award was presented in recognition of the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs’ PLUS program, which provides academic and social support to students pursuing their undergraduate studies at Auburn University. The PLUS program provides an $8,000 four-year, renewable scholarship at $2,000 per academic year, and has been developed to complement the goals of the Auburn University Strategic Diversity Plan.

PLUS includes a retention program that provides peer mentoring, leadership opportunities and training, time management and study skills, tutoring and counseling services and an opportunity for participants to enroll together in a series of classes throughout their freshman and sophomore years. The program has benefited 125 students since its inception in 2006. Of those students, 55 are first-generation college students.

The Scholarship Provider of the Year award includes a $2,500 cash prize, recognition at the National Scholarship Providers Annual Conference and on their Web site, a plaque and an invitation to present a session at next year’s conference.

Auburn University awarded more than $33 million in scholarships for the 2009-2010 academic year. Sixty-five percent of all freshmen who enrolled and 27 percent of all enrolled students received scholarships, compared to last year’s 56 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Overall scholarship amounts awarded by the university have increased by more than $18 million over the last four years.

Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, founding chair of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, was honored Dec. 7 in a ceremony at the United Nations in New York as the 2009 International Quality of Life Awards laureate.

This annual event was launched in 1994 by Auburn University's College of Human Sciences to recognize people and partnerships that have made significant and lasting contributions to individual, family, and community well-being locally and around the world.

Fulfilling a promise to her dying sister, Brinker launched a comprehensive fight against breast cancer in 1982, leading to a global movement that has had a positive impact on the lives of millions of women and their families for almost three decades. Today, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, symbolized by the pink ribbon, is the world's largest and most successful education and fundraising event for breast cancer. Moreover, hundreds of millions of dollars in Komen for the Cure funding have been associated with virtually every major advance in breast cancer research to date.

For more information or to read the entire article, please visit http://wireeagle.auburn.edu/news/1311.

Alabama’s largest and most diversified farm organization has awarded its highest honor to Richard Guthrie, dean of the Auburn University College of Agriculture and director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, in recognition of the outstanding contributions Guthrie has made to Alabama agriculture throughout a 45-year career that includes 26 years at Auburn.

The Alabama Farmers Federation presented its Service to Agriculture Award to Guthrie on Dec. 6, during the organization's 88th annual meeting in Mobile. From 1985 to 1988, he served as acting dean of the College of Agriculture and then was named associate dean of international agriculture programs, a position he held until his first official retirement in 2003. In fall 2005, Guthrie came out of retirement to assume the dean and director positions he now holds, but from which he has announced, he will permanently retire in May 2010.

The Farmers Federation Service to Agriculture Award is the latest on an impressive list of honors Guthrie has received, including being inducted into the Alabama Agriculture Hall of Honor in 2009 and, in 1996, he won the Auburn University Athletic Department's Walter Gilbert Award, which recognizes Auburn athletes who have distinguished themselves through achievements after graduation.

The Auburn Alumni Association has selected four Auburn University graduates as recipients of its highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. They are shipping magnate Robert Kenneth Johns '57 of Summit, N.J.; insurance mogul J. Smith Lanier II '49 of Lanett; rocket scientist Gerald Smith '61 of Huntsville; and retired astronaut Kathryn Thornton '74 of Charlottesville, Va. They will be honored at a dinner and induction ceremony March 6 at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. To read more about the honorees, see the news release.

Five men who have made significant contributions to Alabama agriculture will be honored Feb. 23, 2010, when they are inducted into the Auburn University Ag Alumni Association's Hall of Honor/Pioneer  Award gallery.

Those slated for induction into the Hall of Honor, which honors living Alabamians for their achievements in and for Alabama agriculture, include William Powell of Montgomery, executive director of the Alabama Cattlemen's Association; William Hardy of Auburn, former College of Agriculture dean for instruction and a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology; and Huntsville cattleman and
businessman Raymond Jones.

Powell, a native of Washington County, has been a leader in Alabama's and the nation's cattle industry and agribusiness sector for almost 25 years. Hardy, a Virginia native, has been an Auburn faculty member since 1972 and served as associate dean from 2000 to 2007. Jones, a native of Huntsville, is chief executive officer of G.W. Jones and Sons real estate, engineering and insurance company in Huntsville, and he and his son, Raymond Jr., operate cattle farms in Madison, Marshall and Jackson counties.

Those being honored with Pioneer Awards, which are given posthumously to Alabama agricultural leaders, are Jamey Clary of Akron and Ross Debter of Horton. Clary was the former Alabama Cooperative Extension System Hale coordinator for Hale County who played a vital role in building Alabama's catfish industry. He died in 2007. Debter, who died in 2001, was a well-respected poultry producer and founder of the nationally recognized Debter Hereford Farm.

For more information on the Hall of Honor/Pioneer awards and upcoming banquet, contact Elaine Rollo at rollome@auburn.edu or 844-3204.

The Auburn Alumni Association and its affiliate Auburn clubs nationwide awarded more than $500,000 in scholarships to 226 students this past year as part of Auburn University's campus-wide effort to ensure that every deserving student, especially the children of alumni, has the financial means to get an Auburn education.

The association contributed more than $750,000 to its scholarship endowment fund, and Auburn clubs raised more than $400,000 for scholarships at the close of the fiscal year Sept. 30. The association raises money for its endowment through various means, including by football game-day parking space rentals, promoting membership in its Circle of Excellence Society, selling Toomer's Corner bricks and sponsoring programs that encourage giving to Auburn. Auburn University’s Student Alumni Association board encourages philanthropy among the student body as well, and this year raised money to award three scholarships of its own. For more information, see www.aualum.org/scholarships.

The Auburn Alumni Association is a nonprofit organization designed to support the allegiance between Auburn University and its graduates and friends. The group is composed of more than 45,000 dues-paying members. There are more than 200,000 Auburn alumni throughout the world. For more information, see http://www.aualum.org/.

Jared Rehm, a 23-year-old senior philosophy major at Auburn University, recently finished third in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s, or ITA, National Championships playing for Auburn University. 

He competed against six other schools in an ITA round-robin tournament in his hometown of Mobile, Ala.  Rehm was recruited by Nathan Waters from Auburn University’s Program for Students with Disabilities.  Waters was developing an adaptive athletics program at Auburn University when Rehm enrolled. After being brought into the program, Rehm began practicing and traveling for the wheelchair tennis program.

Rehm has been playing wheelchair sports since he was 13. Not only does he play wheelchair tennis, but also wheelchair basketball.  He has played basketball and tennis for the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Ala., and during high school.  Rehm was also selected to play on the 2004 USA Jr. World Team Cup, and his talents were noticed in 2004 by the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where he was recruited to play basketball. While there, Rehm’s team won the 2005 National Wheelchair Basketball Association National Championship.

Since coming to Auburn University in 2008, Rehm has been helping develop both the adaptive tennis and basketball sports on campus alongside Waters.

Auburn University's top faculty were honored last night during the fourth annual Faculty Awards Celebrating Excellence Ceremony at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. The Gerald and Emily Leischuck Endowed Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching, the university's top teaching honors, were presented to Sushil Bhavnani, professor of mechanical engineering, and Mary Mendonca, associate professor of biological sciences. Morris Bian, associate professor of history, received the Creative Research and Scholarship Award, while Barry Burkhart, professor of psychology, accepted the Award for Excellence in Faculty Outreach. A complete list of award recipients, along with photographs and biographical information, can be found on the 2009 Faculty Awards Web site.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Leslie Kenne will deliver the inaugural Extraordinary Women Lecture in Auburn University's Telfair Peet Theater Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 11 a.m. to noon. This public event is sponsored by the Women's Leadership Institute in Auburn's College of Liberal Arts. A reception will follow. Kenne is a graduate of Auburn's ROTC program with 32 years of active military service. She is the first woman to achieve the rank of lieutenant general in the U.S. Air Force and one of three women in history to achieve a three-star rank in the U.S. military. She will speak on "Making the Most of Your Leadership Potential," reflecting on a lifetime of leadership experience. Attendees will have the opportunity during a lunch reception following the talk to meet Kenne and to join the Women's Leadership Institute's network. For more information, read the news release.

Retired Gen. Carl Mundy, the 30th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, will address Auburn University’s Naval ROTC unit at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in 125A Lowder Business Building. The presentation is open to the public.

Mundy graduated from Auburn in 1957 with a degree in business administration and in 2007 he received the Auburn Alumni Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mundy served on active duty for 38 years, retiring in 1995.  He was Commandant of the Marine Corps and a member the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1991 to 1995. For his military service, he is the recipient of seventeen personal decorations and ten unit and general service awards.

He now resides in Virginia and is chairman of the Marine Corps University Foundation.

More information about Mundy’s visit to Auburn is available by contacting Major Jeff Dyal at 844-3431 or jld00027@auburn.edu.

The Financial Times has released its global ranking of the world's best Executive MBA programs for 2009 and the Auburn Executive MBA was ranked 84th among the world's leading programs. This is the first time Auburn has been eligible to be included in the Financial Times ranking, which is in its ninth year.  Among U.S. programs, Auburn was ranked 40th, making it one of only two Southeastern Conference schools that made it into this year's ranking. The ranking is compiled from surveys completed by EMBA alumni and from information provided by the business school. The surveys evaluated 16 criteria in three areas: alumni career progression; diversity and international reach; and research productivity of the faculty. To read more, see the news release.