About Auburn University
anna > 11-16-2017, 07:51 AM
Auburn University has developed into one of the largest universities in the South, remaining in the educational forefront with its traditional blend of arts and applied science and changing with the needs of today while living with a respect for the traditions and spirit that are Auburn.
Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public research university in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 22,000 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 28,000 with 1,260 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest university in Alabama. Auburn University is one of the state's two public flagship universities.
Auburn was chartered on February 1, 1856, as East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts school affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1872, under the Morrill Act, it became the state's first public land-grant university and was renamed as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. In 1892, it became the first four-year coeducational school in Alabama, and in 1899 was renamed Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API) to reflect its changing mission. In 1960, its name was changed to Auburn University to acknowledge the varied academic programs and larger curriculum of a major university. 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.
Name change to Auburn.
Recognizing the school had moved beyond its agricultural and mechanical roots, it was granted university status by the Alabama Legislature in 1960 and renamed Auburn University, a name that better expressed the varied academic programs and expanded curriculum that the school had been offering for years. However, it was popularly called "Auburn" for many years before the official name change.
Auburn University was racially segregated prior to 1963, with only white students being admitted. Integration began in 1964 with the admittance of the first African-American student, Harold A. Franklin.The first degree granted to an African-American was in 1967. According to Auburn University's Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, African-Americans comprise 1,828 of the university's 24,864 undergraduates (7.35%) as of 2013 and 49 of the 1,192 full-time faculty (4.1%) as of 2012.[ AU has decreased its African American faculty percentage from 4.3% in 2003 to 4.1% today, since the settlement of legal challenges to the underrepresentation of African Americans in AU's faculty in 2006.
Today, Auburn has grown since its founding to have an on-campus enrollment of over 28,000 students and a faculty of almost 1,200 at the main campus in Auburn. There are also more than 6,000 students at the Auburn University at Montgomery satellite campus established in 1967.