AUBURN - Following an internal campus search, Auburn University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Mary Ellen Mazey has announced the appointment of J. Emmett Winn as associate provost.

Winn had served as interim associate provost for five months, following the departure of Sharon Gaber to be provost at the University of Arkansas. As associate provost, Winn is responsible for faculty hiring and personnel issues as well as issues related to academic policies and procedures. Reporting directly to him are the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, the Graduate School, the Office of Information Technology, the English as a Second Language Program and the Office of International Education.

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AUBURN - Successfully transitioning from high school to college can be one of the toughest assignments in a student's life but an Auburn professor hopes to help smooth the process.

Michael Bozack, a physics professor who has taught at Auburn for 20 years, recently wrote "Street-Smart Advice to Christian College Students (From a Professor's Point of View)." Bozack covers multiple aspects of student life, including how to choose a major, how to manage a schedule, how to study and even how to understand professors.

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AUBURN - Gregg E. Newschwander, a professor of nursing and chair of the Department of Nursing at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, has been named dean of the Schools of Nursing at Auburn University and Auburn Montgomery, Provost Mary Ellen Mazey announced today.

With more than 20 years of undergraduate and graduate teaching experience, Newschwander previously held administrative positions at the University of Vermont, The Catholic University of America and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He has remained active in clinical practice throughout his career, with expertise in pediatric emergency and trauma nursing.

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AUBURN - Francesca Adler-Baeder, an associate professor and extension specialist in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, was recently named one of Auburn University's 2009 Distinguished Diversity Researchers. The competitive award is given by the Research Initiative for the Study of Diversity and the Office of the Vice President for Research to celebrate and showcase the best diversity research being done on campus.

Selected among nominees in the category of "established diversity researcher," Adler-Baeder's work assesses community-based relationship education programs targeting low-resource and underserved populations of youth, couples and non-married parents. A hallmark of her work is the development and use of diverse partnership teams of researchers, students and community partners.

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AUBURN - Auburn University recently created a professorship in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering through a donation by H. Vincent Groome III, owner of Groome Transportation, which operates Tiger Transit system. The gift was given in honor of Groome's father. The Harold V. Groome Jr. Professorship in Transportation Engineering will support an exemplary civil engineering faculty member who specializes in transportation engineering instruction and research.

Auburn has undertaken a professorship initiative that will create 81 endowed professorships across campus. The university has agreed to add $7,500 annually in perpetuity to the earnings of any new professorship endowment established by Sept. 30. Professorships can be established for $150,000 during this period, half the normal amount.

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AUBURN - George Mitrevski, an associate professor in Auburn University's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to study in Macedonia.

Mitrevski, who leaves in August, received a nine-month appointment and will be conducting research on an electronic collection of Macedonian texts at the Academy of Sciences and the Arts and at the Macedonian Language Institute in the Republic of Macedonia. He will also be working at the Pedagogical Faculty in the city of Bitola where he will teach English essay-writing and American literature.

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AUBURN - After more than 15 years of researching African-American spirituals, Auburn University music professor and professional singer Rosephanye Powell has released a CD titled "Motherless Child."

Powell, a professor in Auburn's College of Liberal Arts, said African-American spirituals, songs that enabled slaves to develop a sense of community, are considered by many anthropologists to be the first true American folksong. However, Powell's collection has been updated with a more contemporary sound. She has taken traditional spirituals and given them a mix of R&B, urban, gospel and jazz feel.

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AUBURN -  A new Auburn University-designed, high-tech pharmacy in Meridian, Miss., is the first of its kind and is a model facility that could be built in communities across the United States.

Auburn pharmacy professors Kenneth Barker and Betsy Flynn led a multidisciplinary team in designing the recently opened facility for Vital Care Inc., which will help pharmacists offer complex medications for in-home use, ones that are normally administered only in hospitals.

The two-story, 16,000-square-foot building is used for preparing, dispensing and administering the medications, while, at the same time, serving as a demonstration and teaching model for potential franchisees wishing to open a similar facility. Pharmacists may choose to duplicate the entire design for home-infusion medications or individual function areas.

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AUBURN - A water-purification technology developed at Auburn University has been granted United States Environmental Protection Agency registration. This technology, when used in appropriately designed drinking water devices, could save lives in remote areas or during natural disasters.

Professor Dave Worley, of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Sciences and Mathematics, developed the technology that Seattle-based HaloSource Inc. is commercializing as "HaloPure Br." The company, which pays royalties to Auburn through a technology transfer agreement, markets the technology in a disinfecting cartridge to drinking water device manufacturers around the world.

"The EPA registration not only will benefit U.S. citizens, but also will help provide safe, clean drinking water to consumers in many other countries," said Worley. "Once the U.S. EPA grants registration to a new technology, many other countries will adopt the view that it is safe and proven."

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AUBURN – The American Academy of Arts and Letters has awarded a faculty member in Auburn University's Department of English a fellowship for a one-year residency at the American Academy in Rome.

The Academy awarded assistant professor Peter Campion the 2009-10 Rome Prize Fellowship in Literature, given annually to two writers of exceptional promise.

The Rome Prize is an American award given annually through a national competition to 15 emerging artists working in architecture, landscape architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, literature, musical composition or visual arts; and to 15 scholars working in Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and early Modern or Modern Italian studies.

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