POSTED: 1:12 PM, January 26, 2012
AUBURN - The tradition of rolling Auburn's oaks will continue even if the trees do not survive being poisoned in 2010. President Jay Gogue this week accepted the recommendation of the Committee to Study the Future of Rolling Toomer's Corner, which proposed replacing the troubled oaks—should they die—with one or more large trees and using a temporary structure to celebrate victories until the new trees have established roots.
Auburn horticulture and forestry experts will evaluate the current oaks this spring. They are not expected to survive. Development of a timetable to replace them is under way.
"It's a bittersweet moment for those of us who love Auburn," said Debbie Shaw, vice president for alumni affairs and committee chair. "We dearly love the live oaks that have served us well for so long, but we now must focus on creating an environment that future generations can enjoy."
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POSTED: 9:24 AM, January 26, 2012
AUBURN - Auburn University is ranked second nationally out of 145 public institutions in the enrollment of National Merit Scholars, the university's Office of Enrollment Services announced this week. The rankings are included in the recently released 2010-2011 National Merit Scholarship Corporation Annual Report.
Auburn is first in the Southeastern Conference among public institutions and second, behind Vanderbilt, among all Southeastern Conference institutions. Auburn ranked ninth overall out of the 359 institutions where these scholars are enrolled, with Chicago, USC, Harvard, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Washington-St. Louis, Oklahoma and Yale ranked higher. Only Oklahoma was ranked above Auburn among all public institutions.
Auburn enrolled 181 new scholars this summer and fall, which is a 35 percent increase over last year's number of 134. Auburn moved up from third in the SEC and 16th overall last year.
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POSTED: 12:49 PM, January 25, 2012
AUBURN - Most landowners know every inch of their property – fences, timber stands, steams, pastures, hills, everything – yet they don't know what the property looks like from above or on a map.
Auburn University forestry researcher John Gilbert kept encountering this situation as he conducted a study for the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, so he created an instructional booklet to help landowners use online mapping programs.
Gilbert, who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in forestry at Auburn in 2003 and 2007, respectively, got the idea while working with landowners to record locations of longleaf pine forest stands in Alabama. The longleaf pine is Alabama's state tree and its stands once covered millions of acres in the state, but only fragments exist today.
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POSTED: 7:36 AM, January 25, 2012
AUBURN - The Auburn University School of Accountancy has arranged for Auburn to be one of this year's stops on the "American Whistleblower Tour: Essential Voices for Accountability." A public panel discussion will take place Monday, Jan. 30, at 7:30 p.m. at 113A Lowder Hall and will feature prominent whistleblowers Sherron Watkins, speaking about the Enron scandal, and Kenneth Kendrick, speaking about the scandal involving the Peanut Corporation of America and Salmonella-tainted peanut butter.
The tour is a campaign of the Government Accountability Project, a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., whose stated mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms.
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POSTED: 11:43 AM, January 20, 2012
AUBURN - The Auburn University Agricultural Alumni Association will honor five distinguished Alabama agriculturists during its 2012 Hall of Honor banquet, Thursday, Feb. 23, at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center beginning at 6:15 p.m. Three of those honored will be inducted into the Hall of Honor and two will be honored posthumously.
The three inductees into the prestigious Hall of Honor will be Herman McElrath of Guntersville, the honoree in the agribusiness sector; Rudy Schmittou of Auburn, from the education and government sector; and Ben Bowden of Eufaula, representing the production agriculture sector. The Hall of Honor recognizes living Alabamians who have made significant contributions to agriculture in the state.
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POSTED: 10:01 AM, January 20, 2012
AUBURN - Katie and Slade from Valley, Ala., have won the online voting contest for Auburn University's first War Eagle Wedding.
Starting Monday, Jan. 23, www.wareaglewedding.com will accept votes on three choices for Katie's bridal gown. The dresses were designed by Auburn apparel design students Lauren Mellor, Heather Hall, and Eloise Faber. Voting will last one week.
The trio was selected for the competition by a committee who reviewed wedding dress designs from students in the Competitive Design class offered through the Department of Consumer Affairs in the College of Human Sciences. Professors Lenda Jo Connell and Pam Ulrich deliberately altered the goal of the class to accommodate the needs of the campus wedding and provide students with a unique challenge.
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POSTED: 2:42 PM, January 17, 2012
AUBURN - Auburn Professor Emeritus of English Bert Hitchcock will give the first lecture in the spring Discover Auburn Lecture Series, Thursday, Jan. 19, at 3 p.m. in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library. A reception will follow.
Hitchcock's lecture, "Harriet Beecher Stowe: Devil or Angel," is another in the ongoing series of Discover Auburn presentations marking the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. He will examine the author and her place in the Civil War as viewed by the opposing sides. Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is often cited as an instigator of the war and became a lens through which both of the warring sides viewed the other.
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POSTED: 8:01 AM, January 13, 2012
AUBURN - The woman who has successfully expanded her alterations business into six locations throughout the Southeast and will make the wedding gown for Auburn University's first "War Eagle Wedding" will be the featured speaker for the Women's Philanthropy Board 2012 Winter Workshop, Expo and Luncheon Tuesday, Jan. 31, at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center.
Sieu Tang Wood was born in Vietnam, moved to Laos as a child and came to America with her sister, two suitcases, $300 and a dream. With one sewing machine, the sisters established a small alterations business at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska. The business achieved such success the family was able to move to the continental United States.
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POSTED: 1:56 PM, January 12, 2012
AUBURN - Lutz Hermann Görgens, the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, will deliver a keynote address at "Becoming Alabama: Immigration and Migration in a Deep South State," Jan. 20-21 at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center.
The two-day public symposium, hosted by Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts, will feature scholars and professionals exploring immigration and migration from Spanish exploration to the 1813 Creek War through the present.
Görgens, a native of Düsseldorf, Germany, is the official representative of the German government to the Southeastern United States. During his career, Görgens has worked as a desk officer for the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn, Germany, and later as first secretary and head of the Economic Section for the Germany Embassy in Mexico. He later became a deputy consul general in Boston, head of the Economic Section in the German Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and head of the European Internal Market Affairs Unit of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. He holds a Ph.D. in German history and literature from the University of Tübingen.
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POSTED: 12:16 PM, January 12, 2012
AUBURN - A team of Auburn University scientists has recorded data about each tree on campus, documenting more than 7,300 trees valued at almost $11 million and generating data that could help landscape managers nationwide.
Professor Art Chappelka of the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences said they now know the species, height, diameter, crown width, canopy cover and condition of every tree within the university's landscape-managed campus.
"This will be a valuable tool for campus planners who can use the information as they develop a landscape master plan," Chappelka said. "We have mapped the location of every tree in proximity to roads, buildings, power lines and other structures, so we can view the map on our computers anytime. It's like a blueprint of campus trees."
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