auburn magazine spring 2009

SPORTS New beginnings and bitter ends pg 24

PROFILE Kelly Jolley, Auburn’s out-of-this- world philosopher pg 36

PANEL Our financial experts ruminate on the recession pg 42

SPRING 2009

Predatory MendingBehind the scenes at the Southeastern Raptor Center

2 Auburn Magazine a u a l u m . o r g

3a u a l u m . o r g Auburn Magazine

Ten-year-old golden eagle (and this month’s cover model) Nova, also known as War Eagle VII, flies over Jordan-Hare Stadium on game day. Nova is a public ambassador for Auburn’s Southeastern Raptor Center, which houses a team of wildlife experts who aid in-jured birds and educate people about their welfare. Cover story on Page 28. Photograph by Jeff Etheridge

War Eagle!


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F E A T U R E S

28 Love at First FlightFrom tending broken wings to introducing schoolchildren to the habits of barn owls, scientists and educators at the Southeastern Raptor Center go nose-to-beak with nature’s feathered predators. by taylor dungjen photographs by randal ford

36 The ThinkerKelly Jolley is a practical man, an Auburn man who loves football and raises pit bulls. He just looks at the world in a very philosophical way—and has earned respect for the university in the unlikeliest of disciplines. by jonathan mahler

44 The Perfect StormAuburn experts turn a weathered eye toward the nation’s economic meltdown and forecast when the winds of change might blow in our favor.with john jahera, dan gropper, jimmy e. hilliard, beverly marshall and keven yost

F R O N T

6 From the Editor

Notice anything different? Here’s why: We’ve got a new look.

8 The First Word

We offer the topic; you expound on it.

10 College Street

In our campus news section: Sustainability is sexy, and money’s scarce. Also: study abroad, ethical busi-ness practices and eau d’Auburn.

16 Research

Football and voting go hand-in-hand. Also: clover love, soil tricks, virtual science labs and more.

18 Roundup

What’s happening in your college? Check it out.

20 Concourse

Our student-life section tackles hunger, horror films and attitudes.

24 Tiger Walk

Tuberville’s gone, Chizik’s here. What a difference a month makes. Plus: Hoops are HOT!

B A C K

47 Alumni Center

We bring you a calen-dar chock full of events, plus sweet snapshots ofgrads doing good.

48 Annual Report

See what your Auburn Alumni Association has been up to.

50 Lifetime Achievement

Auburn honors four graduates who have scaled career heights, from a famous football coach to an astronaut.

51 Class Notes

60 In Memoriam

64 The Last Word

Former wide receiver Thom Gossom Jr. ’75 makes peace with his past.

Kingpin, circa 1959

The humble turkey vulture vomits up semi-digested meat to deter predators from attacking its nest. Gross! For more raptor trivia, see Page 28.

Honored: Oliver D. Kingsley

Portrait of a football coach

Haley Walker: Working for food

Auburn University’s golden eagle, Nova, photographed exclusive-ly for Auburn Magazine by Randal Ford

On the cover

Spring 2009


S P R I N G 2 0 0 9

[email protected]

For about a three-week period four times a year, the staff at Auburn Mag-azine shifts into a fo-cused, frenzied deadline mode, during which my colleagues and I are of-ten impatient and occa-sionally unhinged as the

calendar pages flip toward deadline day. We yell through office walls: “Is ‘kickoff’ one word or two?!?” (It’s one.) We mutter to ourselves, searching the thesaurus and dictionary for exactly the right word to use in a headline. (Did the professors “discuss” or, more accurately, “ruminate”?) We write captions, belabor the quality and composition of photos and illustrations, check proofs three, four, five and eight times, analyze layout options and correct typos. Then, after it’s all over, we breathe a sigh of relief, clean our offices and wait to hear from you. For the last few years, issue after is-sue, we’ve been surveying readers on what they like and don’t like about the magazine. One of my favorite survey questions asks, “If you could change one thing about Auburn Magazine, what would it be?” Hundreds of you respond each quarter with thoughtful comments, and when you’ve offered constructive criticism, our staff has pondered how we might do a better job. With this issue, we offer a new look—but more importantly, we’ve attempted an editorial renovation

that conserves what has worked well for years and resolves what didn’t. Since the magazine debuted 15 years ago, for example, more and more readers have expressed concern about its environ-mental footprint. To that end, we are now printing on a partially-recycled paper stock certified by SmartWood to Forest Steward-ship Council standards, denoted by the logo (below right) on our masthead. For more information, see www.fscus.org. By now you’ll have noticed other changes too—but what hasn’t wavered is the staff’s primary goal: With every single issue, Auburn Magazine strives to enlighten, fascinate, inspire, challenge, in-dulge, delight, absorb, entertain, inform, advise, educate, illuminate, surprise, gal-vanize and, occasionally, ruffle the feath-ers of its 45,000-plus readers, all of whom are dues-paying members of the Auburn Alumni Association. By doing these things, Auburn Magazine quietly and persistently cements the bond between Auburn Uni-versity and its alumni. Keep letting us know how we’re doing.

EDITOR

Betsy Robertson

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Suzanne Johnson

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Shannon Bryant-Hankes ’84

ART DIRECTOR

Stacy Wood

WEBMASTER Jeff Hall

UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHER

Jeff Etheridge

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Morgan Ladner ’10, Rebecca Lakin ’10, Kate Winford ’09

DESIGN ASSISTANTS

Nayeon Kim ’10Ashley Hollis ’09

PRESIDENT, AUBURN UNIVERSITY

Jay Gogue ’69

VICE PRESIDENT FOR ALUMNI AFFAIRS ANDEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Deborah L. Shaw ’84

PRESIDENT, AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Nancy Young Fortner ’71

AUBURN MAGAZINE ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR

Kay Fuston ’84

AUBURN MAGAZINE ADVISORY BOARD

John Carvalho ’78, Susan Dendy ’79, Ed Dickinson ’70, Christian Flathman ’97,

Tom Ford ’67, Mary Lou Foy ’66, Thomas Gossom Jr. ’75,

Paul Hemphill ’59, Eric Ludgood ’78, Cindy McDaniel ’80, Carol Pappas ’77,

Neal Reynolds ’77, Joyce Reynolds Ringer ’59,

Allen Vaughan ’75

Our new lookBETSY ROBERTSONEditor, Auburn Magazine

AUBURN MAGAZINE (ISSN 1077–8640) is published quarterly; 4X per year; spring, summer, fall, winter, for dues-paying mem-bers of the Auburn Alumni Association. Periodicals-class post-age paid in Auburn and additional mailing offices. Editorial offic-es are located in the Auburn Alumni Center, 317 South College St., Auburn University, AL 36849-5149. Phone (334) 844–1164. Fax (334) 844–1477. E–mail: [email protected]. Contents ©2009 by the Auburn Alumni Association, all rights reserved.

ADVERTISING INFORMATION Contact Betsy Robertson at (334) 844–1164.

POSTMASTER Send address changes to 317 South College St., Auburn University, AL 36849–5149.

LETTERS Auburn Magazine welcomes readers’ comments, but reserves the right to edit letters or to refuse publication of letters judged libelous or distasteful. Space availability may prevent publication of all letters in the magazine, in which case, letters not printed will be available on the alumni association Web site at the address listed below. No writer is eligible for publication more often than once every two issues. No anonymous letters will be accepted. Auburn Magazine is available in alternative formats for persons with disabilities. For information, call (334) 844–1143. Auburn Magazine is a benefit of membership in the Auburn Alumni Association and is not available by individual subscription. To request a membership application, call the association at (334) 844–2586.

From the Editor

Editor’s note: As Auburn Magazine went to press, we learned of the sudden death of Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller ’57, who was featured in our Fall 2008 cover story, “God’s Man.” For more on Fuller and his legacy of service to the poor, see our blog at: auburn-magazine.blogspot.com.

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L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R

THE TOPIC In our Winter 2008 issue, we asked read-ers to submit their favorite Iron Bowl memories. Al-though the most recent Auburn vs. Alabama game was one we’d prefer to forget, several AU alumni wrote with stories that remind us why we keep the faith. To read more letters, see www.aualum.org/magazine.

Camp Coup

As I read the article in the latest Auburn Magazine(“Civil War,” Winter 2008), former Auburn quarterback Pat Nix’s experiences struck a chord. The first Auburn victory over the Tide for me was in 1982. I was 11. I remember dreading those Mondays at school following yet another Auburn loss. I also remember asking my mom once if Auburn had ever beaten Alabama in football. In my life, they hadn’t—that is, until Nov. 27, 1982. We had a deer camp right on the Dallas/Lowndes County line. The old trailer we slept in had no electricity and Coleman kerosene lanterns for lights, but we did have one luxury item—a 9-inch black-and-white TV. I, along with one of my dad’s friends, Bill Neighbors, an AU grad, decided we were going to watch the game on that tiny screen instead of go hunting. I remember the smell of kerosene from the lanterns, and I remember one play—one glorious play. The ball was snapped, there was a pile, quar-terback Randy Campbell turned to the freshman wearing 34 and gave him the ball, 34 jumped over the pile, and then the referee threw his arms up. What I remember next was being outside the trailer, running around in circles, hugging “Mr. Bill” and shouting “War Eagle!” into the night. And finally, I remember with great joy and anticipation the prospect of going to school on that following Monday.—David Hardy ’93, Laurens, S.C.

Heaven

Our daughter, Meredith, who was 13 in 1989, got her dad (Mike Bean ’70) to leave for Auburn at daylight so they could stake out a tailgate spot for our large crowd of family and friends coming to the Iron Bowl. She wanted everything to be perfect so our Alabama-fan family members would have a taste of the Auburn experience. We couldn’t have known how important that day was in her life, but as the sun set over the Plains that evening, we hugged as we watched the final seconds tick away—the end of a perfect day. Four years later, in her 11th-grade English journal, Meredith wrote that it was the best day of her life. She recalled the details from the tailgate to the final score, writing: “I knew we were going to win, because the sun was orange and the sky was blue!” I read this entry

The First Word

a few days after her funeral less than a year later. Meredith died in a car accident just before her senior year of high school. She had received her acceptance letter to Auburn a few weeks before. The hardest thing my husband and I did after her death was walk back into Jordan-Hare Stadium without her! We watch each time the eagle flies and think of how much she would have loved this latest tradition. And when the sun is orange, and the sky is blue, our girl lives on in our hearts and in the spirit that is Auburn.—Deborah Bean, Dothan, Ala.

Bad Bear

As a native New Orleanean with no family connection to Auburn, I had never heard of Au-burn until my senior year in high school. However, during my five years at Auburn in the ’60s, I gained an appreciation of the Auburn-Alabama relation-ship, an appreciation that is with me until this day and as intense as ever. What I have observed is that no Auburn coach has ever shown as much disrespect to Alabama as Bear Bryant showed to Auburn, both on and off the field. To this day, that is hard to forgive and harder to forget. In the late ’90s, our son played on the lacrosse team for Auburn. We lived in Massachusetts at the time. During the parents’ weekend for the team, a game with Alabama was scheduled. The coach was impressed that we came from as far as we did for parents’ weekend of a club sport. My response was, “Coach, I was here in the ’60s. I’ll walk here if necessary whenever I’m confident we are going to beat Alabama in any sport.” War Eagle!—Tom O’Connor ’68, St. Simons Island, Ga.

Bam Bam

I had the wonderful privilege of attending Auburn as a co-op student from 1960 through 1966. Dur-ing my tenure, Auburn struggled mightily in the Iron Bowl series, but that did nothing to damper my spirits. My most memorable moment in that series was at the game in Birmingham in 1965. As always it was a hard-hitting game, but Auburn came out on the wrong side of a lopsided 30-3 score. However, rather than being downtrodden, I remember standing in the stands with thousands of other Auburn students for more than a half hour after the final whistle, shouting at the top of my voice, “Beat Bama next year!” There is nothing like the Auburn spirit!—John B. Allen ’66, Abingdon, Va.

Traffic Jam

I was a freshman when time for the 1972 Iron Bowl rolled around; Alabama was ranked high in

the polls, and we were ... not. In spite of the more than dismal odds against us, a bunch of friends and I decided to go to the game at Legion Field just for the heck of it, with no thoughts of winning, placing or showing. I’ll be darned. We remained in the stadium for what seemed like hours. We got out of our cars to shout “War Eagle!” and run between the jammed cars on the freeway around Legion Field. We stayed up all night. We went back to Auburn on Sunday barely able to comprehend what had happened. To this day I cannot hear the radio playback of the second blocked punt (David Langner! David Langner!) without tearing up. I can’t explain it, but I can still feel it.—Debra Smart Hartsfield ’77, Atlanta, Ga.

Missed Opportunity

I’ve got ’em: the two most valuable tickets in Auburn-Alabama series history. Two untorn, unused tickets to the 1972 “Punt ’Bama, Punt!” game. I was planning to go, but my girlfriend at the time called me on Thursday night and broke our date. I could tell she was breaking more than the date—she was breaking off the relationship. Heartbroken, I decided not to make the long trek to Birmingham by myself. Needless to say, I listened to the AM radio in delirium as my Tigers pulled off the upset of a lifetime. The tickets are still in my dresser at home. I plan to have them framed, donate them to a mu-seum and under them inscribe the following words: “The Day I Did Not Go: Never Let a Woman Get in the Way of a Good Time.”—Gene Martin ’75, Dothan, Ala.

Hold It

The 1982 Iron Bowl game was one to witness! We were expecting our first baby the following June. Like most expectant moms, I had to visit the women’s restroom often during the game. When Bo Jackson went “over the top,” we were standing and screaming and cheering so loudly with the other Auburn fans from our section of the end zone that … oops! We still laugh 25 years later about me standing there, screaming, cheering and then stopping to look at my husband, saying, “I just wet my pants! Who cares—we just beat Alabama!” War Eagle forever!—Cindy Bailey Davis ’78, Wadley, Ala.

NEXT TOPIC What’s your favorite graduation-day memory? Send e-mail to [email protected] or write us at: Memories, Auburn Magazine, 317 South College Street, Auburn, AL 36849-5149. We’ll run the letters in our Summer 2009 issue.


A Land, Sea, and Space Grant University

AcAdemics: Being in the top 50 of public institutions 16 years in a row isn’t enough. Our new strategic plan calls for more accountability, higher standards, and higher graduation rates. And our new freshman class is the smartest ever—with an ACT average of 25.9 (national average 21.1). Athletics: If Auburn were its own country, its 18 medals in the Beijing Olympic Games would rank in a tie for 14th in the world with Spain and Canada. Collectively, Auburn athletes won three gold medals, 10 silver, and five bronze. They’re all gold to us.

FAcilities: Auburn has new gold standards in “green,” too: environmentally friendly LEEDS certification for new buildings, a greener pedestrian campus with bike-friendly additions, and more research into alternative sources of energy.

service to the stAte: Tens of thousands of hours of faculty and student time is dedicated to improving the quality of life for Alabamians, the nation, and the world.

AU is the symbol for gold.

in the periodic tAble of the elements,

so nothing less than the gold standard will do in academics, athletics, facilities, and service to the state.

And Auburn provides a $4.85 billion annual contribution to the state’s economy (that’s 205 tons of gold), a figure that’s definitely worth its weight.

www.auburn.edu/rankings


C A M P U S N E W S

Auburn University

entered its fiscal year

in October with a sound

plan for coping with a

12.5 percent reduction

in state appropriations.

The board of trustees

last June addressed

about $42 million in

budget cuts through

stringent budget

reductions and a tuition

increase of 12 percent,

which covered about a

third of the appropria-

tion reduction.

Those cuts left

Auburn bruised but not

battered as the budget

year began. But in mid-

December, the state

announced an addition-

al mid-year cut in edu-

cation appropriations,

an action known as

“proration.” The added

9 percent cut, which

will short the univer-

sity budget by another

$26 million, was much

more than anticipated

and left administrators

scrambling to find ways

to cope, said Auburn

executive vice president

Don Large ’75.

“We will target our

budget reductions in

administrative and other

areas that stay as far

from the classroom

as possible,” he said.

Solutions may include

delaying construction

projects and cutting

spending for employee

travel, but the ultimate

goal is to keep the cuts

from affecting students,

Large added.

Sustainability and carbon footprints are hot topics these days, but neither idea is new to Auburn University. Environ-mental commitment appears in both Auburn’s strategic plan and its master plan for campus development. The university’s environmental awareness movement gained its official stamp of approval in September when Auburn president Jay Gogue ’69 signed the Presi-dents Climate Commitment along with 580 other university presidents—includ-ing the chief administrators at Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Clemson, North Caro-lina and Florida. Gogue was the first public university president in Alabama to sign the agreement, which commits Auburn to working toward becom-ing “climate-neutral,” a multi-step process that involves creating institu-tional structures, completing a compre-hensive inventory of all greenhouse-gas emissions and implementing an insti-tutional action plan. The signature was a formality for Auburn, where efforts toward reducing the university’s carbon footprint have been ongoing for several years. But belonging to the Presidents Climate Commitment will help Auburn learn best practices from other schools, says Lindy Biggs, director of the Auburn Sustainability Initiative. “Auburn is in good company,” Biggs says. “A lot of highly respected in-stitutions are committed to reducing their carbon im- print and educating their students in environmental re-sponsibility, and so are we.” Biggs, an associate pro-fessor of history, says the university has made rapid progress in environmental

University gets even greener

sustainability in recent years, increasing the amount of materials going to recy-cling sites instead of landfills, constructing buildings with the energy-efficient LEED classification and incorporating environ-mental awareness into its academic pro-grams. A greenhouse-gas emission inven-tory was started last summer and was due to be completed in December; the results will help establish and refine programs and activities that improve energy efficiency. Sustainability and energy efficiency have been gaining in administrative areas since Auburn launched its Sustainability Initiative in 2004. After being funded

annually for its first four years, the initiative this year received permanent funding. Among faculty and students, environmental awareness is braiding

its way into the curriculum as well as extracurricular activities: a new mi-nor in sustainable studies is now be-ing offered, and the English depart-ment is teaching 28 sections of its sustainability-themed composition classes. Auburn’s Student Govern-ment Association has created an

environmental-initiatives com-mittee that looks for activities that might reduce the cam-

pus’ carbon footprint. “Universities are very important, not only in educating our students

and the public about climate change, but

also in producing future leaders, Biggs says. “Within a relatively

short time, today’s students will be the leaders who will have to carry the world into a sustainable future. It

is reassuring to see that so many of our students want to prepare themselves to do this kind of work.”

AUBURN COPES WITH MID–YEAR BUDGET WOES

Q and A

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated Auburn as a Center of Excellence for Watershed Management—the first such center in Alabama. A water-shed is an area of land that drains into a lake, river or other common basin.

Drip, drop

COLLEGE STREET

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR AUBURN TO

HELP BUILD SUSTAINABLE FOOD SUPPLIES

IN DEVELOPING NATIONS?

It’s really important, because we have so many educated people and so much information at Auburn. It seems kind of a shame if we didn’t spread it out and if we didn’t use it, especially for students who are learning how to apply what they’ve learned at the university, and actually make a difference. As they say, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.

Sara Rademaker Fisheries/allied aquacultures graduate student


Flashback

100 years ago Spring 1909

On Jan. 11, Alabama Polytechnic Institute opened the doors to its Carnegie Library, built with a $30,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie after the API library outgrew its three rooms on the second floor of Samford Hall.


Upon graduating from Auburn, where he lettered in football, basketball and baseball, Ralph “Shug” Jordan ’32 joined the univer-sity as head basketball coach and assistant football coach under Jack Meacham. In 1951, Jordan took over as head football coach and went on to become the winningest coach in Auburn history, with a record of 176-83-6.


Strike king Andy Varipapa, known as the “greatest one- man bowling show on Earth,” visited the Plains and wowed students with his “pin-spinning abilities” and trick rolls such as the “boomerang ball,” in which he’d roll a bowling ball slowly down a lane only to have it return.


On Feb. 15, James E. Martin began an eight-year stint as president of Auburn University following a period of unrest during which three different presidents led the institution in less than four years.


Auburn researchers made a breakthrough with genetically altered catfish, becoming the first group to perform government-approved experiments with transgenic catfish living outdoors. The “super-catfish” had been modified to make them more resistant to disease.

Above: Former Auburn president James E. Martin shows off the university’s new vanity license plate, first issued in 1988. The purchase of Auburn tags by Alabama residents has generated more than $15 million in student scholarships.

AU

BU

RN

UN

IVE

RS

ITY

LIB

RA

RIE

S


C O L L E G E S T R E E T

Paul Harris arrived on

the Auburn campus with

one charge: increase

the number of students

attracting prestigious

national scholarships

with names like Rhodes,

Fulbright and Marshall.

Harris, who joined

the Honors College

and political science

faculties last fall, says

there are plenty of

Auburn students quali-

fied for such scholar-

ships but no one to help

them apply.

“Many students who

would have a good shot

at becoming a Rhodes

Scholar or a Fulbright

Scholar never try be-

cause they either don’t

know how to prepare

or they wait too long

to begin the process,”

says Harris, who says

the university is evaluat-

ing new students and

applicants for signs

of superior academic

potential.

“We want to identify

prospective applicants

for nationally pres-

tigious scholarships

no later than their

freshman year and

mentor them through

the process over their

academic career at

Auburn,” says Harris

’97, who himself re-

ceived a Fulbright

grant for dissertation

work in Germany while

pursuing his doctoral

degree at Auburn.

Students often

miss out on scholar-

ships because they

focus too narrowly on

grades, while selection

committees emphasize

students’ activities away

from campus, Harris

notes. Committees often

pick scholars with both

good grades and an

active record of service

learning or interna-

tional experience over

candidates with higher

grades but limited

activities outside

the classroom.

New faculty post focuses on blue-chip scholarships

A new Center for Ethical Organizational Cultures in Auburn University’s College of Business will help companies avoid ques-tionable practices and teach students how to behave appropriately in their jobs. Among its services, the center may conduct surveys to find out whether client companies are operating properly. “If we find an unethical culture, we will help the management develop a plan to correct it,” says Achilles Armenakis, James T. Pursell Sr. Eminent Scholar in Ethics. “The small things we find now may keep the organization from doing much worse later, like ‘cooking’ the books.” In today’s business culture, ethical quandaries—including conflicts of interest, lying and abusive behavior—abound. Sur-veys by the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics Resource Center indicate that more than 50 percent of respondents who have observed misconduct at work didn’t report it. “They either said they feared retali-ation or felt it would not do any good to report it,” Armenakis says. “We want to help companies have ethical cultures and to foster an environment that does not pun-ish those who report unethical behavior.” At Auburn, more than 30 business faculty members devote a total of 150 classroom hours to teaching ethics. Grad-uating students also are asked to complete a questionnaire about their confidence in their grasp of ethics, as are various alumni and employers. “The cultures of organizations they join have been established already, and the new graduates often face pressure to conform,” Armenakis says. “We want our students to recognize unethical situations and make the right decisions.”

ETHICS CENTER TACKLES ‘COOKED BOOKS’ AND OTHER DILEMMAS

The man with the plan: Former Fulbright scholar Paul Harris ’97 helps students find scholarship money to further their studies abroad.


Initiatives in Auburn Uni- versity’s recently com-pleted strategic plan to enhance academic quality and reputation are under way. For this year, Auburn is concentrating on 35 of the 58 tactics in six strategic prior-

ity areas, and the first status report to the board of trustees in November summa-rized progress to date. Among the high-lights reported:

•The writing requirement on ACT/SAT college entrance exams for entering fresh-men will be implemented this year, and a writing center will be operational by this fall to help colleges and schools imple-ment new standards for improving the quality of student writing across the cur-riculum and within their disciplines.

•Faculty and academic administrators are developing a new model for the Hon-ors College. A successful Honors College is a critical catalyst to increasing institu-tional quality and a key draw for top- performing students.

Tomorrow, the worldJAY GOGUE ’69President, Auburn University

•Providing students more international education presents a challenge Auburn is determined to meet. While the univer-sity is expanding programs and incentives to get more students involved in Study Abroad, many students can’t participate due to financial or other reasons. Admin-istrators and faculty are working together to find ways to help these students in-crease the international knowledge that prepares them for a global society. Each school and college at Auburn now has at least one Study Abroad pro-gram, and the number of students in the Auburn Abroad faculty-led and exchange programs increased from 469 two years ago to 565 last year, with an additional 137 students approved to study at inter-national universities for Auburn credit. So, the total number of Auburn Abroad students reached 702 last year. Twenty new Auburn faculty-led programs have been added for 2008-09, bringing the total number of programs to 49, and the goal is to move toward a 20 percent par-ticipation rate for all programs abroad. The university should make rapid progress this year in establishing learning communities where students with similar academic interests are grouped to sup-port their long-term academic develop-ment. The Village residential community is being built to facilitate that model, and more opportunities to encourage involve-ment in service learning—another widely cited element of academic growth—are under way. The campus community has shown initiative in developing and implementing a workable strategic plan, and periodic review and adjustments will help ensure continued participation and success.

[email protected]

Fifty middle- and high-school teams from across the eastern United States participated in the 2008 South’s BEST Robotics Championship in December on the Auburn campus. Taking first place was a team from Decatur and Austin high schools. For more on the competition, please see www.southsbest.org.

Robot wars

Auburn students have studied in China, Australia, Europe, Canada, Africa, Turkey, Costa Rica and other global ports of call.



An initiative in the Auburn College of Education is taking aim at Alabama high school dropouts. An AT&T Foundation-funded pilot project to reduce the number of dropouts from Alabama high schools is being built around a partnership between the Truman Pierce Institute in the College of Educa-tion and five designated high schools in Tallapoosa, Lee, Hale and Bullock coun-ties and in the city of Opelika. The Truman Pierce Institute focuses on ways to improve schools and commu-nities by creating partnerships, conducting research and providing programs to meet the needs of schools and communities. Professor and institute director Cynthia Reed and associate professor Jeffrey Brooks

Five high schools test dropout-reduction project

will direct the new program, “Building In-dividual Capacity for Success.” The program, Reed says, “will allow us to provide programming to ensure high-risk students in five high schools do not drop out. Rather than doing more of the same for these young people, we will now be able to provide mentors, engage the students in community-service proj-ects and engage them in leadership devel-opment and global awareness.” Since opening in 1982 as the outreach arm of the College of Education, the Tru-man Pierce Institute has worked with Al-abama schools and educators to increase individual and organizational leadership capacity and improve the quality of edu-cational experiences for young people.

Charlene LeBleu ’03 Assistant professor of landscape architecture, College of Architecture, Design & Construction

BACKSTORY LeBleu earned a bachelor’s degree in forest resources and conservation from the Univer-sity of Florida and master’s degrees in landscape architecture and community planning from Auburn before joining the faculty full-time in 2004. She teaches in the Master of Landscape Architecture program, addressing issues in ecological and sustainable design, stormwater management, water quality and professional practice.

COMING SOON LeBleu is helping create the first low-impact development residential subdivision in the Auburn area. “Low-impact development is composed of stormwater-management practices that seek to maintain a site’s pre-construction hydrology through ‘micro-site’ management of stormwater,” LeBleu says. LID practices encourage stormwater infiltration at the lot level instead of the neighborhood level, which reduces the concen-tration of stormwater pollutants. Amenities in the LID subdivision will include permeable pavement, rain gardens, grass swales and rain barrels, among other features.

BEHIND THE SCENES LeBleu likes to read, draw and dance to beach music.

WHAT IS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE TO OUR

WORLD IN TERMS OF WATER RESOURCES?

Mismanagement of water is a primary factor in the ever-increasing level of ecosystem dysfunction. The more we fail to comprehend the rules and capacities that surround our natural environment, the more dysfunctional natural systems become.

Meet the Prof

THEIR FLEECE WAS WHITE AS SNOW: Earlier this semester, the Auburn chapter of the Block and Bridle Club

sponsored its annual lamb-and-goat show, an event that drew 4-H and FFA youths from across the state to the

Stan Wilson Beef Teaching Unit to show their project animals. Block and Bridle member Amy Bley, a junior in

animal sciences/pre-vet, was there with camera, and when she saw four little washed and groomed lambs wait-

ing for their turn in the spotlight, she couldn’t resist taking a shot.

Auburn awarded 1,442 academic degrees at its December graduation ceremony at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum. Students earned 1,101 bachelor’s, 266 master’s, 73 doc-toral and two specialist degrees.

Graduation day

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Look like an Auburn fan and smell like one too: Harrisburg, Penn.-based Masik Collegiate Fragrances plans to launch an Auburn University perfume this sum-mer. Masik plans to bottle both men’s and women’s fragrances said to embody the school colors, Samford Hall and Au-burn’s famous battle cry. The Auburn or-ange scent incorporates wafts of ginger, mandarin and grapefruit; the blue boasts iced juniper and black pepper notes. Want more? See www.masik.com.

HAPPY DAYS: Shortly before his 92nd birthday in

November, retired dean of students James E. Foy led

students, friends and well-wishers in a classic rendi-

tion of the “War Eagle” cheer. The crowd gathered to

dedicate Auburn’s new Student Center, which houses

the Foy Information Desk.

SMELLS LIKE TEAM SPIRIT

J u l e C o l l i n s s m i t h m u s e u m o f f i n e A r t

Continuing Auburn’s tradition of excellence since 2003

V i s i t ✦ J o i n ✦ s u p p o r twww.jcsm.auburn.edu

901 South College Street • Auburn, AL 36849

334.844.1484

As we celebrate the museum’s f i f th year, we continue our commitment to ser ve our

diverse audiences. We invite you to join us as we uphold a legacy begun more than 60 years ago,

of Auburn Univers i ty’s f ine ar ts col lect ion.

F08 AU Magazine Ad.indd 1 9/16/08 9:28:06 AM



When David Laband set

out to see if there was

a correlation between

football fans and vot-

ers, he didn’t expect to

find much. Turns out,

avid fans are twice as

likely to vote as the fair-

weather variety.

Laband, a professor

of economics and policy

in Auburn’s School of

Forestry and Wildlife

Sciences, gathered a

research team to look at

results from the Nov. 7,

2006, election and find

out which Auburn house-

holds boasted at least

one voter. Research-

ers then drove around

the city during the fall

2007 football season to

see how many of those

4,000 households also

displayed AU football

paraphernalia.

“This was the first

and only real-world,

data-driven analysis

that links completely

non-political expressive

behavior with voting,”

Laband says.

The result: House-

holds sporting outward

displays of signs or

flags for the Auburn Ti-

gers are twice as likely

to vote when election

day rolls around.

“I was surprised that

there is a significant

link at all—and that the

effect is as large as it

is,” says Laband.

The economist at-

tributed the link to how

individuals express

themselves. Those who

are more comfortable

expressing themselves

publicly—whether with

a Tigers flag, a pink or

blue bow on a mailbox

to announce a birth or

a seasonal wreath on

the door—might also

be more likely to cast

their ballots.

“It is possible that

these more expressive

individuals also are

more likely to vote as a

type of expressive

behavior than people

who generally are not

very expressive,” says

Laband.

He hopes to conduct

more studies to aid his

understanding of

expressive behavior—to

discover, for example, if

people who engage in

private expressive

behavior follow the

same voting pattern.

—Kate Winford

REAL SCIENCE COMES TO MIDDLE SCHOOLFor most middle schools, high-tech is too high-priced: Sophisticated equipment for science labs is typically out of the ques-tion due to lack of funds. That’s why engineering researchers at Auburn and three other universities are working on a U.S. Department of Edu-cation project to provide middle-school students with virtual science labs. N. Hari Narayanan, a professor in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, is part of the re-search team designing a virtual science experimentation platform for middle-school science instruction. “The revolution in computational sci-ence has not yet impacted science educa-tion in schools,” says Narayanan. “This project will help introduce students to com-putational tools. It will also create an ad-vanced physics simulation system, with an interface customized to children for build-ing and running virtual experiments.” Narayanan says the project will draw on the strengths of each partner institu-tion. Auburn will lead computer science research and development, drawing on Narayanan’s expertise in human-comput-er interaction and educational technology. Faculty from the physics-education research group at Kansas State will pro-vide domain expertise, while informa-tion-design researchers at Bentley College will conduct usability testing. Finally, the University of Wisconsin-Madison will deploy and evaluate the system in schools. The researchers hope to carry out sev-eral design and test cycles over three years to produce a proven system ready for national distribution. “Students will be able to explore ‘what-if’ scenarios by changing physical properties and principles in ways not possible in the real world,” Narayanan says. “We will test the system in schools in Wisconsin and Kansas, and ultimate-ly make it available to science teachers nationwide.”

Loyalty translates from pigskin to politics

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Want to make your workout even health-ier? Auburn researchers have learned that a little bit of niacin—also known as vita-min B3—makes aerobic burn go farther in terms of heart health. Peter Grandjean, associate professor in the College of Education’s kinesiology department, and former doctoral student Eric Plaisance ’06 studied a group of 15 men between the ages of 30 and 65 who had been classified at high risk of heart disease. The researchers wanted to know if niacin would enhance the triglyceride-lowering effects of aerobic exercise. High levels of triglycerides in blood have been linked to atherosclerosis and increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The men ate high-fat meals and then participated in aerobic exercise one hour before another high-fat meal. They later consumed another high-fat meal after taking a six-week supply of extended-release niacin. Their responses were also measured after taking a six-week supply of extended-release niacin and consuming a high-fat meal one hour after a period of aerobic exercise. The researchers concluded that aero-bic exercise is more effective than extend-ed-release niacin in reducing post-meal triglyceride concentrations. Niacin does, however, enhance the triglyceride-lowering effects of exercise after a meal. They be-lieve the combination of exercise and

niacin might also be beneficial to people resistant to insulin.

A feature article on the study appeared in the July 2008 is-sue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, pub-lished by the American Society for Nutrition.

Civil engineering professor David Elton, a 23-year veteran of the Auburn fac-ulty, has hit the big time with Soils Magic, which has sold more copies than any other American Society of Civil Engineers’ book besides conference pro-ceedings and garnered Elton a National Science Foundation grant to develop innovative ways to teach soil mechan-ics. The book is used by universities and service organizations—even the BoyScouts—as a source of simple soil ex-periments that have unexpected results. Elton’s exper-iments have been performed in venues around the country, including the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. Check out Soils Magic videos at YouTube.com.

Aw, shucks

Better cotton through cloverSustainable farming is

nothing new at Auburn,

where a 112-year-old

cotton experiment is

showing that winter

legumes are as effective

as nitrogen fertil-

izer when it comes to

producing cotton crops.

AU’s “Old Rotation,” the

oldest continuous cotton

experiment in the world

and the third-oldest

field-crop experiment

in the United States on

the same site, began in

1896 when professor J.F.

Duggar began testing

the theory that sustain-

able cotton production

was possible in Alabama

if growers would rotate

crops and include winter

legumes such as clover

to prevent erosion.

Researchers at Auburn

and the U.S. Department

of Agriculture’s Soil

Dynamics Laboratory

have written the first

comprehensive research

report on Old Rotation,

recently published in

Agronomy Journal. The Old Rotation was

placed on the National

Register of Historic

Places in 1988.

DIRTY BOOK

Anglers frequenting the harbor pier in Ocean Springs, Miss., might expect to reel in a better catch this winter: The Auburn University Shellfish Lab has donated 23,000 oysters to help enrich the waters and create a more stable fishing habitat. Movers loaded the oysters into cages on the back of a pickup truck and drove them from the lab’s hatchery on Dauphin Island to their new home. Since a single oyster can spawn several million eggs, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources expects the oysters to provide a food supply and also attract more fish to the area.

B3

About 300 species of clover have been identified in the plant world. The type typically seen peeking from your Bermuda grass is known as white clover.

GOOD FOR YOUR HEART



COLLEGE OF

AgricultureReady for a barn rais-ing? The Agricultural Alumni Association wants to raise $1.5 million to build a replica of the 80-year-old Dairy Barn at Ag Heritage Park. The new facility would welcome visitors to the 30-acre park and house a retail store featuring home-grown Alabama prod-ucts; exhibits on the past, present and future of Alabama agriculture; and meeting, office and classroom space.

Fundraisers expect to build the Dairy Barn replica at a reduced rate by teaming with the College of Architecture, Design and Construc-tion’s design-build master’s program. The project represents the next phase in develop-ing Ag Heritage Park to help preserve Auburn’s rich agricultural history and increase agricul-ture’s campus visibility. The park already fea-tures the new Alabama Farmers Pavilion, the rebuilt Red Barn and renovated Herdsman’s House, plus a 2.5-acre pond and walking trail. The grassy spread that

fronts Samford Avenue has become a favorite fall tailgating site and is home to a weekly farm-ers’ market in spring and summer.

COLLEGE OF

Architecture,Design and ConstructionA group of Auburn in-dustrial design students take their talents on the road each year through study-abroad programs in Taiwan and Ireland. The 4-year-old program between Auburn and

Shu-Te University takes AU students to Taiwan for eight weeks in summer. Each student works with three or four Shu-Te students learning design and crafts, including pot-tery, glasswork and Chinese painting. Stu-dents also visit design firms and exhibitions, and participate in in-dustry visits in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Ireland program, in its 13th year, consists of a 10-week spring trip that takes students to a variety of schools—including the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Glas-

COLLEGE OF

EducationThe College of Educa-tion welcomed W. Gary Martin and Peter Hastie to the rank of honored professors during a November ceremony at the Au-burn Alumni Center. Martin, a professor of mathematics education in the curriculum and teaching department, became the first recipi-ent of the Emily R. and Gerald S. Leischuck Endowed Professor-ship for Critical Needs in Education. Hastie, a professor and graduate program director in kinesiology, received the Wayne T. Smith Distinguished Profes-sorship. Hastie joined the faculty in 1994 and teaches pedagogy in the physical education-teacher education program. Last year, he received the college’s Outstanding Faculty Award for Research for the second time. Martin, a member of the faculty for eight years, is project direc-tor for the National Science Foundation-

funded TEAM-Math program, which bolsters mathematics education in 15 east Al-abama school districts. Auburn president Jay Gogue recently named Martin the university’s first presidential faculty fellow. For more infor-mation on the College of Education’s endowed professorships, see: education.auburn. edu/facultystaff/ professorships/.

SAMUEL GINN

COLLEGE OF

EngineeringThe 2008-09 academic year marks the Samuel Ginn College of En-gineering’s centennial anniversary as an of-ficial college at Auburn University. The uni-versity offered its first engineering course in 1872 and, during most of the 19th century, engineering represented about half the institu-tion’s total enrollment. In 1908, then-president Charles Coleman

Thach reorganized the Auburn faculty into three colleges, one of which was engineering. Graduates have become astronauts, inventors and CEOs while revo-lutionizing the energy, transportation and telecommunications industries. The college recently commissioned Atlanta management consultant Art Slotkin ’68 to prepare a history of the college; selections from his upcoming book, They Came from Auburn: A History of Engineering in the New South, may be read at eng.auburn.edu/centennial.

SCHOOL OF

Forestry and Wildlife SciencesSoutheastern landown-ers interested in con-verting their land into longleaf pine forests for reaping economic and environmental benefits now have a resource for information in the new Center for Longleaf Pine Ecosystems in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences. Alabama landown-ers have increased their investment in the pine crop—in the last decade, longleaf pine acreage in the state has increased by 60 percent. The center, which is the only one of its kind in the country,

gow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland, and Loughborough Univer-sity in Leicestershire, England—to study such topics as design history and anthropometry (the study of human body measurement). The College of Archi-tecture, Design and Construction boasts the oldest study-abroad program at Auburn. Administrators hope that within the next five years 75 percent of all CADC students will be spending some time studying overseas.

COLLEGE OF

BusinessA standard computer lab was reborn in November as the new Trading, Investing and Global Economic Research Lab in the College of Business. Made possible by a donation from Ray-mond Harbert ’82 and wife Kathryn ’81 of Birmingham, the new lab simulates real-life brokerage floors where security analyses and trades are executed electronically through-out the world. The room not only looks like an authentic trad-ing room, but much of its software will prepare AU students for careers in invest-ments and finance. The lab also has video-con-ferencing capabilities, allowing traders, re-searchers and portfolio managers to share their real-world experiences with students.

Roundup



provides information about longleaf pine ecosystem management and researches ways to improve longleaf pine restoration and management.

Graduate SchoolPathobiology professor Bernhard Kaltenboeck of the College of Veteri-nary Medicine received the 2008 Distinguished Graduate Faculty Lectureship Award jointly sponsored by the Auburn Alumni Association and the AU Graduate School. Dur-ing his 14 years at Au-burn, Kaltenboeck has garnered more than $4 million in federal fund-ing for his research into human and livestock diseases caused by the intracellular bacteria of the genus Chlamydia. Kaltenboeck also has successfully tested a therapeutic vaccine approach to treating mastitis, the infection of the mammary gland, and fertility disorders in dairy cows.

COLLEGE OF

HumanSciencesThe interior design un-dergraduate program in the College of Human Sciences’ Department of Consumer Affairs is ranked fourth nation-ally in the 2008 Design Intelligence Education Survey, marking the fifth consecutive year it has ranked in the Top 10 of 152 peer

programs accredited by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation. Interior design faculty and students also com-pleted the documenta-tion and exhibition process required by CIDA to complete the reaccreditation process. The quality of student work, level of student professionalism and faculty commitment to student success earned the program the maximum Six-Year Re-Accreditation Award.

COLLEGE OF

Liberal ArtsMusic professor How-ard Goldstein has been named the Breeden Eminent Scholar for spring semester. As part of his appoint-ment, he will coordi-nate performances,

classroom instruction and outreach activities for the Tasman String Quartet, which will be in residence at Auburn from Feb. 15 through March 15. The Daniel F. Breeden Eminent Scholar Chair was established in 1989 to provide support for both the academic and the outreach missions

of the College of Lib-eral Arts; recipients are nationally recognized in the arts or humanities and agree to engage in community outreach.

SCHOOL OF

NursingThe School of Nurs-ing and the Alabama Department of Public Health devised an emergency-prepared-ness mock hospital unit in early December to demonstrate disaster training and technol-ogy. Auburn’s senior nursing students also took part in a three-day immersion experience to orient themselves with all aspects of public health, and all nursing students participated in the emergency-prepared-ness exercise using a

mobile medical station and interoperable communication vehicle capable of connect-ing communications systems worldwide. … The Fourth Annual Alumni Reunion for nursing graduates and their families will be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon April 18 at Miller Hall. Festivities include

a tailgate brunch before the 1 p.m. A-Day game; photos with Aubie and the Tiger Paws dance team; music by the AU Singers; and other activities. For more information and tickets, contact Stacey Seawell at [email protected] or (334) 844-7390.

HARRISON SCHOOL OF

PharmacyA legend has returned to the Harrison School of Pharmacy, where student leaders have revived Hargreaves Day after several years of dormancy. Har-greaves Day consists of field games, including tug-of-war, wiffleball, kickball, Ultimate Fris-bee and volleyball. The celebration honors the late professor George Hargreaves, who was instrumental in building up the pharmacy pro-gram in its early days. For months, student council members used their lunch hours to do the extensive planning. A huge sign-up board was posted within the school, which immedi-ately stirred the spirit of competition between the classes. Faculty, staff and gradu-ate students made up a separate category, and each class wore T-shirts with Hargreaves’ image and the slogan “Return of a Legend.” First-year students recently won bragging rights after an intense campaign that included running flags around the field, wearing red headbands

involved with a number of community and civic organizations and is a former board member of the Auburn Alumni Association.

COLLEGE OF

VeterinaryMedicineAuburn’s veterinary college is increasing the number of students it accepts from Kentucky and will begin to accept West Virginia students through partnership agreements with the Southern Regional Education Board. Since 1946, SREB “contract seats” have been meted out to students from states that lack their own vet schools. In the early days, students from many states at-tended Auburn through the program, but as states began build-ing their own public veterinary schools in the 1970s and 1980s, fewer students needed to leave home to get educated in the field. Kentucky eventually became the only state with an SREB contract with Auburn, and for years only 34 Kentucky students were admitted annually through the program. In the last two years, Kentucky veterinarians, produc-ers, pre-veterinary advisers and others worked with their state legislature to increase the number of contract seats, resulting in six more seats for the current and upcoming academic years.

and electing a student “mascot” who painted his arms, legs, face and hair red.

COLLEGE OF

Sciences andMathematicsThe College of Sci-ences and Mathematics named Jane Upshaw ’69 its 2008 Distin-guished Alumna. Upshaw became the

first woman to lead a University of South Carolina campus when she was named chancel-lor of the University of South Carolina at Beau-fort in 2002. USCB offers 12 baccalaureate degrees and is the fast-est-growing institution in the South Carolina system. As head of the school, Upshaw has led unprecedented growth in the student body and extended the university’s connection to the surrounding area by teaming with local agencies and school districts. She also helped establish community support and funding for a new 200-acre site called the USC Beaufort South Campus—Gateway to Hilton Head and for the school’s northern campus site in historic Beaufort. Upshaw is

Auburn’s College of Agriculture has created a national research center aimed at ensuring that table eggs are safe for consumers and that the $4.9 billion U.S. egg industry continues to thrive. The National Egg Processing Center is a joint effort involving scientists at Auburn, Clemson, North Carolina State, Purdue, Georgia and Arkansas universities, as well as the USDA’s Egg Safety and Quality Research Unit.

Eggheads


S T U D E N T L I F E

Auburn faculty members think students don’t study as much as students think they do. Faculty also don’t think their classes require much memorization, while stu-dents think their memorization skills are getting a serious workout. Understanding the gap between how students are engaged in their education and how faculty think the students are engaged can only improve the education Auburn offers. At least that’s the thinking behind a pair of surveys the university participat-ed in this year—students in the National Survey of Student Engagement, and fac-ulty in the companion Faculty Survey of Student Engagement. Together, the data provides new perspectives on academics at Auburn, and will help the university and indi-vidual faculty members identify areas for improvement in teaching, communication and related areas, says Drew Clark, direc-tor of institutional research and analysis. The National Survey of Student Engagement is the leading national source of information about how students spend

Faculty, students say what they think about learning at Auburn

their time, how involved they are in prov-en learning practices and to what extent they consider themselves challenged and supported by their university. “What students learn depends on what they do,” Clark says. “The informa-tion these surveys generate can be used to improve the education our students receive. That is our main concern.” The National Survey of Student Engagement collects information on how much time freshmen and seniors devote to study as well as other activities. The survey also gathers data on the kind of intellectual activities their classes require; how much contact they have with faculty members; how often they take advantage of en-richment activities such as study abroad, service learning or student government; how they grade their own progress in terms of knowledge and skill; and how satisfied they are with their educational experience. “From these NSSE details emerges a general picture of the institution’s level of academic challenge, its encouragement of active and collaborative learning and student-faculty interaction, and the

Haley WalkerSenior, mechanical engineering

THE 4-1-1 As president of the Auburn Committeeof 19, Haley Walker has taken on the issue of world hunger in a big way. Last fall, the student group—which runs AU’s War on Hunger cam-paign—sponsored a 60-mile march from Auburn to Montgomery to draw attention to the issue. The Committee of 19, along with Auburn’s Student Government Association, has agreed to donate 19 cents a year for each Auburn student to the World Food Programme. The group even sells its own “War on Hunger” blend of coffee, roasted in Leeds, with proceeds benefiting the cause.

WHAT ABOUT YOU WOULD SURPRISE YOUR

PARENTS? “I think my parents would be surprised at how busy I am and how sporadic my schedule is. I don’t ever eat three meals a day at a planned meal time. It’s more like 2 p.m. or 4 p.m. lunch and 9 p.m. or midnight dinner.”

IF YOU COULD TAKE A TRIP ANYWHERE IN THE

WORLD, WHERE WOULD YOU GO? “I would go to Kenya to work and see firsthand the dangers and consequences of chronic hunger. I think everyone should go to a Third World country to get a change of perspective and help someone else.” YOU’RE ASSIGNED TO CREATE A 30-SECOND

COMMERCIAL ABOUT HUNGER. WHAT DO YOU SAY? “Every five seconds a child dies of hunger. This statis-tic should be shocking; it should move people to take action, but it doesn’t. The face of hunger is changing, and we must do something to stop it. Every person on this Earth is a blessed child of God. It is our job to care for those in need. Our priorities are in the wrong place. When we spend more money on pet food in America than we do on helping our fellow man, something is wrong. A small change for each of us is a huge change for the world. I have a vision of everyone in the world donating just one dollar, and all that money being put toward ending hunger.”

Interview

CONCOURSE

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C O N C O U R S E

extent to which it provides enriching educational experiences and a supportive campus environment,” says Clark. To gain additional perspective, Au-burn last spring participated for the first time in the Web-based Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, in which respon-dents answered questions about the struc-ture of specific courses they teach. In some areas, the student and faculty surveys revealed considerable gaps be-tween the views of faculty and students. For example, large majorities of both freshmen and seniors believe Auburn plac-es a lot of emphasis on the importance of studying and doing academic work, while only half of faculty respondents agreed. “Perhaps this is because faculty would like to see students spend about six hours per week preparing for their class but estimate, accurately, that the real figure is about half that much,” Clark says.

Other differences are more surpris-ing. While only 30 percent of faculty said their courses place a lot of emphasis on memorization, 75 percent of freshmen and 62 percent of seniors agreed their courses have such an emphasis. Ninety percent of faculty respon-dents emphasized the importance of stu-dents learning something that changes the way they understand an issue or concept. Smaller proportions of students reported that they often have that experience (59 percent of freshmen, 66 percent of se-niors). Despite some differences, the two sur-veys suggest that students devote energy largely to activities faculty members con-sider valuable. Clark says this is especially true of activities such as internships that may not be formal program requirements. For more survey results, please see http://oira.auburn.edu.

Fish talesAuburn’s Bass Sports Club hosted its second annual Auburn Uni-versity Fall Classic in November at Lake Logan-Martin. A team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham finished first with a two-day weight of 28.41 pounds, followed by Auburn’s Clay Messer and Richard Peek, with a two-day weight of 27.89 pounds. For more on the club, see www.auburn.edu/student_info/bass_fishing/.

HELP US REMEMBER LOST CLASSMATESAuburn’s dean of students is seeking help in gathering the names of students who died while enrolled at the university. The names will be featured on a memorial wall being created for the new Auburn Student Center by graduate students in the Department of Industrial Design. While the design will only include the names of students who died since 1960 when the institute became Auburn University, com-puter kiosks at the wall will also contain information about students who died pri-or to that year. If you know of someone who died while a student at Auburn, please e-mail the student’s name, hometown and enrollment year(s) to [email protected] or call Paul Kittle at (334) 844-4600.


C O N C O U R S E

COURSE NAME RTVF 4970 “Horror Films”

INSTRUCTOR Deron M. Overpeck, assistant professor, Department of Communication and Journalism

THE SCOOP Classes meet twice a week for a discussion and introduction to specific horror films, then watch the movies during “lab” time. “We’ll look at how these films reflect or suggest cultural attitudes and insecurities that were operating at the time the film was made,” Overpeck says. “We’ll also talk about how horror comes from the way humans behave. Horror films scare us not just because they feature things that are unknown, but because those odd creatures in some way embody what we as a society are concerned with at a particular time.”

REqUIRED VIEWING “Cloverfield” (2008), “The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957), “Dawn of the Dead” (2004) and “Hostel” (2005)

Lauren Lewis has cut her

commute to campus in

half—just by riding her

bike. The junior agricul-

tural economics major

from Haines City, Fla.,

makes the 1.5-mile ride

on two wheels in 15 min-

utes; by car, including

time spent searching for

a parking spot, the trip

runs a good half hour.

“I also get to exercise

without having to exer-

cise,” she notes.

Lewis is one small

spoke in a big wheel of

change on the Auburn

campus, as the number

of students biking to

class has increased

to the point of creating

a traffic jam at the

bike racks.

Cathy Love couldn’t

be happier. Love, univer-

sity engineer in the Of-

fice of Campus Planning,

says the Auburn board of

trustees set a goal back

in 2002 of increasing the

proportion of students

who rode to campus at

the time from 5 percent

to 12 percent by 2010.

Students met the goal

more than a year early.

“That plan described

a pedestrian dominance

in the central core of

campus,” Love says.

“It’s a more collegiate

environment.”

Lindy Biggs has no-

ticed the difference. The

director of the univer-

sity’s Sustainability Ini-

tiative, Biggs has ridden

her bike to campus for

the past 20 years. “Over

the past four years, I’ve

seen a five-to-tenfold in-

crease (in riders),” Biggs

says. “Now, there are no

empty bike racks.”

Love says Auburn has

plans to accommodate

the new two-wheelers,

installing bike racks that

are easier to use and

designed to inflict less

damage to the bikes.

The university also has

eliminated its bicycle

parking fee, although

Love says students might

eventually be required to

register their bikes (so

officials can track thefts)

and watch a bicycle-

safety video.

—Rebecca Lakin

Pedal power

Syllabus

12%

It would take roughly 2,000 elephants, standing nose- to-tail, to fill Jordan-Hare Stadium’s Pat Dye Field, according to the staff at Auburn’s Foy Info Desk.

Elephant walk

They may not have jobs, but school-children nationwide still feel the pain of recession. “More and more children are coming from families who fall below the federal poverty line and are harbor-ing their own anxieties regarding the fu-ture,” says College of Education profes-sor Jamie Carney. Carney and her students in Chi Sigma Iota, a counseling honor society, designed a four-day poverty-awareness program for education majors. The goal: give future educators the tools they need to help needy kids. Topics included poverty and public policy, the systemic causes of poverty, child poverty in Ala-bama and educational responses. “There are countless children, ado-lescents and families who are strug-gling,” says Carney. “The events of the last few months with the economy have brought home the idea that this impacts more people.”

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND


C A M P U S N E W S


S P O R T S

TIGER WALK

When Pete Carroll was introduced as the University of Southern California’s head football coach nearly a decade ago, he was flanked by armed security guards—just in case. USC fans’ op-position to Carroll—who went on to win two national champi-onships—was that intense. As Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke once opined, Carroll might have been the only coach in history who was on the hot seat before he even had a chance to sit down. Enter Gene Chizik. Auburn’s new head football coach hire hasn’t been quite as controversial, though the choice certainly wasn’t popular, at least

initially. Alumni, students and other fans—many still reeling from the surprise resignation of longtime coach Tommy Tuberville—were quick to criticize, protesting vehemently on message boards and in e-mails to university administrators. “To say this move is shocking is an understatement,” wrote sports editor Jay Coulter ’91 of www.trackemtigers.com, which bills itself as “Auburn’s No. 1 Football Blog.” “For many Auburn fans, this is a worst-case scenario. There appears to be little logic in the choice.” Blogger Jerry Hinnen of www.warblogeagle.com was even more dramatic in a mid-December post: “I don’t know how to

Can Gene Chizik carry the ball at Auburn?

New turfAs a largely untested defensive coordinator in Orlando, Fla., a decade ago, Gene Chizik often awoke at dawn and drove more than an hour to watch the Tampa Bay Buc-caneers’ practices and study the team’s moves.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF ETHERIDGE


T I G E R W A L K

A Clearwater, Fla., native, Chizik and wife Jonna have identical twin daughters, Landry Grace and Kennedy Danielle, and a son, Cally. Chizik received his bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Florida in 1985 and a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Clemson University in 1991.

2006–2008

Head coach, Iowa StateDuring two seasons at Iowa State, Chizik was in the midst of rebuilding the team. He directed the Cyclones to a 5-19 mark. The 2007 season included conference wins over Kansas State and bowl-bound Colorado.

2005–2006

Assistant head coach/co-defensive coordinator, TexasIn two seasons in Austin, the Longhorns were 22-3 with Chizik. At one point, he was part of 29 consecutive victories, which began in 2003 at Auburn and ended in 2006 at Texas.

2002–2004

Defensive coordinator, AuburnChizik’s 2004 defense led the nation in scoring defense (11.3 ppg) and was fifth nationally in total defense, allowing just 277.6 yards a contest. In three years, Chizik helped the Tigers to a 30-9 mark, including an 18-6 SEC record.

1998–2001

Defensive coordinator, Central FloridaChizik improved a team that was 81st nationally in total defense before his arrival to one that was 16th in the country in 2001.

1992–1997

Linebackers/defensive coordinator, Stephen F. AustinChizik helped the Lumberjacks to back-to-back NCAA Division I-AA playoffs, including a national semifinal appearance in 1995.

1990–1991

Defensive ends coach, Middle Tennessee StateChizik’s first full-time college coaching position; he helped lead the Blue Raiders to NCAA Division I-AA playoffs twice and to a conference championship in 1990.

react. It doesn’t seem real. I’m going to spend tonight trying to figure out how to react. That, and drinking.” A few days after hiring Chizik, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs wrote an open letter to fans defending his decision—and as 2009 dawned, Auburn loyalists had begun to change their tune. “Of all the coaches we interviewed, Coach Chizik best un-derstood where Auburn is and where we can be,” Jacobs wrote. “He outlined a clear plan for the future that will put us into position to consistently compete for championships. “Other important factors that weighed heavily in my deci-sion were Coach Chizik’s experience competing in the South-eastern Conference and his reputation as a relentless recruiter.” Chizik, a 48-year-old father of three, doesn’t pretend to be oblivious to the firestorm his hiring generated. “Obviously, I’m aware of it,” Chizik says. “It comes with the job. People are going to have their opinions.” Chizik’s record at Iowa State fueled much of the criticism. During his two years as head coach there, Chizik’s teams won just five games against 19 defeats—including a 10-game losing streak to end the 2008 season. But those who’ve worked with him say Chizik’s merits overwhelm the underwhelming Iowa State record. “It’s difficult to do well in that league,” says Steve Sloan, former athletic director at the University of Central Florida. Chizik was the school’s defensive coordinator and secondary coach before his brief stint as Auburn’s defense chief during the Tigers’ 2004 glory season. “You can’t judge him based on two years there. I would hope Auburn fans let him start at zero.” Five Big 12 schools finished in the Top 25 this past season. Iowa State, meanwhile, has never notched an outright confer-ence championship in the 117-season history of the program. “It was a perfect storm,” says Chizik. “The league got great, and we (Iowa State) were really down. One of my jobs there was to change the entire culture. You had a group of young people who weren’t used to winning. Overcoming that was a daily challenge.” In the Midwest, Chizik was recruiting against the likes of Oklahoma and Texas. The competition is even fiercer among SEC schools—but, fans will attest, Iowa State is no Auburn. “It’s a very special place,” says Chizik, who told the press he had obtained his “dream job” as Tuberville’s successor. “The tradition, the enthusiasm, the pride. It’s a part of your blood, and I understand that.” For the past two months, Chizik has been barnstorming the region looking for commitments from future Tigers. In the meantime he’s had to move his family—wife Jonna, twin daugh-ters Landry Grace and Kennedy Danielle, and son Cally—down South from Ames, find a place to live and hire a coaching staff. Amidst the chaotic schedule, Chizik says he hasn’t yet had the opportunity to reflect on his new job. “I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” he says. Auburn’s 26th head coach has even less time for the skeptics. “I try not to pay attention to that exterior stuff,” he says. “Heck, I’ve got another meeting to go to, and I don’t even know where my pants are.” His new hires, including wide receivers coach Trooper

Taylor, offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, defensive coordina-tor Ted Roof and defensive line coach Tracy Rocker ’88, have impressed even Chizik’s harshest critics. “Is it true? Are Auburn fans beginning to warm to Gene Chizik?” wrote Coulter in January. “Chizik has made all the right moves since being named coach on Dec. 13. He’s made few public comments and smartly allowed his actions to speak louder than his words.” Sloan, who coached at Vanderbilt, Texas Tech, Ole Miss and Duke, maintains Chizik possesses the temperament neces-sary for the head coach of a major program. “He’s got a lot of equanimity,” says Sloan, an All-American quarterback at Alabama under Bear Bryant. “As the kids would say today, he’s pretty cool.”—Christian Boone

The Chizik file

Four hundred individual feathers were crafted into the wings of a new 10-foot-tall bronze statue rep-resenting female athletes on Auburn’s campus. “Wings of Triumph,” located near the Earlon and Betty McWhorter Center for Women’s Athletics, was created by international sculptor Branko Medenica.

Birds of a feather


T I G E R W A L K

When Tommy Tuberville was hired be-fore the 1999 season, he inherited an Au-burn team coming off a last-place finish in the SEC West. The only thing worse than the team’s play on the field was the melodrama off it. Terry Bowden, convinced he would be fired, quit following a 1-5 start to the ’98 season. His interim replacement, “Brother” Bill Oliver, filed a lawsuit al-leging then-athletic director David Hou-sel and prominent booster Bobby Lowder reneged on a promise to make him the permanent head coach. “Auburn hired me to coach football games, not to sit around and watch soap operas,” Tuberville declared prior to his first season on the Plains. He’d been lured away from Ole Miss, where the first-time head coach revived a scandal-tainted program. At the time, Tuberville had a dual mission: return the team to respectability while unifying the various factions that had developed among Au-burn’s fans and boosters. Mission accomplished. In 10 years as AU coach, the Arkansas native won five bowl games and one SEC championship.

“Coach Chizik is a play-

ers’ coach. Even though

he was on the defensive

side of the ball, he

taught all of us the im-

portance of hard work.

He’s the kind of coach

recruits hope to get to

play for, and I think this

is a great hire.”

—CARNELL “CADILLAC”

WILLIAMS ’05, Tampa

Bay Buccaneers

“This was the best deci-

sion Auburn could have

made. Coach Chizik was

like a dad to me. From a

player and student point

of view, he’s exactly

what Auburn needs in a

head coach.”

—CARLOS ROGERS ’04,

Washington Redskins

“Gene is a terrific

football coach. He …

was very instrumental

in leading our defense

in the 2005 national

championship season.

He had the guys well

prepared, did a nice job

managing practices and

games, and we could

always tell he was going

to be a successful head

coach at some point.

He is equally as good at

building relationships,

which is one of the main

reasons I think he’ll do

a terrific job running the

Auburn program.”

—MACK BROWN, head

football coach, University

of Texas

“If you look a little bit

deeper, the fact that

he was the defensive

coordinator the year

that Auburn had that

magical year where they

were undefeated and

left out of the national

championship, you might

understand it. If you look

at the success he had as

defensive coordinator at

Texas, you might under-

stand it. And if you look

at the man that he is and

the way he can represent

(Auburn University)—me

personally, I think it’s an

outstanding hire.”

—KIRK HERBSTREIT, ESPN

College GameDay analyst

“Gene Chizik … knows

the game of football

and knows how to moti-

vate and relate to young

athletes. He knows

how to motivate them

to be successful not only

on the field but in the

classroom and

in the game of life. He

will be a blessing for the

players and for Auburn

University.”

—DONTARRIOUS

THOMAS ’03,

Minnesota Vikings

“I played for him my

last two years. He told

me something once that

I have never forgotten:

‘Never let your character

be dictated by your

circumstance.’ He told

me that after a bad loss

at LSU. I think he’ll do a

good job and was a good

choice.”

—REGGIE TORBOR ’03,

Miami Dolphins

Breaking up is hard to do

Shout-outs

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TODD VAN EMST

During his first col-legiate head coaching job at the University of Mississippi, Tommy Tuberville earned the nickname “Riverboat Gambler” for his aggressive play calling.


The No. 6-ranked Auburn Tigers wom-en’s basketball team entered Southeast-ern Conference play in January with one huge advantage: an as-yet-undefeated season. Led by senior standouts DeWanna Bonner and Whitney Boddie, the Tigers kicked off a string of SEC games Jan. 8 by edging out South Carolina with a score of 80-76. The win brought the team to a 16-0 record overall. As Auburn Magazine went to press, head coach Nell Fortner’s team was off to its best start in 20 years and was one of only four unde-feated teams in the nation. Auburn’s women Tigers played 10 of its 15 non-conference games on the road, a difficult schedule with nine of the 15 opponents holding records at .500 or better. “I am very happy about being unde-feated, and I’m happy that we competed well and played hard every night, and that is what feels the best,” Fortner said. “We gained a lot of confidence from it, good team chemistry. The team is still hungry to keep winning, so we just want to stay on this track.” Auburn is in its 38th season of women’s basketball and boasts an all-time record of 750-325. AU has made 17 NCAA Tournament appearances, two WNIT appearances and three Fi-nal Fours in the program’s history. The Tigers are coming off a 20-12 season in 2007-08, with their first NCAA Tourna-ment appearance since 2004. The men’s basketball team was en-joying a seven-game winning streak at presstime, its longest under head coach Jeff Lebo and the most since the opening of the 2003-04 season. For up-to-date stats please see www.auburntigers.com.

WOMEN’S HOOPS MAKES FAST BREAK FOR TOP 10

Tuberville highlights

Sept. 18, 1999 In Tuberville’s SEC debut, the Tigers crush LSU 41-7. Auburn scores 10 points off turn-overs and adds touchdowns on a fake field goal and a fumble recovery to match the win total from the previous season. Sept. 9, 2000 Rudi Johnson rushes for 165 yards to lead Auburn over Mississippi in Tuberville’s Oxford homecoming. Sept. 16, 2000 Auburn broke an eight-game home losing streak against SEC opponents, defeating LSU 34-17. The game marked then-LSU coach Nick Saban’s SEC debut. Nov. 18, 2000 Three Damon Duval field goals give Auburn a 9-0 win over Alabama, clinching the SEC West title for the Tigers.Oct. 13, 2001 Auburn intercepts Rex Grossman four times, upsetting then-No. 1 Florida 23-20. Jan. 1, 2003 Tuberville notches his first bowl win at Auburn as the Tigers defeat Penn State 13-9. Nov. 18, 2004 A fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Jason Campbell to Courtney Taylor gives Auburn a 10-9 victory over LSU, preserving what would be an undefeated season.Dec. 4, 2004 Jason Campbell throws for 374 yards, and Auburn withstands a late rally by Tennessee to give Tuberville his first SEC championship, 38-28. Jan. 3, 2005 Thirteen unanswered points by Virginia Tech are not enough as Auburn holds on to beat the Hokies 16-13. Shut out of the BCS Championship, the second-ranked Tigers finish a perfect season 13-0. Oct. 12, 2005 A 20-yard field goal by John Vaughn with six seconds left gives Auburn a 31-30 victory over Georgia in Athens. Nov. 19, 2005 Tuberville becomes only the third Tigers coach to defeat Alabama four consecutive times. Sept. 16, 2006 Auburn beats No. 7-ranked LSU 7-3, the first of two wins over teams that would finish in the Top 5 at the end of the season.Oct. 14, 2006 Auburn advances to 6-1 with a 27-17 win over Florida, the eventual BCS champion. Jan. 1, 2007 A Cotton Bowl win over Nebraska gives Auburn its 11th win of the season. Sept. 29, 2007 Auburn rebounds from a disap-pointing start to defeat then-No. 3-ranked Florida 20-17 in Gainesville. Nov. 24, 2007 For the sixth consecutive year, Auburn triumphs in the Iron Bowl, beating Alabama 17-10. Dec. 31, 2007 A seven-yard run by Kodi Burns gives Auburn an overtime victory over Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.Nov. 8, 2008 A 37-20 victory over Tennessee-Martin is Tuberville’s last as Auburn’s coach. He finishes his career at Auburn with an 85-40 record.

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Love at FirstFlight

For Liz Crandall ’00 and her flock at Auburn’s

Southeastern Raptor Center, love sometimes means

having to say goodbye. by taylor dungjen

with bird portraits by randal ford

Thirteen-year-old bald eagle Spirit is a popular resident of Auburn’s Southeastern Raptor Center. The federal gov-ernment removed the bald eagle from its endangered species list in 2007.


Night rain cools the oppressive air as Liz Crandall and her colleagues climb stiffly from the white van that just carried them six hours from Auburn to southeast Georgia. The group circles the vehicle like security guards. Southeastern Raptor Center director Jamie Bellah breaks away and heads into a nearby motel off Interstate 95 in Pooler. “Is there a side entrance?” Bellah asks the desk clerk as he books two rooms. She nods and points down the hall. Moments later, two women from the van balance a large sheet-covered object between them. Checking the hallway to make sure no one watches, they scoot through the door. Cran-dall, arms crossed, watches calmly. “I hope he doesn’t cry,” she says. Crandall is worried about the bald eagle under the white sheet that she, Bellah and a team of volunteers are smug-gling into the motel. It’s the only way to keep the bird safe for tomorrow’s reunion with the mate who has waited for him since he disappeared from Georgia’s coastal marshes last February. That’s when he arrived, broken and bruised, at Auburn University’s raptor rehabilitation center, administered by the College of Veterinary Medicine. Raptors are Liz Crandall’s passion. For the last three-and-a-half years she has run the center’s day-to-day operations, making life-or-death decisions for dozens of birds—birds that slammed into buildings, birds hit by cars, birds shot by lawbreakers, birds with feathers cut off by cruel captors, birds sick with un-diagnosed infections and birds that can barely live as birds be-cause they were raised by humans. Her feathered patients are often half as tall as a man, with wingspans as wide as an NBA player’s height. Her patient today, the male eagle she’s helping sneak into the hotel, isn’t the biggest bird she’s cared for— female eagles are bigger—but he is impressive. At nearly eight pounds, he’s a pound heavier than usual. “I hope he can get off the ground,” Crandall says. The individual lives of birds engage Crandall as she moves through any particular day, tending some 80 hawks, owls, kestrels and even turkey buzzards in addition to juggling the schedules of 50 volunteers. Rehab workers aren’t supposed to get attached to their patients. To that end, they don’t name the birds they hope to return to the wild, instead assigning them numbers: The male bedding down in the Georgia motel room

with forest green carpet is No. 08-030, meaning he was the 30th bird treated at the rehab center last year. No. 08-030 arrived at the raptor center six months ago with a fractured ulna, injured feet and an uncertain future. An eagle’s wing is analogous to the human arm. From its shoul-der to midway down the wing is the humerus. From the elbow, where the humerus ends, are two bones, the radius and the ulna. In eagles, the ulna is the larger of the two. Once broken, the bird is doomed—it can no longer fly. Over the months of 08-030’s treatment, the staff came to believe he’d been hit by a car: The foot injuries, which dam-aged the hallux—the opposing toe that allows birds to grasp for perching—were the avian equivalent of road rash. The eagle’s wing required a splint, and the bird endured daily physical therapy, with Crandall or a volunteer flexing and extend-ing his legs and repeatedly extending his wings. He didn’t like it. “He resented our handling him, which is good,” says veteri-narian Elizabeth Rush ’95. “The more defensive and aggressive they are, the better they do when they’re released.”

nside the raptor hospital a feisty barred owl demonstrates how to succeed under treatment. Volunteer Stephanie Stillwell ’06 grips the strug-gling raptor securely to her chest as he tries to avoid the eye drops Crandall administers. The bird, who originally presented with cataracts in each eye, has a new lens in one and is scheduled for a second lens transplant. A broad-winged hawk gulps food greedily, less

concerned with his captors than with his food. Crandall offers him seconds; other raptors have to be force-fed, fighting desper-ately the very thing that will save their lives. Then there’s Foghorn, the red-tailed hawk raised by humans. He’s the exception to the number-naming rule. He can never re-turn to the wild, so he plays the role of hospital mascot, play-ing with his tiny toy mouse, offering occasional squawks, giving gentle bites, and stealing pens and eyeglasses. Crandall pets and talks to him the way people talk to their dogs. When another red-tail eats dinner, Foggy screeches like a dog begging at the table. As a girl in Georgia, Crandall, 35, didn’t grow up expect-ing to rescue animals for a living. But at age 21, she found four baby squirrels fallen from their nest in her parents’ front yard. “I treated them, fed them. I was enamored by the little creatures and just wanted to take care of them.” Three of the four lived, and Crandall went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Auburn, dreaming of someday working with wild bears or wolves. At first she thought of the raptor center job as a way-station, but the birds won her over. A vacation trip to Idaho last summer to work with wildlife showed her there was no turning back. “I went and worked on a bear proj-ect, and you know, the coolest thing to me was seeing the ea-gles flying around,” she recalls. Even on her days off, Crandall spends time searching for bats in Chewacla State Park or band-ing songbirds near Midway. “She has an enthusiasm for what she does, and it is con-tagious,” says her boss, Jamie Bellah. “When you have the

F I R S T F L I G H T

Left: The raptor center’s Liz Crandall (with Foggy). Opposite: The tiny screech owl, which measures from 6 to 10 inches, is typi-cally monogamous and mates for life.

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gift of enthusiasm, people around you catch on. To me that is what is so enjoyable about Liz. It’s pretty obvious she loves what she does.” When a raptor arrives at Auburn’s rehabilitation center, it needs that kind of commitment. In addition to battling injuries, the stress of captivity can kill them. And No. 08-030 was under a lot of stress before he even got here. Dale and Donna Hardie, whose backyard opens onto the watery sweep of Savannah’s coastal marsh, enjoy observing the eagles that hunt there. One morning in February, Dale was sip-

ping coffee on the back porch when he no-ticed a bald eagle perched on a low branch in the yard, seemingly begging to be pho-tographed. But when he approached with a camera, the eagle started, jumped to the ground and held its right wing close to its body: Something was wrong with this bird. Dale called the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the eagle ran from the wildlife officer, wobbling like a

toddler. Dale himself finally captured the bird with a shrimp net. “Get a blanket,” he shouted to his wife. “Donna ran into the house and grabbed some designer Christian Dior king-sized blanket,” Dale says. “It was the most expensive one in the house.” The DNR official took the luxuri-ously swaddled eagle to a local animal hospital. From there, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service summoned Crandall to bring the bird to Auburn. The Hardies never saw the blanket again. For No. 08-030, it’s been a long, strange trip.

hroughout last spring and into the summer, No. 08-030 lived alone in a giant aviary, getting in shape for his re-turn to the wild. A few weeks into his stay, Crandall is in the rehab center’s hospital when volunteer Kathy Gerken pulls her aside, whispering. Crandall nods twice, strands of purple-streaked hair bobbing, and the pair strides from

the air-conditioned hospital into the blast-furnace morning, quickly covering the distance to an aviary the size of an elon-gated one-car garage. As they draw nearer, dull thudding sounds grow louder. Gerken and Crandall pull on long leather work gloves and enter the aviary. The number of sickening thuds in-crease as a female bald eagle throws herself against one wall, then another. The eagle is 08-100, and she is freaking out. The young bird had arrived at the center more than a month before, weak and emaciated after someone found her near a dumpster. Although vets couldn’t diagnose an illness, No. 08-100 would neither eat nor drink. Staff members force-fed her with a rubber tube at first, but within weeks she was “eating ag-gressively,” Crandall says. Soon she was moved from a cage to an aviary, where she could stretch her wings and rebuild muscle mass. Crandall figures the bird’s natural fear of humans may have led to the panic attack. She and Gerken calmly close in on the frenzied bird. After a series of heart-sinking thuds followed by the muffled beat of

wings, Gerken finally grabs the eagle. The two women lay the bird on its back. The bird resists for only a moment, sensing, perhaps, there is nothing more she can do. They rush the patient across the dry grass to the hospital, where Liz looks it over. Majestic and frightened, No. 08-100 opens her mouth wide and sticks her tongue out as though gasping for breath, a sign of stress. Crandall cleans the bird’s wounds with saline solution and carefully cuts away scabbed tissue and bloody feathers. The bird’s chest rises and falls rap-idly, her startled brown eyes darting around the room. But she doesn’t seem to take anything in, including a tray of dead white mice nearby. (Later, using special scissors, Crandall will cut the mice in thirds, distributing them into piles on a cutting board. Each mouse body is a method of raptor medicine delivery, in-jected with a drug needed by one ailing bird or another.) With No. 08-100’s wounds treated, Crandall decides against putting her back into the aviary where she battered herself so cruelly. Instead, she and her co-workers will do something they’ve never tried: putting two eagles in the same aviary. The jumpy female will share a larger aviary with a bald eagle male—No. 08-030—in hopes his companionship will calm her. For these birds, stress is the fiercest enemy. When an injured bird first arrives at the center, it may be allowed to acclimate to being out of its natural environment before more extensive test-ing and treatment begins. “You can actually kill birds by over-stressing them,” Crandall says. “The more we handle the birds, the more likely when they’re stressed they’ll die. I’ve seen it happen.” Crandall sees things from the birds’ perspective. Being stuck in rehab “is probably equivalent to being kidnapped by aliens,” she says. Meanwhile, No. 08-030 is cautious about humans entering his domain, even after nearly half a year at the center. He flies to the back of the wood-sided enclosure, as far away as he can get. Gerken releases the female, who flies to the far wall and thuds against it. But the bird’s panic seems to subside quickly, and she settles down about two yards from the male. She sneaks a look at her new companion while he watches the humans. Then it’s her turn to study the humans while he glances her way. Introduc-tions complete, Gerken parks herself outside the aviary, leather gloves at her side in case the eagles fight. All through the hot day, someone will watch them, looking for signs of trouble.


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Opposite: Although barn owls have very good vision, they rely mainly on their sense of hearing when hunting for food at night. The disk created by the bird’s face feathers actually works to trap sound. Right: An aviary provides a safe environment for recuper-ating raptors.

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ust beyond 08-100’s new home are smaller, hexagonal aviaries. These serve as a sort of holding unit for severely injured birds that are on the mend but not quite ready for a flight aviary. Four pint-size barn owls, looking like cuddly stuffed toys with their white disk-shaped faces, occupy one hexa-gon. The orphaned owls, initially emaciat-ed, are improving, gaining weight, and will

soon return to the wild. On a late July morning, Crandall is in the hospital watch-ing senior vet school students force-feed several birds. Staffer Tyler Eads approaches, and as they talk, Crandall looks grim. She follows Eads to the hexagonal aviaries. Loose feathers lit-ter the ground. Three barn owls huddle together on a high plank. Beneath them is the body of the fourth owl, its midsec-tion torn away. Sometime in the night a wild animal reached through the slat construction of the aviary and grabbed the bird from behind. “It’s very upsetting, especially when they’re releasable,” Crandall says. She looks like she might cry, but instead moves quickly to her duties. “We put so much work into them.” She puts the disfigured carcass into a garbage bag; the body will be frozen and later incinerated. There is not much anyone can do with a bird as badly mauled as this one. But often even dead birds serve a purpose. When an animal is euthanized, the body is preserved, gutted, and used as a feeding puppet: A volunteer, with a hand inside the puppet, places food in the puppet’s mouth. Then the puppet feeds young birds, preventing them from imprinting on their human caretakers. An imprinted bird can never return to the wild, and some of the center’s permanent residents—including the majestic eagles Spirit and Nova who soar before the Auburn Tigers football games—are imprinted birds assumed to be aban-doned in the wild and picked up by well-meaning people. Af-ter three weeks of hand-feeding, a young bird can’t distinguish between its own species and humans. Such a bird will not know how to mate or hunt and may approach humans, putting itself in further danger. In a large flight aviary where a dozen or more hawks await release, Crandall picks up a long flight feather. Later, this feather

may help another bird return to the wild quickly. When injured birds lose feathers, a little epoxy and a toothpick inserted in the feather’s hollow shaft provides a reliable transplant in a process called imping. Without imping, birds with lost feathers would have to remain in captivity until their annual molt. Despite the size and ferocity of these birds, the wild raptors present little danger to their caretakers. It’s a different story with most of the center’s permanent raptor residents. Those have no fear of humans and can be dangerous. A great horned owl once attacked Crandall, puncturing her eye—an injury she dismisses as insignificant. But her cool vanishes, her colleagues attest, in the presence of a bird parasite known as a ked. “Keds are very quick, and when they land on you, they au-tomatically look for a place to go and hide, like up a shirt sleeve or in your hair,” Bellah says. Although virtually harmless to hu-mans, keds give Crandall the creeps. “I have definitely seen some interesting dances and heard some interesting vocalizations from Liz when the keds start fly-ing around,” Bellah says.

t’s a bright august morning in Savannah, anda large crowd gathers in the Hardies’ backyard awaiting the release of No. 08-030. Some specta-tors are drawn by large signs around town adver-tising the event; others come from a garage sale two doors down to see what all the commotion is about. Reporters with cameras, voice recorders and notepads are everywhere, talking to anyone who

knows anything. An hour passes, and the raptor center crew is still fielding questions from local media. Finally, Crandall breaks free. She thanks the crowd for coming, acknowledges everyone’s work, and explains that No. 08-030 is returning to this spot because, somewhere, his mate waits. In the hands of center volunteer Ralph Wood ’08, No. 08-030 looks around. He’s calm while Wood poses for pho-tos, and the spectators transform into paparazzi. After too many camera flashes to count, the bird grows nervous. It’s time to let him go. The crowd stills; the air is quiet. Wood looks to Crandall, and with a nod, she signals it’s time. With a deep sigh, Wood tosses the big bird into the air, and with a few powerful wing beats, the eagle lifts high over the marshland. For the first time since February, No. 08-030 is free. He soars over the marsh and circles back above the crowd. Whispers rise from spectators. Will he find his mate? The male eagle takes his time. He perches on a branch of a live oak a hundred feet above the crowd, his back to the hu-mans, observing everything the land has to offer. The Hardies last saw his mate some three weeks ago. No one knows whether she’s still near. After 10 minutes, No. 08-030 turns back to the crowd, stares for a moment and flies away. “He has it made here,” Crandall says, watching No. 08-030 soar into blue sky. A cool breeze blows from the marsh. “He’ll be happy here. He’ll be really happy.”

Reprinted with permission from Lee Magazine.

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Left: Raptors in rehab often need help staying on their diet of white mice. Opposite: Peregrine falcons hone in on prey from above, then dive in for the kill at speeds topping 200 miles per hour.

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With its roots in agricultural education and its rural Alabama location, Auburn’s original land-grant mission—geared toward helping the working class obtain practical college educations—continues largely unfettered to this day. Among its 21,000 un-dergraduates, business and engineering are the most popular majors, and when students choose courses of study in the liberal arts, they tend to be those with obvious career paths—commu-nication/journalism, criminology, psychology, pre-law. So it came as something of a surprise when, in the late ’90s, Auburn’s College of Liberal Arts undertook an internal ranking of its dozen academic departments and philosophy came out on top. The administration figured there must have been a problem with the criteria it used, and a new formula was drawn up. Once again, philosophy came in first. This time, the administration decided to give up on the rankings altogether. “As I often put it to the dean, you’ve got a philosophy de-partment that you have no right to have,” says department chair Kelly Jolley. “It’s just way, way out of step with what you would expect to find at a place like Auburn.” Jolley is almost single-handedly responsible for this state of affairs. When he first arrived at Auburn as a young professor 17 years ago, there were only a handful of philosophy majors, and there wasn’t much interest inside the department or among the administration in adding more. Today, there are about 50 philos-ophy majors at Auburn. If recent history is any guide, some will even pursue Ph.D.s in philosophy at highly competitive graduate schools and go on to become professional philosophers. “I don’t know of a comparable department at a comparable school,” says James Conant, a philosophy professor at the Uni-versity of Chicago, where two of Jolley’s former students are now studying.

Kelly Jolley’s book, The Concept “Horse” Paradox and Wittgen-steinian Conceptual Investigations, was published in October. For more deep thinking, the philosophy depart-ment’s Web site boasts Immanuel Kant’s The Transcendental Deduc-tion set to music: www.auburn.edu/academic/liberal_arts/philosophy.

Auburn University prides itself on prepar-

ing students to thrive in a practical world.

So why are philosophy department chair

Kelly Jolley and his team of sages getting

so much attention? by jonathan mahler

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JESSICA NELSON

The Thinker


T H E T H I N K E R

At 42, Jolley is a bear of a man with a prematurely white beard and blue eyes. He walks with an unsteady gait, the prod-uct of a pair of bad knees from his days as a high-school foot-ball lineman. You might imagine philosophers as inaccessible and withdrawn, endlessly absorbed in esoteric thoughts. Jol-ley couldn’t be further from the stereotype. He’s cheerful and engaged, an enthusiast about everything from college football, which he follows rabidly, even by Southern standards, to pit bulls (he owns two, Ahab and Sadie). This is not to say that Jolley isn’t, above all, a philosopher. It’s just that he sees philosophy less as a profession than as a way of looking at, of being in, the world. “I am convinced that philosophy is not just about theory,” he says. “It’s about a life well-lived and thoughts truly thought.”

hen i visit jolley, the Auburn campus is cleared out for the sum-mer, but he is teaching a summer class, “Introduction to Logic.” He is also running two unofficial not-for-credit study groups, one on an early Greek theologian named

Gregory of Nyssa and another on the 20th-century philosopher Bertrand Russell, which meets in the philosophy department’s cramped lounge, known as the Lyceum, after Aristotle’s original school of philosophy in Athens. Jolley has been running discussion groups like these since he first came to Auburn. They are emblematic of his teaching style, which, if working properly, quickly migrates out of the classroom and into more informal settings such as the local Ly-ceum, a coffee shop or the rambling grounds of a Civil War-era mansion where he likes to go for walks with students. Being a philosopher requires you to engage in the practice of relentless inquiry about everything, so it’s not surprising that Jolley has spent untold hours puzzling over how best to teach the discipline itself. What he’s decided is that philosophy can’t be taught—or learned—like other academic subjects. To begin with, it takes longer.

“Plato said that you become a philosopher by spending ‘much time’ in sympathy with other philosophers,” he says. “Much time. I take that very seriously.” We’re sitting in his office, which is dark with academic books and journals; a large paperweight reading “Think” sits amid the clutter on his desk. “Plato,” he adds, “talked about it as a process of ‘sparking forth,’ that as you spend more time with other philosophers, you eventually catch the flame. That’s how I think about teaching philosophy.” Jolley describes his relationships with students as having a master-apprentice quality. His goal, as he sees it, isn’t to teach students about philosophy; it is to show them what it means to think philosophically, to actually be a philosopher. When the approach works, the effect can be significant. Several years ago, a student named Zack Loveless wandered into one of Jolley’s classes and very nearly dropped it after the first day. “I was expecting a survey course, and in walks this big scary guy, using words I’d never heard before, talking about Hume as background for Kant, telling us how hard the class was going to be,” Loveless says. Loveless, who grew up in a working-class home in a small Alabama town, stuck with the course and soon switched his major from psychology to philosophy. He took at least one class with Jolley for each of his remaining semesters at Auburn, worked on several independent projects with him and is now getting a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Chicago. He describes Jolley as more of a collaborator than a professor; rather than answer his questions, Loveless says, Jol-ley tried to work through philosophical problems with him. Jolley is always on the lookout for students with a philo-sophical bent, and has urged his colleagues to recruit aggres-sively as well. Senior Benjamin Pierce’s gift for reasoning was identified by a faculty member a couple of years ago in an entry-level logic class. “If A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C,” the professor said, introducing the so-called transitive relation. “Not in rock, paper, scissors,” Pierce volunteered. Pierce is now majoring in philosophy and is one of the de-partment’s top prospects for graduate school. “We have high hopes for him,” Jolley says with the pride of a football coach talking up a strong tackler with great open-field speed. “I would bet that he ends up in a Top 10 graduate program.”

olley grew up in Gallipolis, Ohio, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains. He first felt the tug of the philosophical life during his freshman year in high school, when a teacher gave him a copy of Plato’s dialogues. An intellectually un-focused but precocious student, Jolley instantly took to the challenge of wrestling with such a

difficult text. “Until then, I’d been clever enough to do whatever I wanted to do, to read with one eye,” he told me. “Then all of a sudden I ran into philosophy, and it was like running into a brick wall.” But it was the substance of Plato’s meditations—the radi-cal nature of the philosopher’s quest for self-knowledge—that really grabbed hold. This was partly a function of Jolley’s religious upbringing. His parents attended a Church of Christ

I am convinced that philosophy is not just about theory, it’s about a life well-lived and thoughts truly thought.

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You have a philos-ophy department that you have no right to have. It’s just way, way out of step with what you would expect to find at a place like Auburn.

ll auburn students are required to take at least one entry-level philosophy course such as “Introduction to Logic” or “In-troduction to Ethics,” classes traditionally designed to ease students into a particu-lar subject. Jolley eschews this approach. “Core” courses, he argues, should aspire to

do more than merely give students a taste of an academic disci-pline. “Look, if the core is really going to matter for a student’s education, they need genuine exposure to that discipline,” he says. “You’re not giving them ‘the core’ if what you’re giving them is some sugarcoated simulacrum of philosophy that you’ve decided they can swallow.” Jolley’s classes are famously demanding. Instead of as-signing relatively accessible books on philosophers, he loads his syllabi with primary texts and asks students to record in a notebook their thoughts on what they’re reading. “For the student merely interested in getting a degree, Kelly has nothing to offer,” says fellow philosophy professor Michael Watkins. “But for those who are interested in more, Kelly provides an example of what it means to be educated, to take one’s educa-tion seriously.” Jolley’s logic class meets at 9:45 a.m. in the Haley Cen-ter. He’s assigned a short essay by Lewis Carroll, “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles,” an imagined dialogue in which the Tortoise flummoxes Achilles by repeatedly refusing to accept what at first appears to be an easily justified deductive argu-ment. Looking a lot like a forest ranger in his army-green shirt, khaki pants and heavy brown boots, Jolley recaps the essay and runs through several opposing interpretations. At every turn, he’s greeted with an uncomfortable silence. “Not a very talkative group,” Jolley observes after the procession of flip-flops, orange Auburn T-shirts and backward baseball caps files out of the room. “I can usually tell if students

three times a week. Listening to those sermons about heaven and hell turned Jolley inward, made him wonder about what kind of person he was. But the church, he felt, hadn’t given him the tools he needed to grapple with that question. Phi-losophy did. “I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that the old Delphic instruction, know thyself, applied to me,” he says. At the end of Jolley’s junior year in high school, the College of Wooster offered him a four-year academic scholarship. He skipped his senior year and went straight to college, declaring his intention to major in philosophy on the first day of class. Jolley went on to get his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester and was still finishing his dissertation on Plotinus, the founder of neo-Platonism, when he and his wife packed up their apart-ment and drove to Auburn in the summer of 1991 with their 15-month-old son. Jolley’s early efforts to change the culture of the philosophy department at Auburn met with resistance from administrators, he remembers. Among other things, they rejected his requests for money for more upper-level philosophy classes. Determined to build up the major, Jolley simply taught the courses himself—free of charge. Many of his colleagues were similarly skeptical of what he was trying to do. Several urged him to “tone it down,” he re-calls, when they noticed the intimidating syllabus for his first class, the history of ancient philosophy, taped to his office door. They advised Jolley against wasting his time trying to start a philosophy club at Auburn—the club now has about 30 mem-bers—and called his approach to teaching “aristocratic.” In par-ticular, they objected to the fact that he was grading students not on how well they learned the discipline’s terminology and defini-tions but on their ability to think philosophically. Jolley gradually built allies within the department while simultaneously looking to bring in like-minded professors. He didn’t expect Auburn to be able to land top candidates, but he was convinced that a lot of talented young philosophers were slipping through the cracks, often because they had the misfor-tune of specializing in an especially popular area, or because they had been stigmatized for taking too long to finish their degrees. (One of Jolley’s recent hires, Arata Hamawaki, spent 18 years finishing his Ph.D. at Harvard.) Auburn’s philosophy department is now dominated by graduates of some of the na-tion’s top philosophy programs. By any measure, Jolley has accomplished a great deal. But in the service of what, exactly? During my stay at Auburn—and in e-mail exchanges afterward—Jolley and I returned again and again to that very question. Why does philosophy matter? Jolley could never seem to come up with a clear, settled explanation, and since clarity is a philosophical virtue, on one level this obviously bothered him. Yet his failure to give a simple answer was, in a way, the best answer he could give. Philosophy is so much a part of how Jolley thinks, talks and writes that his attempts at an answer were themselves invari-ably philosophical, which is to say, aimed as much at exploring the assumptions behind the question as at answering it. “One reason it can seem so hard to see how philosophy relates to life is that we have often already decided that philosophy is think-ing, not living,” he once wrote. Explaining why philosophy matters, in other words, requires doing philosophy—the very thing the questioner wants explained.

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A


Auburn’s philosophy program includes course offerings in epis-temology, metaphysics, pragmatism, aesthetics, logic, ethics, existen-tialism and religion. Department chair Kelly Jolley specializes in the theory of judgment, metaphilosophy and philosophical psychology.

are getting it from the looks on their faces, but some of these kids were positively Sphinx-like.” For all his success in creating a thriving philosophy pro-gram at Auburn, the core classes still represent the bulk of the teaching load and the biggest challenge to the department’s professors. “There’s a battle at the core level here to convince students there’s even a possibility that philosophy might have something interesting to offer them,” says philosophy professor Guy Rohrbaugh. It seems fair to wonder whether Jolley’s approach is the best way to win that battle. It’s been years since he has taught, say, a student on a football scholarship, and the size of his classes tends to shrink substantially after the first meeting. Jolley’s goal, as he describes it, is to produce students who are “capable of genuine creative philosophical thought.” That’s a high bar to set for students in an entry-level logic class. After class, Jolley and I walk across campus and into town for lunch. Over pizza and iced tea, I ask him if he ever wonders if his style of teaching might be inappropriate for a large public university like Auburn—whether the cost of his approach is that he teaches to the few rather than the many. “My view is that you really fall into a trap when you start allowing what you believe about your students to dictate how you teach your discipline,” he answers. “Too often these days we end up set-ting up our courses in light of what we believe about our stu-dents, and we end up not teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking them.”

n a sense, what Jolley is engaged in at Auburn is nothing less than a defense of a liberal-arts education. As he points out, the opening stanza of Auburn’s be-loved creed—“I believe that this is a practical world and that I can count only on what I earn”—conveys a certain kind of hostility to the world of ideas in which philosophy and the other humanities reside.

“The creed is a fine document in many ways,” he says, “but it reinforces a certain picture of what you’re here for, and it can be very hard to break the grip of that with students.” In Jolley’s ideal world, every student would catch the phi-losophy flame, but he knows that will never happen. He says philosophy requires a certain rare and innate ability to observe your own mind in the act of thinking. In this respect, Jolley recognizes that his detractors have a point when they criticize his approach to teaching. “It’s aristocratic in the sense that any selection based on talent is aristocratic,” he says. “I know it offends everyone’s sense of democracy, this idea that everyone’s equal, but we all know that’s just not true.” Perhaps the dispute between Jolley and his critics boils down to how you define great teachers. You typically think about them as being devoted, above all, to their students. Jolley says his first priority is to philosophy itself. “I care about the discipline of philosophy more than the academic fate of any individual student—and I think I should,” he says. “Otherwise I’m just a babysitter who occasionally breaks into syllogism.” Reprinted with permission from The New York Times. Jonathan Mahler’s most recent book is The Challenge: Hamden v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power.

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T H E T H I N K E R


Storm clouds gather

How did we get here? DG Several years ago, the Federal Reserve aggressively pushed interest rates down and touched off a real spike in housing prices. At the same time, there was also political pressure to change the criteria for mortgage lending. So ‘how we got here’ was political pressure, cheap money, rising housing prices and people qualifying for mortgages who, in retro-spect, really shouldn’t have.

JJ The political pressure created a big move to increase home ownership. Home ownership is a thing to be desired, of course, but not everyone can afford it. But the incentives were there to continue making mortgages for less-creditwor-thy individuals. To enable them to get into homes, we saw a gigantic increase in adjustable-rate mortgages. A lot of people were stretched to the limit at the time they got their loans, and then two or three years down the road when the rate adjusted upward and their payments

went up $300 or $400 a month, they found themselves unable to make their payments and defaulted. JH There’s another factor, too, and that’s rising energy prices. When you go to fill up your tank with gas and it costs you $60 instead of $20, it puts a lot of pressure on your income. If you were al-ready on the margin, that was enough to tip it the wrong way.

Rising energy prices made the prob-lem worse than it would have been oth-erwise.

Conditions that had been building for years finally coalesced to send a financial tsunami

over the U.S. economy. Listen in as a quintet of Auburn University experts provide

an economic weather report—and the hint of a rainbow in the long-term forecast.

The

Perfect Storm

Keven YostAssistant professor of financeEXPERTISE Bankruptcy, financial distress

THE FACULTYThe five professors contributing to Auburn Magazine’s panel discus-sion on the state of the national economy teach in Auburn’s College of Business. The college was cited last year as one of the “Best Busi-ness Schools” in the nation, according to The Princeton Review.

Dan GropperAssociate dean, MBAprograms; David and Meredith Luck Professor of EconomicsEXPERTISE Financial markets and the economy

Jimmy E. HilliardHarbert Eminent Scholar; professor of financeEXPERTISE Risk manage-ment, investments, international markets

John JaheraColonial Bank Distinguished Professor of Finance; chair, Department of FinanceEXPERTISE Corporategovernance, banking

Beverly Marshall Associate professor of financeEXPERTISE Corporate and international finance, corporate governance

ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN STAUFFER


Thunder rollsNow we’re officially in a recession.Will we go into a depression? DG The difference between a reces-sion and a depression is really one of degree. I don’t think that we’re going to see anything like the Great Depression of the 1930s, where a third of our workforce was unemployed, but our economy has been so good for so long that people be-come alarmed when they start seeing un-employment going up and the economy slowing down the way it has this year. KY There also are different degrees of recession. We’ve had some economic downturns in the past that were shorter in duration and not quite as painful as the one we’re in now. JH The danger this time is that we may have too much intervention. We may do some things that are hard to undo. In the past, we’ve had a lot of recessions, and they’ve been short except for one, which we called the Great Depression. And that is the one where we had the most government interference in the private economy. Many of us worry quite a lot about the interven-tion into the private economy because it really results in a misallocation of capital. JJ I think this situation is a little dif-ferent from past recessions in the extent to which it has spread around the world. We’ve had financial crises that have affected regions, but to see something zoom around the world and affect so many countries and so many economies so quickly, I think, really surprised a lot of people. Of course it also speaks to how interconnected we all are. BM It also shows how much our economies are going in sync. We’re supposed to have some diversification from being invested globally, but we also share the risk—and the downside of sharing all that risk is that everybody gets pulled down.

The maelstrom Bailouts or bankruptcy? DG Earlier this year, we saw the federal government make some choices about who they were going to rescue and who they were going to let go down. That caused tremendous uncertainty in the financial markets, because if the govern-ment isn’t going to rescue anybody, then companies know they have to deal with their own problems. If the government

is going to rescue everybody, companies know they have a way out. When the Federal Reserve stood by and let some institutions go down and then stepped in to help others, it created a huge amount of uncertainty. Now we’re seeing the fed-eral government jump in and start pro-grams that are going to be with us for a long, long time. Unfortunately, relatively few of our elected officials are standing back and asking if we should really be spending our money this way. Should we really be getting involved in the automo-tive industry? And if we’re going to step in there, what about all the rest? Why not retail? Why not tourism? Why not other types of industries? And who really thinks the federal government is some-how going to be able to straighten out any particular industry?

JJ We’ve seen the hearings on the auto industry talking about all the con-ditions and terms. But a lot of people are skeptical when they look at the performance of Congress itself in the last few years. Can they really run the auto industry? And do we want our political

leaders running an industry? That’s not what they’re elected to do. JH The argument those in favor of bailouts use is that we’re about to fall off the cliff—if General Motors goes down, can you imagine all the unemployment? How will we ever recover? They say we should just get through this period and then we’ll go back to our free-market principles and things will be fine. What they overlook is the issue of “moral haz-ard,” which says that you’ll never get back to the same place. If the govern-ment says a company is too big to fail, that company will eventually take on too many projects and be right back where they started, only the next bailout will be for more money. KY People also have a tendency to hear the word bankruptcy and think it means a business is going to shut its doors. Really, bankruptcy is just a legal process for resolv-ing financial distress. It allows the firm a crack at coming up with a reorganization plan that then has to be approved by all of the parties that are owed money. So if an automotive company were to declare bank-ruptcy, it doesn’t mean the company would disappear; it just means it would restruc-ture its debt, perhaps, and then there may be some other downsizing. JH But it does give them leverage for renegotiating union contracts. KY The indirect costs of bankruptcy are real. A bankrupt company will proba-bly downsize. And sales will suffer—people may not want to buy a car from a company they don’t think is going to be around. But bankruptcy doesn’t mean they’re going to liquidate and go out of business.

Slow-moving frontWhat are the lessons we should be learning from this economy? KY We forget about the downside of investments sometimes. The economy was strong, investments were doing well, and some people were buying houses bigger than they could afford and oth-ers were investing in risky things because everything was working out and they were being rewarded for taking that risk. But “risk” means that it’s not always going to work out, and I think people are now getting a taste of that. It’s hard, but you expect something good will come out of it. Maybe people will start to real-ize they need to budget more cautiously. They need to evaluate risk better than they

T H E P E R F E C T S T O R M

We need to provide stimulus to the economy, but we need to make sure we are not setting a slippery slope for the future that taxpayers are going to have to handle.


have, making sure their investments are diversified and making sure their housing isn’t comprising too much of their invest-ment. People are reassessing, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s a very hard reality but, overall, at a macro level, it’s not bad for the country to get a dose of what risk really is. DG What’s happened in the last few months is the loss of a couple of trillion dollars of American wealth, and this comes from two primary areas: the wealth that individuals had in the stock market, much of it in retirement accounts, and the equity they had in their homes. They still owe on their mortgage but now their equi-ty has gone down, so that’s a big chunk of what they thought of as their savings. And in many cases their retirement accounts are their stock portfolios. If I used to have $300,000 in my retirement account and now I have $150,000, I’m going to figure I’ll have to work a few years longer or be retiring less lavishly. People are trying to adjust to this loss and change their spend-ing habits to account for it.

Isolated hailHas so-called “corporate greed” played a role in creating this recession, or is it just a sexy topic for the media? JJ People get outraged when they’re struggling and they see a CEO making $8 or $10 million a year. But the CEO is the face of the company. The highest-paid employee at Auburn at any given point in time is probably our football coach, and in terms of the market, (his salary) is rea-sonable. When the day comes that 87,000 people will come and pay $60 a ticket to watch me give a financial lecture, then I want to get paid what our football coach gets paid. You have to look at what they bring to the table. It’s the CEO’s job to make money for their company. DG But it does touch a nerve when you see these guys go asking for taxpayer mon-ey at the same time they’re getting multi-million-dollar salaries. And people wonder why they’re asking for a bailout to handle a situation they’ve gotten themselves into.

A break in the cloudsAre there any signs that the financial crisis is turning around? JH There are some positive things happening. If you look at the price of gas-

oline today, dropping from $4 to about $1.50 a gallon, we can figure that con-sumers will save $250 billion a year just on gasoline—plus more on utility bills. That’s a market stimulus. We could see $500 billion savings from the cost of gas-oline and crude oil if it stays at this level. DG And it’s a faster and more certain stimulus than waiting for our politicians to pass a tax cut. The only downside is that the reason gasoline prices are falling so much is there’s a decline in the world demand for oil, and that decline is occur-ring because this is, in fact, looking like a global recession. JJ Having the election over will help. A lot of the pundits felt that (U.S. presi-dent Barack) Obama clearly was favored, but until the election was over that threw in another element of uncertainty. Wheth-er you like him or not, at least you know who it’s going to be now.

Stormchaser So, realistically, what can Barack Obama do to right the ship? JH Given the economy, he’d better talk about reducing everybody’s taxes. That’s the stimulus program everybody needs right now. JJ Including corporate taxes. We have the second-highest corporate tax rate of all industrial countries in the world. And again, people always say, “let’s tax that big company,” but companies don’t pay taxes—people pay taxes. Whatever (cor-porations) pay, the cost will ultimately be passed on to the consumers who buy their products or services. BM Or if they have to cut costs in oth-er ways it could mean jobs. So if we raise corporate taxes, eventually we pay the bill. DG Class envy has won elections many, many times in this country. But Obama needs to remember the lessons of the Great Depression. (Herbert) Hoover helped turn a recession into a depression by increasing taxes to try and balance the budget, and by erecting trade barriers. But I think Obama is smart enough, and is surrounded by smart-enough advisers, to learn those lessons and not repeat that. BM I’m pleased with the people he’s surrounded himself with. He has made choices that bring experience to the table. But I’m still very concerned about the levels of intervention that could take place. We need to provide stimulus to the econo-my, but we need to make sure we are not

setting a slippery slope for the future that taxpayers are going to have to handle. We hear a lot about the automakers and their retirement and medical benefits, but the fact is that half of Americans do not have pension plans, very few of them are sav-ing at the rate they need to for retirement, and many do not have medical insurance. We’ve got some other bills coming due down the road that are going to need to be addressed once we get past this recession.

The forecastHow long will the storm last? JJ I’ve heard anywhere from two years to five years or longer, but of course no one knows. I don’t know that anyone expects it to last as long as the Great De-pression, when it took 25 years for the stock market to recover—we have a lot of safeguards built in that we didn’t have in that time period. JH “Main Street” will get worse for a while; the financial markets will turn around first because they’re based on fu-ture cash flows. But we don’t want to be like Japan. Japan has been in a recession since the mid-’80s, and we gave them a lot of grief because they kept firms alive that should have been gone. There’s some evidence in the United States that we have some zombies we’re keeping alive, and I’d hate for us to go down the same path Japan did. If we don’t do all the same things and intervene too much, I don’t think the recession will last longer than a year or a year and a half. DG The seeds of recovery are already being planted, so hopefully by the end of 2009 we’ll be back on the growth path. Some of the adjustments are already start-ing to bring about changes. Houses are being repriced, the stock market seems to have found the bottom, we’ve eliminated the uncertainty over the election, and we’re seeing an unprecedented amount of cooperation between different countries to try and fix things. JJ Generally speaking, recessions are bad but there is some advantage. Compa-nies will fail, and we’re seeing that now, but in the whole scheme of things some-times it’s good to purge the financial sys-tem of companies that are weak and ineffi-cient. Data shows that as you come out of a recession you have more new businesses starting. A recession gives you a chance to purge weak, inefficient companies and start over. It’s call creative destruction.

T H E P E R F E C T S T O R M


A L U M N I C E N T E R

AUBURN


There’s nothing like a trip to Auburn to re-mind me what a special place Auburn University is. When I turn off U.S. 280 or Interstate 85 traveling from Hunts-ville to Auburn, my I.D. changes—I feel like

I’m home again. And I am. At the Dec. 19 commencement ceremony, I brought greetings from your Auburn Alumni As-sociation to 1,400 new graduates as they joined the 200,000-plus men and women who are living Auburn alumni. It was with pride that I shared their day of personal and family achievement. My graduation visit reminded me that the more some things change, the more they remain and endure at Auburn:

•a drive through my childhood neighbor-hood on Forestdale Drive to view the an-nual holiday decorations that have been the same for the past 50 years;

•visits to Auburn bookstores and shops to purchase holiday gifts;

• talking with graduating students’ fami-lies and remembering my feelings of excitement when our son became a fourth-generation Auburn alumnus;

• the majesty of Samford Hall as a back-drop for new-graduate photographs at Auburn’s marble entrance sign;

•and voices in unison singing our alma mat-er at the close of the graduation ceremony.

In our family circle of loyal Auburn alumni, we want future students and alumni to have the same experience and education. Results from the association’s 2008 Alumni Attitude Study revealed that 98 percent of alumni from all generations say they are still glad they attended Au-burn. They want to be involved in helping identify job and career opportunities for

ALUMNI CENTER

A L U M N I N E W S

Ringing in the new March 6–15

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: AMAZON RIVER

This adventure includes a trek through virgin rainforests, plus one night in a tented camp in the Peruvian jungle. From $3,195 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

March 7

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS BANqUET

(See Page 50)Auburn Alumni Association Board Meeting

March 21–28

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: ITALIAN FAVORITES

Explore the pair of cities epitomizing Italy’s elegance, culture, architecture and historically rich character—Rome and Florence. From $1,974. Info: (334) 844-1143.

April 2–9

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: PERU

Nestled in the misty Andes Mountains, Peru is a rugged, storied land where vast Incan civilizations once flourished and Spanish conquistadors ruled. From $2,495 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

April 3–11

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: SAXONY

Cruise along the River Elbe on this fascinating journey to the Czech Republic and Germany. From $2,595 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

April 7–15

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: CANARY ISLANDS,

MADEIRA, MOROCCO AND GIBRALTAR

Discover the allure of Casablanca and explore the British Crown Colony of Gibraltar. From $2,795 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

April 10–18

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: PARIS

Marvel at the world-famous Eiffel Tower, the Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame, the Louvre Museum and the magnificent Palace of Versailles. From $1,874 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

Calendar

NANCY YOUNG FORTNER ’71President, Auburn Alumni Association

Auburn graduates, mentoring students and providing feedback to the university. They feel their role includes serving as ambassadors for the university and re-cruiting potential students. Two alumni association programs can facilitate your involvement in these areas: Tiger2Tiger and FANS. Tiger2Tiger online career and social network is available to all Auburn gradu-ates as well as association members. The service allows alumni to search for job openings and post résumés. If you’re try-ing to fill a position in your organization, you may post it for other alumni to con-sider and search the database of résumés to find potential candidates. It’s a great place to improve your career. Are you willing to share your Au-burn experience with others? Do you enjoy talking to high school students and their parents? Show prospective students what Auburn means to you by serving as a FANS (Finding Auburn’s New Students) volunteer. College recruiting is highly competitive, and with the assistance of alumni across the country, Auburn is seeking the best and brightest prospective students. To volunteer, fill out the online form at www.aualum.org. The Auburn family embraces chal-lenges and opportunities with hope, re-newal and a spirit of moving forward. The Auburn Alumni Association wel-comes new head football coach Gene Chizik and his staff to Auburn University with support and enthusiasm for the suc-cess of our student athletes both on and off the field. Welcome! May the love of our university, the Auburn spirit and the core values of the Auburn Creed continue to unite us.

War Eagle!

[email protected]

Machu Picchu is an ancient Incan city in Peru.



Thousands of Auburn University alumni and friends choose to show their support for the in-stitution through mem-bership in the Auburn Alumni Association, and we are grateful for their commitment. The asso-

ciation has had a very successful year, due in large part to the numerous volunteers who dedicate themselves to serving Au-burn in various ways. Significant accom-plishments this year include the comple-tion of a branding survey, which resulted in a new logo for the association; the com-pletion of an alumni survey that provided us with valuable information about what our alumni want and need; the establish-ment of the Tiger2Tiger online social and career community; sponsorship of the first Diploma-Bound Party to encourage membership in the association among Auburn’s newest alumni; and the contri-bution of more than $2 million in the last two years toward the association’s schol-arship endowment. Our members’ loyalty to Auburn is remarkable, and the Office of Alumni Affairs is proud to serve both the university and the Auburn Alumni Asso-ciation. Thank you for your membership.

War Eagle!

[email protected]

Annual Report 2007–2008

DEBBIE SHAW ’84Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Executive Director, Auburn Alumni Association

Calendar

The state of your association

SCHOLARSHIPS & ACADEMIC SUPPORT

•Fifty-one student scholarships were awarded this year from the $2.7 million Alumni Scholars Endow-ment. Alumni contributions support the endowment.

•Fifty-four area Auburn clubs awarded 107 student scholarships.

•The Alumni Professors Endowment, with almost $2.2 million invested, provides financial supplements to 25 faculty members each year for five-year terms.

•Three faculty members received $1,000 each as recipients of the Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Awards. Selected this year were: Joey Shaw, agro-nomy and soils; Kelly Bryant ’85, graphic design; Ed Williams, communication and journalism.

•Bernhard Kaltenboeck, pathobiology, received $2,000 from the Auburn Alumni Association as the recipient of the 2008 Distinguished Graduate Faculty Lectureship Award hosted by the Graduate School.

•Forty-five life members contributed more than $32,250 to the Circle of Excellence Society, sup-porting the Alumni Scholars Endowment.

•Shirley Scott-Harris, director of the AT&T Minority Engineering Program, received $1,000 as the recipient of the Alumni Minority Achievement Award.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Four individuals were recognized for their extra- ordinary career accomplishments: Emory Cunningham ’48, Beverly Kearney ’81, Lloyd Nix ’51 and James Pursell ’52. An annual banquet

Member vs NonmemberBased on number of living alumni

with accurate addresses

Auburn Alumni Association REVENUE

Fiscal Year Ending 9/30/08

Auburn Alumni Association EXPENSES

Fiscal Year Ending 9/30/08

29%

20%

16%

3%

6%

8%

6%

3%9%

University Support

Investment Income

Annual Dues

Life Member ships

Gifts

Advertising

Other Income

Royalties

Rental Income

Addressable Graduates 172,606

Members45,503

26%

74%

April 18

MAIN A-DAY TAILGATE

Make plans now to attend the third annual Minority Alumni Involvement Now tailgate party. The event starts at 10:30 a.m. near Jordan-Hare Stadium. Info: (334) 844-1113.

April 28–May 11

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: SOUTHERN AFRICA

Tour cosmopolitan Cape Town, cruise to historic Robben Island, site of Nelson Mandela’s incarceration, and enjoy a game-viewing safari at Shishangeni. From $5,695 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

April 30–May 10

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: INDIA

Travel wide boulevards passing architectural marvels of New Delhi, wind your way through age-old crowded bazaars and visit the city of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. From $2,399 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

May 3–14

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: CELTIC LANDS

Immerse yourself in four millennia of Celtic history on this remarkable 12-day cruise from the ancient Norman city of Rouen in France to Scotland’s historic capital of Edinburgh and points between. From $5,195 per person. Info: (334) 844-1143.

May 7-16

WAR EAGLE TRAVELERS: MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE

Begin your adventure in Athens, Greece, before setting sail for Turkey, the Greek island of Chios and the ever-popular Mykonos, and, finally, Italy’s sun-splashed Amalfi Coast. From $2,499 per per-son. Info: (334) 844-1143.

May 14–16

GOLDEN EAGLES REUNION

It’s a whole new season for Auburn’s annual Golden Eagles Reunion: This year the event moves to spring. We’ll honor the classes of ’58 and ’59 and take in a baseball game—Auburn vs. Alabama—at Plainsman Park. To register, call (334) 844-ALUM (2586).

June 22–26

TIGER TOUR: GOLF

There’s still time to register for the Tiger Tour, a summer road trip on Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Registration deadline is March 23. Call Total Sports Travel toll-free at (888) 367-8781.

ScholarshipsGeneral andAdministration

AuburnMagazine

Alumni Programsand ServicesDues and Marketing

23%

42%

12%

17%6%



Members by Gender

Male

Female

Unknown

58%34%

8%

2007-2008AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONBOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRESIDENTJ. Ralph Jordan Jr. ’70VICE PRESIDENTAnn Bendinger Rundquist ’76TREASURERSteven A. Boucher ’77

Neil E. Christopher ’55Burt Cloud ’66Walton T. Conn Jr. ’85Marcus F. Conner ’99Burke D. Cox ’93R. Mack Freeman Jr. ’65Charles R. Horton ’65Sam David Knight ’94Janet E. Mertz ’91Robert E. Poundstone IV ’95Dana F. Robicheaux ’74Ben Tom Roberts ’72 Arthur N. Ryan ’69George A. Smith ’75William B. Stone II ’85Michael A. Watson ’69

EX-OFFICIO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORDeborah L. Shaw ’84Jay Gogue ’69Andrew P. Hornsby Jr. ’68Donald L. Large Jr. ’75Joe T. McMillan ’58Brandon MorganJennifer L. Stephens

Mission StatementThe mission of the Auburn Alumni Association is to foster and strengthen the relationship between Auburn University and its alumni and friends; to preserve and promote the university’s traditions, purposes, growth and development; and to keep alive the spirit of affection and reverence for our alma mater.

Vision StatementThe Auburn Alumni Association cultivates lifelong relationships between Auburn and its alumni and friends to support the advancement of our university.

recognized the contributions recipients have made to their professions and communities.

STUDENT ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Brandon Morgan served as president of the Student Alumni Association, overseeing 24 student ambassadors.

Student members: 2,819 (12 percent of undergraduate enrollment)

OTHER

•More than 13,000 people visited the Alumni Hospitality Tent hosted by the Auburn Alumni Association before each home football game.

•Tiger2Tiger was launched in February 2008 and had 6,775 registered users in the first eight months.

•More than 200 alumni participated in the MAIN (Minority Alumni Involvement Now) weekend at Homecoming 2007.

The 2007-08 Auburn Alumni Association Board of Directors (back row, left to right) Marcus Conner, Burt Cloud, Bobby Poundstone, Robert Harris, George Smith, Burke Cox, Mack Freeman, Skip Ryan, B.T. Roberts, Bill Stone, Charlie Horton, Walt Conn, Debbie Shaw, (front row, left to right) Ralph Jordan, Ann Bendinger Rundquist, Steve Boucher, Dana Robicheaux, Mike Watson, Janet Mertz, Neil Christopher, Jennifer Stephens.

AUBURN MAGAZINE

Auburn Magazine was mailed quarterly in No-vember, February, May and August to an average 38,856 households. The magazine also received a re-gional award of excellence from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education in 2008.

TRAVEL PROGRAMS - War Eagle Travelers

(International & Domestic Travel) Tours Offered: 20Travelers: 205

AWAY-GAME TRAVEL

(Football 2007)Trips Offered: 7Travelers: 894

AUBURN CLUBS

Clubs in Alabama: 37Out-of-State Clubs: 60Total: 97

Categories of Association Members

Life Members 33,388

AnnualMembers

8,851

New Grads3,264

7%

19%

74%

Members by College/School

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000

AgricultureBusiness

EngineeringLiberal Arts

EducationScience/Math

ArchitectureHuman Sciences

PharmacyVet MedNursingForestry

Number of Members

Do you live in the Auburn area or travel back to the Plains occasionally? Some Auburn businesses offer dis-counts on merchandise and services to Auburn Alumni Association members—just present your membership card at participating local businesses and take advan-tage of the savings! www.aualum.org/membership

Save bucks in Auburn



Lifetime Achievement Awards

Auburn wouldn’t be Auburn without Ralph “Shug” Jordan, and Alabama wouldn’t be the same without Paul “Bear” Bryant. •That’s what Vince Dooley means to the University of Georgia. In more than four de-cades as UGA’s head football coach and athletics director, Dooley became one of the most respected figures in college athletics. •Best known for his work on the gridiron, Dooley also may be described as a renais-sance man—he’s a Civil War buff and avid master gardener. He played football at Auburn under Jordan and served as an AU assistant coach for the 1957 national championship team. •He became head football coach at UGA in 1964, led the Bulldogs to a national championship in 1980, retired in 1988 as Georgia’s all-time winningest coach and remained as athletics director until 2004. •Dooley amassed a trophy case full of awards during his career. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994, and won the 2001 Amos Alonzo Stagg Award for lifetime achievement from the American Football Coaches Association, the 2007 Homer Rice Award from the Division I-A Athletic Directors Association and the 2006 Wooden Award from the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame, among many others.

Riding in a van toward the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad on June 27, 1982, Hank Hartsfield turned to flight commander T. K. “Ken” Mattingly ’58 and said simply, “I believe I’m finally going to do this.” •For the former U.S. Air Force pilot and 16-year NASA veteran, stepping onto the Space Shuttle Columbia represented the culmination of nearly 50 years spent stargazing. •A native of Birmingham, Hank Hartsfield skipped two grades and entered Auburn as a freshman at age 16. He graduated in physics, joined the Air Force on an Auburn ROTC commission, served as a pilot with the 53rd fighter squadron in Germany and applied to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program in 1966. He was reassigned to NASA two months after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, then worked on astronaut support crews for more than 10 years before flying his first space mission. •Two years after piloting the Columbia with Mattingly, Hartsfield commanded the maiden voyage of the shuttle Discovery and in 1985 led a Challenger crew on the German D-1 Spacelab mission. He retired from NASA in 1997 and served as an aeronautics executive for Raytheon Co. until 2005.

The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa., three decades ago shook public confidence in the country’s nuclear energy program. •“The production of nuclear energy in the U.S. came under tremendous scrutiny, causing many of the nation’s generation sites to decrease or cease operation,” recalls AU trustee Samuel Ginn. •Then along came Oliver Kingsley, who, over the course of his career as a utilities executive at several major companies, helped re-electrify nuclear power. •The Ozark native became the industry’s premier practitioner of operational excellence, specializing in transforming troubled nuclear programs. In 2003, Kingsley received the World Association of Nuclear Operators’ Excellence Award, the highest honor in the business. •Kingsley, who lives in Birmingham, was the first Auburn alumnus to be named a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a member of the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame. He recently chaired the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s leadership team for the “It Begins at Auburn” capital campaign, during which he helped raise $116.7 million for the college.

When U.S. troops deployed for the Persian Gulf War in 1991—and in every operation since—they have taken one of the most effective battle armaments ever created: the Abrams tank, developed by an Auburn engineer with a passion for community service. •Philip W. Lett is known as the father of the M-1 Abrams tank, which for nearly 30 years has been the military’s most widely used armored vehicle. •“Thousands of our precious soldiers and Marines owe their lives to Dr. Lett’s work,” says retired U.S. Army Col. Christopher V. Cardine, scientist for tank technology at General Dynamics, where Lett developed the tank. “There have been several vehicles completely destroyed in which not a single soldier was injured. This accomplishment was due solely to specific features that Dr. Lett had demanded be incorporated in the design with the technical perfection he expected of his engineering organization.” •Lett’s tank design for Chrysler Engineering (now General Dynamics) combined new armor, a high-powered turbine engine and computerized firing system, and, in a radical departure from earlier models, focused on the safety of the tank crew. In the first Gulf War, no fatalities were recorded in combat operations involving the M-1 Abrams tank.

Vincent J. Dooley Class of 1954

Henry “Hank” Hartsfield Jr. Class of 1954

Oliver D. Kingsley Jr. Class of 1966

Philip W. Lett Class of 1944


GOT NEWS?

Auburn Magazine

317 S. College Street

Auburn University, AL

36849-5149, or

[email protected]

Life Member

Annual Member

’20–’59 Frasier Galloway ’48 is a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture statisti-cian, serves as a church deacon and volunteers as an “encourager” for heart patients at his local hospital. He and wife Virginia live in Athens, Ga.

John G. Fondren

Sr. ’49 and wife Mary celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in September. They live in Birmingham.

Ashland Shaw ’51

is pastor-emeritus-in-residence at Main Street United Methodist Church in Boonville, Ind. He has served in the ministry for 60 years.

Donald E. Dennis ’54

and wife Patricia celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary in December. They live in Magnolia, Texas.

Abram G. Allen ’55

wrote Truth is “The Word” (Hamilton Books, 2008), the sec-ond installment in his Truth Eternal and the Adversity of Diversity Law series.

Peggy Barrow

Culbertson ’55 was named Charlotte, N.C.,

Woman of the Year in part for creating a fundraising group benefiting the Catawba Lands Conservancy. A retired psychotherapist, Culbertson founded and chaired the North Carolina Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and also has served in many civic and govern-mental organizations.

’60–’69 Beverly A. Roberts

’65 of Hephzibah, Ga., is president of the Georgia Retired Educa-tors Association.

James O.

“Oscar” Yeaman ’66

has returned to Alabama after serving as associate general secretary of member-ship services at Rotary International head-quarters in Chicago. He now owns and runs The Lattice Inn bed-and-breakfast in Montgomery.

H. Gabriel Melton ’67

of Childersburg wrote a memoir, My Last Christmas as a Child (Vantage Press, 2008), about his transition from childhood to adolescence.

Paul Allen Fox ’69 is a philanthropy consul-tant in Mobile.

’70–’79 Mary Helen Benford

’70 of Roanoke was elected to the board of directors of the Chatta-hoochee Valley Histori-cal Society and recently

won third place in the heirloom division of the Chambers County Alabama Farmers Fed-eration’s cotton sewing competition.

John Alex Floyd

Jr. ’70 of Trussville received the Alabama Tourism Department’s Media Advocate Award for his work as editor-in-chief of Southern Living maga-zine; he also received an honorary doctorate from Furman Uni-versity. Floyd retired in December after 31 years with Birming-ham-based Southern Progress Corp.

Susan Hinds ’70 retired as head of circulation, reserve and security for Auburn University Libraries.

Richard C. “Dick”

Ingwersen ’70 of Stone Mountain, Ga., was named Auburn Univer-sity School of Accoun-tancy’s Alumnus of the Year. He founded the Atlanta accounting firm of Gifford Hillegass & Ingwersen.

Robert M. Cain ’71, an Atlanta architect, re-ceived an Honor Award from the Georgia chap-ter of The American Institute of Architects for his work on the Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia.

Jimmy B. Pool ’71

was elected to a six-year term as district court judge in Mont-gomery County.

James Voss ’72 of Houston, a former NASA astronaut, was appointed to serve on the National Space Biomedical Research Institute’s board of directors. He is vice president of engineering for Poway, Calif.-based SpaceDev Inc.

Gary P. Hollis ’73 of Birmingham received Southern Company’s Generation One Team award for his work on environmental equip-ment for Alabama Power, Georgia Power and Gulf Power.

Oliver Neal Shaw ’74

is a district councilman for the city of Valley.

Dennis Bailey ’75 is a part-time journalism in-structor at Auburn Uni-versity and maintains a full-time law practice in Montgomery. He has taught press law and ethics at Auburn since fall 2007.

John M. House ’75

wrote Why War? Why an Army? (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008). A retired U.S. Army colonel, he lives in Midland, Ga.

Thomas M. “Mike” Little

’75 is vice president of information technology for Protective Life Corp. in Birmingham. He is a retired commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

David Lee Nordness ’75

of Owens Cross Roads is sales manager for Southeastern Pavilion.

Class Notes

Each year before taking the field to meet their opponents for the first home football game, the Auburn Tigers journey to Ope-lika to visit Humpty Dumpty the horse. The team—along with members of Auburn University’s cheerleading squad—are among the many college students who volunteer at Storybook Farm, a nonprofit, therapeutic riding stable that helps chil-dren and young adults cope with mental, emotional and physical disabilities. “The children that come here have trag-ic stories, and for an hour a week they are given the spotlight to shine, and our volun-teers make that possible,” says Lucy Little ’75, the organization’s chief fundraiser. Storybook Farm relies heavily on volunteers—including dozens of Auburn undergraduate and graduate students—to maintain and run its weekly activi-ties. The stable hosts about 500 children a year who suffer from illnesses or have experienced emotional trauma. Kids ride the farm’s horses and ponies—each of which sports the name of a beloved children’s book character such as Stuart Little or Huckleberry Finn—as well as groom and feed the animals with the help of student volunteers. About a dozen cats and dogs, plus a couple of goats, round out the farm’s menagerie. “We are blessed to have about 150 student volunteers each semester who understand it takes commitment and consistency to impact the children who are able to come here,” Little says. Three students are trained and assigned to work weekly with a single child throughout a 10-week program. “It is truly remarkable how many student volunteers leave feeling impacted by our children,” Little says. “And the smiles of the children only begin to de-scribe how they feel about their buddy volunteers.”—Morgan Ladner

Once upon a timeSNAPSHOT



David M. White ’75

retired from Roy Ander-son Corp. construction firm after 33 years with the company. He lives in Gulfport, Miss.

Ginger Avery ’77

of Prattville is the executive director of the Alabama Associa-tion for Justice. She is also serving a one-year term as president of the National Associa-tion of Trial Lawyer Executives.

Martha Shamp ’77

of Auburn wrote 50 Poems for Pentacost (Vantage Press, 2008).

Jim Thompson ’77

of Jacksonville, Fla., is managing director for East Coast investments for Regency Centers, a retail shopping-center developer.

C. Craig Cass ’78 of Canton, Ga., retired as a captain with the Fulton County Police Department in Atlanta after 29 years of service.

Warren O. Hag-

gard ’78, professor and Herff Chair of Excellence in biomedi-cal engineering at the University of Memphis, was named to a three-year term on the ASTM International board of directors. The orga-nization is one of the largest developers of international voluntary consensus standards in the world.

’80–’89 Jan Colbert ’80 of

Lexington, Ky., is an accounting professor at Eastern Kentucky University and serves as the university’s AACSB accreditation coordinator.

Dale K. Geeslin ’81

of Sharpsburg, Ga., joined Atlanta-based Gifford Hillegass & Ingwersen as partner in the firm’s accounting and auditing practice.

Stephen Keys ’82

of Byron, Ga., is vice president of Scherer Construction of Middle Georgia, where he oversees office and field operations.

John Rice ’82 is a systems engineering professor at the Defense Acquisition University in Huntsville. He and wife Amanda Brownlee Rice ’84 have two sons.

Suzanne Lacey ’84

is superintendent of Talladega County Schools. She lives in Indian Springs.

Brent M. Craig ’85 of Hartselle was elected to serve as district judge of Morgan County.

Irene Trowbridge

Brown ’86 owns an insurance agency in Celebration, Fla., and recently adopted two children, Isaiah Michael, 3, and Jessica Christine, 2.

Jan Ziglar Eunice ’86

teaches third grade in

the Eufaula city school system and operates a flute-and-piano studio.

George Mitchell ’87

and wife Sue celebrat-ed their 50th wed-ding anniversary in September. They live in Montgomery.

Sean Butcher ’88, a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, is execu-tive officer of helicopter sea combat squadron 84 in Norfolk, Va. He lives in Virginia Beach, Va., with his wife and two daughters.

Suzanne Freeman ’88, superintendent of Trussville City Schools and former superin-tendent of Cullman City Schools, is one of four finalists for the American Association of School Administra-tors’ 2009 National Superintendent of the Year award. She is the first and only candidate from Alabama to be so honored.

Johnny M. Green ’88 of Cullman was named national accounts man-ager for ADT Security Services Inc.

Gregg Olson ’88 of Newport Beach, Calif., was inducted to the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in August. Olson is the Orioles’ all-time leader in saves and in 1989 was the first reliever ever to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award. He retired from baseball in 2001.

Richard Hare ’89 of Columbus, Ga., is senior vice president of finance, treasurer and chief financial officer of Carmike Cinemas Inc. He served as Lowder Visiting Executive in Auburn’s College of Business in October.

Gordon Harvey ’89

joined Jacksonville State University as a history professor and head of the Depart-ment of History and Foreign Languages. He formerly served as an associate professor and department head at the University of Louisiana at Monroe from 1999 to 2008.

Michael R. Ogles ’89

was promoted to vice president of aerospace systems at Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. in Huntsville. He has been with the company since 1999.

Christopher Brent

Snyder ’89 was promoted to director of marketing for the Dallas/Fort Worth division of Ben E. Keith Co. food and beverage distributor.

MARRIED Michael Val Hietter

’86 to Eileen Victoria Habermann on Oct. 4. They live in Winder, Ga.

David A. Holcomb ’87 to Darlene Carter on Sept. 6. They live in McCalla.

Class Notes

The Auburn Alumni Association elected four new board members during its an-nual meeting in November.

JACK FITE ’85 of Decatur is president of Fite Building Co. Inc. He has served as president of the Morgan County Auburn Club and has been a member of the club’s board since 1996.

MIKE GRIFFIN ’96 of Destin, Fla., is vice president/resident director of Merrill Lynch in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. A former national award-win-ning Aubie mascot, he has served on

the board of directors of the Greater Birmingham Auburn Club and currently is on the board of the Emerald Coast Auburn Club.

HOWARD B. NELSON JR. ’69 of Bir-mingham retired in 2004 as chief fi-nancial officer of Colonial Properties Trust. He now owns a commercial real estate consulting firm and is a

member of the Auburn University College of Busi-ness Shareholders Club, George Petrie Society and the Greater Birmingham Auburn Club.

MARCUS F. CONNER ’99 of Saucier, Miss., is a condition-based monitor-ing team leader at Mississippi Power’s Plant Watson in Gulfport. A member of Auburn’s AT&T Minority Engi-

neering Program advisory board, he was appointed to the alumni association board in 2007 to fill a va-cant director seat.

Nancy Young Fortner ’71 of Hunts-ville and Michael A. Watson ’69 of Smyr-na, Ga., were elected president and vice president of the Auburn Alumni Associa-tion, respectively. Both have served sev-eral years as board members. Auburn’s Student Alumni Associa-tion board also elected officers for the coming year. They are: Lyndsey Yim of Madison, president; Ryan Massey of Concord, N.C., executive vice president; Jessica Stuckey of Huntsville, administrative vice president; and Allen Sasser of Dozi-er, membership vice president.

All aboard



’90 Charlotte Cawthon of Enterprise was selected by the First Baptist Church of Houston to serve as a new Interna-tional Mission Board missionary in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Carolyn Jean Henry was promoted from associ-ate professor to profes-sor of oncology in the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

James F. Holmes is a professor in the Depart-ment of Emergency Medicine at the Univer-

sity of California/Davis School of Medicine. He lives in Sacramento, Ca-lif., with wife Cindy and daughter Kaitlyn Ann.

Kelvin Reed was promoted to direc-tor of the Center for Servant Leadership in Columbus, Ga.

MARRIED William Mayfield to Amy Ballard on March 15. They live in Opelika.

’91 Eric Fletcher is a

senior tax manager with Bond Beebe accounting firm in Bethesda, Md.

Merle Flowers was re-elected to a second term as a state senator for Mississippi. He and wife Stacey have a 1-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Reeves, born Dec. 24, 2007, who joined siblings Sarah Ann, Jackson and Mary McCoy.

Ronald J. “Ron” Hughes

Jr. was recognized by Worth magazine as one of its “Top 250 Wealth Advisors” for 2008. Hughes is a financial planner with Merrill Lynch’s private banking and investment group in Atlanta.

’92 MARRIEDJohn Irvine Huff to Katherine Coleman on April 12. They live in Auburn.

BORN A daughter, Ashley

Brooke, to David

Michael Seymour and Michele Ballou Seymour

’94 of Newnan, Ga., on Sept. 19. She joins sister Kaitlyn, 4.

A son, Harrison Lewis Taylor, to Jacque-

lyn Boswell Taylor and husband Larry of Bir-mingham on Aug. 28. He joins siblings Zac,

22, Dustin, 19, Jack, 5, and Gabrielle, 5.

A son, Tristan James Walter, to Mike B.

Walter and wife Sara of Memphis, Tenn., on May 22.

’93 Justin D. Cooper II made his final flight as U.S. Navy base commander of the Naval Air Facility at Atsugi, Japan, where he had been stationed since January 2006. He reported to the Joint Military Attaché School, Defense Intelligence Agency, in Washington, D.C., in January.

Robert Karcher of Opelika was promoted to assistant dean of engi-neering student services at Auburn University.

William Scott Stewart,

a certified public ac-countant, was promoted to senior audit manager for Birmingham-based Sellers, Richardson, Holman & West.

Paul Varnadore was assigned to Perth, Aus-tralia, as an exchange officer with the Royal Australian Navy sub-marine force.

Want to be cool and save money? Plant a tree. Forestry and wildlife sciences pro-fessor David Laband says homes shaded just 17.5 percent by trees can cut resi-dential electric bills by more than 11 percent over houses with no shade.

Made in the shade

LEAVING AUBURNTake it with you by shopping at Tiger Rags.Coupon Code: alumtr

NEW CAR OR HOME?Auburn alumni are eligible for home and auto insurance at great rates through Liberty Mutual Insurance.

GRADUATE SCHOOLMembers of the association will receive discounts off test prep courses and materials from Kaplan.

MOVINGAtlantic Relocation, an agent for Atlas Van Lines, provides Auburn alumni with nationwide moving discounts and assistance.

CAREER MOVE?Members can network with other alumni and put their resumes on Tiger2Tiger. AGING

Auburn alumni are eligible for group rates on long-term care insurance through Marsh Alumni Services.

SECURING YOUR FUTURERegister for term life and GradMed insurance offered through American Insurance Administrators.

*The above listed are proud sponsors of the Auburn Alumni Association.

AUBURN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION life changes and solutions.

www.aualum.org

[re]connect to you



Class Notes

Stephen Bailey ’98 isn’t your father’s farmer: At 34, he’s al-ready garnered more accolades than anybody else working the land in Vardaman, Miss.—no small feat in a town boast-ing more than 85 farmers and laying claim to the title of sweet potato capital of the world. Bailey isn’t afraid to speak up on issues facing today’s farmers, which led to his winning the Farm Bureau Young Farmer & Rancher Discussion Meet in 2007. He and wife Kisha won the Young Farmer and Rancher Achievement Award for Mississippi last year. Stephen Bailey inherited Bailey Family Farms from his grandfather, who started the operation in 1946. He har-vests more than 210 acres of sweet potatoes and 15 acres of pumpkins each year, supervising up to 50 employees around Thanksgiving and Christmas—peak season for sweet potato farmers. “Two hundred acres is a lot, but for one person, it’s not unmanageable,” he says. “I keep it that size so I can still be the main person responsible for everything.” The sweet potato industry has undergone drastic changes since 1996, the year Bailey started farming. Mar-ket expansion and pest control were two major issues that needed an advocate, and because of Bailey’s willingness to speak out, he was asked to lead many of the groups he had joined for networking purposes—from the local sweet po-tato co-op to the National Sweet Potato Council. He also was asked to attend a USDA-sponsored multistate meeting on pest management, which resulted in a $2.4 million grant for Mississippi sweet potato research. Bailey wasn’t always interested in agriculture, even though spring breaks and summers were spent working on his grandfather’s farm. “Paw-Paw always made sure I was aware I could come back and farm,” Bailey says. At Auburn University he initially studied engineering, but switched to agricultural science after growing a crop with his two uncles. These days, the fruits of his labor can be experienced at Ryan’s restaurants: Bailey and other Mis-sissippi growers provide the buffet-style chain with 3 mil-lion pounds of sweet potatoes a year.—Kate Winford

Sweeet!SNAPSHOT

BORN A son, Graham Al-

len, to Lee Ann Anand

and husband Justin of Decatur, Ga., on Oct. 1. He joins brother Jackson, 2.

A son, Matthew Forrest, to Mark Alan

Pitts and Laura Ann

Lutenbacher Pitts ’97 of Birmingham on April 25. He joins brother Andrew, 3.

A son, Paul Henry, to Louis Harold Richard III

and Michele Rena Rich-

ard ’05 of Santa Rosa, Fla. He joins siblings Tiffani, 14, Louie, 5, Jackson, 3, and Mary Elise, 1.

’94Ace Atkins of Water Val-ley, Miss., wrote Devil’s Garden (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009), a book exploring the life of notorious celebrity Fatty Arbuckle.

BORN A son, Austin Chris-tian, to Heather Watson

Cohn and husband Mark of Slidell, La., on Dec. 6, 2007. He joins siblings Louis, Saman-tha and Mark Jacob.

A son, Evan Bishop, to Paul Warren Eskew

and Leigh Ann Heaton

Eskew of Peachtree Corners, Ga., on Sept. 10. He joins brother Ben, 2.

’95 James Freeland has

been named Wachovia Corp.’s market presi-

dent for Dothan and the surrounding area.

MARRIED Amy Elizabeth

Huggins to Edward Marsh Dearborn on Nov. 22. They live in Acworth, Ga.

BORN A son, Cade Andrew,

to Brenda Branson West

and husband Jesse of Huntsville on Aug. 27. He joins brother Blake. Brenda is a senior pharmaceutical sales representative with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and serves as vice president of the Huntsville-Madison County Auburn Club.

’96David Andrew Gunter

was named principal of King Middle School in Milton, Fla.

Ritchie Pickron is chair of the Tallahas-see Quarterback Club Foundation Inc.

BORN A daughter, Lauren

Bennett, to Brian W.

Willis and Anje Harman

Willis ’97 of Columbus, Ga., on Aug. 29.

’97 Craig House Aarhus

received a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Iowa in December 2007. He is assistant director of bands at Mississippi State University. He and wife Amy Folsom Aarhus

’98 have a 1-year-old son, John Allen.

JERLANDO F.L.

JACKSON was selected by the Association for the Study of Higher Education as editor of its ASHE Reader Series. He is an associate professor of higher and post-secondary educa-tion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

MARRIED Timothy S. Royer to

Brent M. Zern on Oct. 15. They live in Atlanta.

BORN A daughter, Taylor

Grace, to Cary R. Cloud

and wife Catherine of Atlanta on April 11.

’98 MARRIEDSamuel Miller Cham-

pion to Andrea Hails Hutchinson on Aug. 2. They live in Nashville, Tenn.

BORN A daughter, Rachel

Caroline, to Jason

DeShazo and Nancy

Gilbreath DeShazo ’99

of Marietta, Ga., on Nov. 2. She joins sister Joanna Claire.

A son, Wade Brannon Haynes, to Ashley

Brannon Haynes of Gainesville, Ga., on Dec. 29, 2007.

A son, Quinn Saun-ders Mitchell, to Ben

Mitchell and Amanda

Nelson Mitchell on Aug. 28. They live in Houston.

A son, Gaines Mi-chael, to Robert Michael

Murphy and Robin Clem-


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Class Notes

ans Murphy ’95 of Rock Hill, S.C., on April 15. He joins brothers Mc-Carter, 5, and Will, 3.

A son, Blake Allen, to Linsey Murphy Mc-

Cullough and husband Brent of Birmingham on Nov. 19.

A son, Eli Samuel, to Daniel Noles and wife Melody of Chattanoo-ga, Tenn. He joins sister Emmaleigh Grace, 2.

’99MARRIED

Melissa Suzanne

Durham to Larry Wayne Thomas on June 21. They live in Loxley.

Sarah Hill to Michael Dominick Corallo on June 14. They live in Montgomery.

BORN

A son, Coleman Hol-land, to Jason C. Nick-

les and Shelly DeFoor

Nickles on Nov 13. He joins brother Dalton.

A daughter, Amelia Paige Wood, to Eric

Wood and wife Ashley

of Trussville on April 13. She joins brother Law-son Andrew Wood, 3.

’00 Michael Chad Bolding

is assistant professor of forest operations/engi-neering in the Depart-ment of Forestry at Virginia Tech. He, wife Jayme and son Luke live in Christiansburg, Va.

Brent Grainger, an attorney in the firm of Waldrep Stewart &

Kendrick, was invited to join the Birmingham American Inn of Court, an organization of lawyers, judges, profes-sors and law students designed to improve the skills, professional-ism and ethics of the bench and bar.

Alex Henig Jones joined the family business and is the director of mar-keting and advertising for Henig Furs.

MARRIEDMegan Brooke Nix to Robert Michael Nissen on Aug. 29. They live in Pasadena, Calif.

BORN

A daughter, Lily Evelyn James, to Brent

M. James and wife Elizabeth of Douglas-ville, Ga., on Aug. 7.

A son, Scott Thomas Jr., to Scott Loiacano and Rebecca McConnell Loia-

cano ’99 of Fort Myers, Fla., on March 31.

A daughter, Caroline Morgan, to John F. Mc-

Clanahan and Meredith

Morrow McClanahan of Florence on Dec. 4. She joins brother Cole, 2.

A daughter, Lauren Annice, to Bradley D.

Wideman and Amanda

McClure Wideman on Sept. 24. She joins sister Abigail Kathleen.

’01Michael Lamar Barnett

Jr. was promoted to second vice president of internal audit for American Family Life

Assurance Co. of Co-lumbus (Aflac). He lives in Midland, Ga.

Roger Jones is engaged to be married to Kirstin McDuffie ’03.

Kenny Dewain Smith is a student media adviser at Samford University in Birmingham. He formerly was employed as an editorial producer for www.al.com.

MARRIEDPhilip Austin Currie to Catherine Kuhlman on Sept. 6. They live in Birmingham.

Rachel Leigh Davis to David Cone on March 29. They live in Jack-sonville, Fla.

Chantel Gurney to Marc Minish ’93 on April 19. She is a senior account executive at McNeely, Pigott & Fox Public Relations in Nashville, Tenn.

Allison Anne Wooldridge

to Stewart Joyner on June 28. They live in Vestavia Hills.

BORN A daughter, Sophia

Cresencia, to Matt Al-

bright and wife Nichole

of University Heights, Ohio, on Aug. 3.

A son, Jackson Black-well, to Sam Brien and Mandy Hixon Brien ’02 of Atlanta on Sept. 12.

’02 Margie Maddux New-

man made PR News’ “15 to Watch” list,

denoting her as a young rising star in the public relations field. Newman, a principle in the Nash-ville, Tenn., firm of Hall Strategies, serves on the board of the Nashville Adult Literacy Council and writes a monthly productivity and tech-nology column for Her Nashville magazine.

MARRIEDCaroline Alvarez to Coy Smith on Oct. 4. They live in Chunchula.

Charles B. Codding to Amanda Shewmake ’03

on Oct. 25. They live in Huntsville.

BORN A daughter, Abigail

Kennedy, to William

Bradford Bancroft and Emilia Anne Bancroft of Dothan on Nov. 7.

’03 Vanessa Casanova, a

lecturer in the chemis-try and environmental sciences department at the University of Texas at Brownsville, was honored at the Compact for Faculty Diversity’s 15th Annual Institute on Teaching and Mentoring in Tam-pa, Fla. The event was hosted by the Southern Regional Education Board and several part-ner organizations.

Jennifer Hamilton of Durham, N.C., was promoted to manager in the assurance and enter-prise risk services area of Deloitte & Touche.

The Auburn Alumni Association board in No-vember chartered two new alumni clubs serving Louisville, Ky., and San Diego, bringing the number of active alumni clubs to 99. From Seattle to Miami, there’s a group for you—check out www.aualum.org/clubs for a complete list. In other club news:

•Two new staff members have joined Auburn’s Of-fice of Alumni Affairs to assist the clubs’ network of volunteers. They are Corey Kate Hinton ’07, who will be the chief liaison between club officers and the alumni office, and Opelika native Kate Asbury Larkin, who is now supervising alumni affairs’ pro-grams office. To reach either Hinton or Larkin, call (334) 844-ALUM (2586).

•A fledgling group of motivated AU fans is trying to reactivate the MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST CLUB. Want to help? Call Corey Kate Hinton at (334) 844-1145.

•The GREATER BIRMINGHAM AUBURN CLUB teamed with the Shelby Baptist Association in December to provide Christmas gifts for 100 needy children, doubling its contributions from last year. The club provided each child with toys, clothing, gifts for parents and other goodies. The group hosts a number of events throughout the year, including a junior recognition reception, fall kickoff party and a semi-annual “Beat ’Bama Bash.” The club also funds several student scholarships. For more, see www.thegbac.org.

•The HUNTSVILLE/MADISON COUNTY AUBURN

CLUB welcomed more than 50 AU students for a two-day technology tour in October, during which business and engineering majors got a look at career opportunities in the area. Huntsville’s economy is driven largely by aerospace and military technol-ogy companies associated with the Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA’s original headquarters. The city’s Cummings Research Park is one of the largest of its kind in the country.

Join the club

Auburn students examine job prospects in Huntsville.


www.aualum.org/clubs

Get involved with an Auburn alumni club in your area.

(well, almost)

you are, we,re there too.

Panama Canal

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gineering, planning and interior design firm in Charlotte, N.C., earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s “LEED” ac-creditation designation.

April Dunaway Wise

is an associate with the law firm of Capell & Howard. Her practice areas include estate and tax planning, estate and trust administra-tion, guardianships, conservatorships and adoptions. She received her juris doctorate from Cumberland School of Law in 2008.

MARRIEDEdgar P. Denton III to Mel-

anie Hardwick Mathews

’06 on July 19. They live in Vestavia Hills.

Charles T. Gross Jr. to Kimberly Ann White-Spunner on Sept. 13. They live in Birmingham.

Robin Myers to Chris Riddle on April 26. They live in Jackson.

Kristen Ogle to Ben-

jamin Oliver ’05 on March 22. They live in Birmingham.

Randall Keith Redding

Jr. to Hilary Brooke Wil-liams on Aug. 9. They live in Bremen, Ga.

Christopher Michael

Rodgers to Monica Miller on Aug. 19. They live in Newport News, Va.

’05Lauren Bobba was promoted to senior accountant in the audit department of Sellers,

Richardson, Holman & West accounting firm in Birmingham.

Clay Dudley of Birmingham was named Southeastern develop-ment representative for Hope International, a nonprofit group that fi-nances small businesses and provides training to entrepreneurs in third-world countries.

Colin Jones oversees wholesale accounts and hotel-and-trunk shows for Montgomery-based Henig Furs.

Cynthia Page was promoted to senior accountant in the audit department of Sellers, Richardson, Holman & West accounting firm in Birmingham.

Adam Reese is national sales director of Sports-man’s Offroad maga-zine. He and wife Amy

Rebecca James ’04 live in Birmingham.

James R. “Jimmy”

Williams is an associate in the Atlanta office of Jones Day law firm.

MARRIEDHelon Ann Baldone to Chris Flynn on July 19. They live in Birmingham.

Anna Baltikauski to Kyle Swenson ’01 on Oct. 25. They live in Atlanta.

David Russell Layton

to Jennifer Estes on May 24. They live in Birmingham.

Class Notes

At some point in his life, Ryan Penso ’06 might have dreamed of traveling to Ireland and touring the countryside while traips-ing around a luxurious five-star manor house. He just didn’t imagine he’d be paid to do it. The 25-year-old Atlanta native has worked for the past year as food and bev-erage manager at Capella Castlemartyr, a 17th-century country manor house in Cork, Ireland, that sits adjacent to the ru-ins of a 1,000-year-old castle. The village of Castlemartyr dates to the Bronze Age, with its first castle built by the Knights Templar and eventually owned by Sir Walter Raleigh. Subsequent owner Henry Boyle, the Earl of Shannon, built the manor house in the early 1700s. It was converted to a luxury resort by West Paces Hotel Group in 2007. Penso’s journey began in Auburn when West Paces—which also manages The Ho-

tel at Auburn University and Dixon Con-ference Center—offered him a food-and-beverage internship in Sedona, Ariz. He spent three months rotating to different positions within a Sedona hotel and subse-quently fell in love with the hospitality in-dustry. Upon graduation, West Paces hired Penso to take part in the company’s new 18-month leadership training program, in-viting him to be on the opening team at Capella Castlemartyr and, subsequently, the company’s new five-star hotel in Done-gal, Ireland. After eight months learning the in-dustry, he returned as food-and-beverage manager at Capella Caslemartyr in No-vember 2007. Penso credits Auburn Uni-versity’s hotel and restaurant management program in the College of Human Sciences for his early success and says he aspires to be a hotel general manager one day—wherever the job takes him.—Kate Winford

Luck o’ the IrishSNAPSHOT

Mindy Reed was pro-moted to audit manager for Sellers, Richardson, Holman & West in Birmingham.

MARRIEDLaura Greenhaw to Barry Willis on May 31. They live in Auburn.

Shannon Kay Salter to Arthur Fussell Jr. on

Aug. 23. They live in Statesboro, Ga.

William Edward

Searcy to Katherine Nicole Rutledge on April 26. They live in Enterprise.

BORNA son, John Paul Gio-vanni, to John Amari

and wife Amber on

Oct. 23. They live in Birmingham.

’04Lacy Anderson joined the accounting and compliance services department of Sellers, Richardson, Holman & West accounting firm in Birmingham.

Drew Cater and father Ed Cater ’74 formed a Hoover landscaping firm, Cater Design and Land-scape, on April 1. The company has completed projects in Homewood, Hoover, Vestavia and Mountain Brook.

Garett R. Gossett, an electrical engineer-in-training with Clark Nexsen architectural, en-



Dustin Love to Kathleen Deitsch on Feb. 14. They live in Birmingham.

Britton Denise McClinton

to Robert Winston Bass

Jr. ’01 on Sept. 6. They live in Birmingham.

Margaret A. Rivers to Andrew Schilder on

July 26. They live in Birmingham.

Susanne Weber to Brian Richardson ’07

on July 26. They live in Birmingham.

’06 Michelle M. Conner

was promoted to senior director of statewide

Class Notes

clinical services for the Georgia Division of Public Health.

Kelly Anthony Lewis is employed with Birmingham-based Herrington Architects.

Jay McGowan joined the audit department of Sellers, Richardson, Holman & West in Birmingham.

Lisa Karen Morris is a senior registered nurse with the Florida Department of Cor-rections. She lives in Chipley, Fla.

Michael Wall is director of the San Diego Natural History Museum’s scien-tific research division.

MARRIEDChristopher Alan Baker to Alison Joy Oakes on July 19. They live in Auburn.

Tracy J. Cunningham to Adam H. Williams on July 19. They live in Asheville, N.C.

James S. Lord to Zana Marie Zaidan on March 29. They live in Charlotte, N.C.

Laura Michelle Mill-

wee to Joseph Vincent

Webster Jr. on Sept. 7. They live in Green Cove Springs, Fla.

’07Ben Crow was named construction adminis-trator for Davis Archi-tects in Birmingham.

Rachel Evans was crowned “Miss Atlanta 2009” and will repre-sent the city in the Miss Georgia Pageant.

Mary “Mac” McFadden is working in the higher education and com-munity design studio of Liollio Architecture in Charleston, S.C. She previously was employed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill in New York.

Barbara Kristine Rus-

sell is an autism teacher at Baggett Elementary School in Dallas, Ga.

Haley Simonetti joined the audit department of Sellers, Richardson, Holman & West in Birmingham.

Anna Wickstrom joined the audit department of Sellers, Richard-son, Holman & West accounting firm in Birmingham.

MARRIED Michelle “Shelley”

Latham to Michael Carra

’05 on Sept. 13. They live in Birmingham.

Molly McDonald to Scott Peavy on Aug. 16. They live in Auburn. Hillary Anne Norrell to James Patrick Allen on April 26. They live in Montgomery. ’08

Courtney C. Anderson is a credit manager for Wells Fargo in Auburn.

Melvin Carter of Framingham, Mass.,

was honored at the Compact for Fac-ulty Diversity’s 15th Annual Institute on Teaching and Mentor-ing in Tampa, Fla. The event was hosted by the Southern Regional Education Board and others.

Jessica Hughes of Birmingham joined The Garrison Barrett Group Inc. as a graduate archi-tect. She had served as an intern at the firm.

Vanessa Ocasio plans to open a personal training franchise, Fitness Together, in Auburn in February.

Justin Saia is a legislative assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives. He formerly was employed as field director for the congressional campaign of Alabama Democrat Parker Griffith.

MARRIED Meredith Ardrey to

Alan Stephen Baggett

’06 on Dec. 20. They live in Birmingham.

Kathryn Ann Car-

michael to Joseph

Harrison Rasnik ’07 on Oct. 25. They live in Lexington, Ky.

Christy Rae Mikels

to Kyle Smith on Aug. 15. They live in Montgomery.

Britney Leann

Roberts to Jordan Eric

Phillips ’03 on July 5. They live in Fyffe.

In Memoriam

George W. Royer ’33 of Decatur died Dec. 15 after celebrating his 100th birthday in July. A longtime engineer with Exxon Mobil Corp., he also worked for the U.S. Army Mis-sile Command at Red-stone Arsenal before retiring in 1978. Royer served on the advisory board of the Alabama Sheriffs’ Youth Ranch at Punkin Center.

Terry S. Mosley ’37

of Hendersonville, N.C., died Aug. 24. A U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and former member of the Auburn Knights Orchestra, he retired as vice president of sales and marketing at Shoe Co., a division of Interco Inc.

Johnnie S. Denton ’39

of Fayetteville, Ark., died Sept. 19. She worked as an admin-istrative assistant for Sears, Roebuck and Co. and later owned Dee’s Interior Design.

Martha Bost Land ’40

of Shalimar, Fla., died Sept. 8. She was a teacher, antique dealer and founding member of the Shalimar library.

John H. Real ’41 of Detroit died June 29. He was a rural mail carrier, farmer and retired school teacher.

James Hugh Nichols

’42 of Charlotte, N.C., died Aug. 27. A U.S. Army veteran

The call to serve

Students from Auburn’s design-build mas-ter’s program have researched, designed and constructed a replica of a slave cabin at Westville, a living-history museum in Lumpkin, Ga. The attraction portrays life in the preindustrial South of 1850.

Cabin fever

The Auburn Alumni Association is requesting nominations for four new board directors. All nominees must be association life members and be willing to serve on a volunteer basis. The posi-tions require travel to Auburn at least three times a year. Successful nomi-nees will be installed this fall; each will serve a four-year term. Candidates should have a demon-strated history of leadership in support of the association and Auburn Uni-versity. Strong consideration will be shown to those who have actively pro-moted the association and AU through involvement with local Auburn clubs. Those who have previously contributed both time and resources to AU and the association also will be strongly con-sidered. Board directors are expected to participate in the association’s sustain-ing-life membership program through contributions to the “Circle of Excel-lence” scholarship society. Nominations may be submitted to Debbie Shaw ’84, Office of Alumni Af-fairs, 317 South College St., Auburn University, AL 36849-5149. A nomi-nation form must be submitted along with at least two letters of recommen-dation (but no more than four) from life members. Résumés may also be submitted. The nomination form is available online at www.aualum.org or by calling (334) 844-1134. The deadline for receiving nomina-tions and supporting documentation is 5 p.m. CST April 1. For more informa-tion, see www.aualum.org.



of World War II, he retired as a project engineer from Phillips Petroleum Co.

Martha Vest Scar-

brough ’42 of Fairfax, Va., died July 22. She was a real estate agent for 35 years.

Jack Edwin Wood ’42

of Birmingham died Aug. 10. He worked as an electrical engineer with General Electric Co. for 58 years.

Cromwell L. Cleve-

land ’43 of Atlanta died Sept. 6. A U.S. Army veteran of World War

II, he was transition gineering manager with AT&T for 36 years.

Charles Rolland

Heaslett ’43 of Syla-cauga died Sept. 26. An Auburn marching band alumnus, he worked for Heaslett Auto Supply and was a member of the Sylacauga Rotary Club, where he record-ed perfect attendance for 38 years.

Toy McGehee Jeffer-

son ’43 of Columbus, Ga., died Sept. 14. She worked as a dietitian for the Medical Center of Columbus.

John Locke Redd ’43

of Ozark died Aug. 23. A U.S. Air Force veteran of World War II, he served in the military for 25 years and was a member of the Freemasonry for 50 years.

Leo C. Mueller Jr. ’44

of Birmingham died Sept. 21. He founded Allied Corrosion Inc. in 1980 and was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity.

Price Moss Stone ’44

of Hurtsboro died Aug. 27. He worked as a veterinarian for the Alabama Department

of Agriculture & Indus-tries for 33 years.

Robert L. Ferrell ’47

of Bristol, Va., died Aug. 26. A World War II veteran, he also flew for the CIA in the Nigerian War. He was an assistant profes-sor of mechanical engineering at Auburn University and owned Farnsworth Heating and Plumbing Co.

Claude H. Moore ’47

of Auburn died Sept. 13. He served as head of AU’s poultry science de-partment from 1959 to 1986 and later served as

associate director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station.

Fred Alonzo Sloan Jr.

’47 of Carbondale, Ill., died June 16. He was a professor and chaired the curriculum-and-in-struction department at Southern Illinois Univer-sity Carbondale and was a member of Phi Kappa Phi and other academic honor societies.

Hope Robertson

Bosarge ’48 of Mobile died Aug. 23. She taught English at Alba, Vigor and Mobile County high schools.

Foy Campbell ’48 of Montgomery died Sept. 7. A U.S. Navy veteran of World War II, he worked in the agricul-tural industry for more than 40 years.

Leland Calvin Cour-

son ’48 of Montgomery died June 18. He was an installment loan officer at First Alabama Bank for 30 years.

Thomas W. Wheeler ’48

of Cleveland, Tenn., died Aug. 27. A U.S. Army veteran, he worked for Marshall-DeKalb Electric Coop-erative.

In Memoriam

Locate old friends, network with successful people in your field, join an online group of Auburn alumni.Tiger2Tiger, Auburn’s social networking site, is open to all Auburn graduates and Auburn Alumni Association members.

Join today! www.aualum.org



Richard Earl Benson

’49 of Tyler, Texas, died Sept. 19. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he served in the military for 26 years, working with NASA as a radia-tion scientist. He also worked for the U.S. Department of Energy for 13 years.

John W. Higgins Jr.

’49 of Huntsville died April 13. A World War II veteran, he worked for the U.S. Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal for 28 years.

Howard L. Johns ’49

of Huntington, Tenn., died Sept. 12. A World War II veteran, he prac-ticed veterinary medicine from 1949 to 1986.

William Anderson ’50

of Madison, Miss., died Dec. 4. A U.S. Navy veteran, he was a mem-ber of the Freemasonry.

Lester Dean Coates

Jr. ’50 of Mountain Brook died July 14. He was founder and president of Room Service USA.

Ferrell Daniel Hale

’50 of Valley died Sept. 7. A World War II vet-eran, he served with the U.S. Army combat engi-neers and worked for West Point-Pepperell Inc. for more than 40 years. He was a charter member of Langdale Kiwanis Club and the Greater Valley Area Auburn Club.

Thompson R. Kelly ’50

of Huntsville died Aug. 8. A U.S. Navy veteran, he was a real estate de-veloper and a member of Sigma Nu fraternity.

John Lewis Skinner ’50

of Montgomery died July 30. He worked for the Alabama Depart-ment of Transportation for 39 years.

Robert Boyd Wilds ’50

of Saratoga died Aug. 12. He served in the FBI during World War II as a radio operator intercept-ing German messages in South America.

Virginia Newsome

Kennedy ’52 of Seale died Sept. 1. She was a longtime member of the Lakewood Baptist Church choir.

Albert W. Charles Jr.

’53 of Manhattan Beach, Calif., died Sept. 18. A World War II vet-eran, he was a member of the Torrance Board of Education, owned a business consulting firm for more than 30 years and loved John Wayne westerns.

William James

Johnson Jr. ’54 of Los Alamos, N.M., died Sept. 15. A U.S. Navy veteran, he worked in the military as a nuclear physicist and electron-ics engineer.

John Rogers Segrest

’54 of Huntsville died June 8. An U.S. Air Na-tional Guard veteran, he worked for Teledyne

Brown Engineering Inc. for almost 40 years.

Joseph O. Thweatt

’54 of Madison, Miss., died June 27. A retired U.S. Air Force captain, he pursued his love of aviation by building and flying models and full-sized airplanes.

Jack Henry McElyea

’55 of Winter Park, Fla., died Sept. 7. A U.S. Coast Guard veteran, he practiced veterinary medicine for 52 years.

Homer C. Moody Sr.

’55 of Picayune, Miss., died July 3. He served as a U.S. Army corporal in Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge, during World War II.

Tommy King Goff ’56 of Auburn died Sept. 25. He worked in the Auburn city schools system for 32 years as a musical educator and director. In 1987, his band was awarded the prestigious Sudler Flag of Honor. As an Au-burn student, he was a member of the Auburn Knights Orchestra.

Kenneth Dewey

Herring ’56 of Tallas-see died Aug. 16. He worked for 40 years as an educator, coach and administrator.

Carl Stoy Pruitt ’56

of Indianapolis died Aug. 17. A World War II and U.S. Air Force veteran, he worked as a USDA poultry inspector in Alabama and as a

small- and large-animal veterinarian. He retired from Eli Lilly and Co.’s Elanco division.

Edward Durmont Sell-

ers ’56 of Baton Rouge, La., died Sept. 5. A U.S. Air Force veteran, he worked as a chemi-cal engineer for Ethyl Corp. He also served as president of the North Baton Rouge Lions Club and was active in other service clubs.

Robert Joseph Clark

’57 of Leesburg, Fla., died Aug. 1. A U.S. Army veteran, he was a salesman, entrepre-neur and a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

F. Julian Freeman ’57 of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., died Aug. 19. A U.S. Army veteran, he served as chief-of-staff at St. Jude Medical Center and president of the Orange County Medical Association in Fullerton, Calif.

John Hurshal Tinsley

’57 of Montgomery died June 13. He was a Methodist lay leader and preacher for 25 years.

Buford C. Cole ’59 of Tucker, Ga., died July 27. He worked in the DeKalb County School System for 37 years.

Noel P. McInnis ’59 of Decatur died Aug. 13. A U.S. Army Security Agen-cy veteran, he worked for 3M for 32 years.

Sara Weed Buttram

’60 of Victoria, Texas, died Oct. 10. She worked as an educator for 42 years at various Alabama schools and helped found the Uni-versity of Montevallo Alumni Association.

Mahlon Sealy Paulk

’61 of Montgomery died Aug. 15. He was a financial planner with AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co. and served as president of the Montgomery YMCA’s Jimmy Hitch-cock Memorial Award Committee.

T. Wayne Lee ’65 of Atlanta died Aug. 14. He worked for many years with IBM Corp. and later in the real estate industry in Beaufort, S.C.

Arthur Neal Harrison

’67 of Huntsville died Sept. 2. He was an educator for 28 years for the University of North Alabama, Hunts-ville City Schools and Calhoun Community College.

David Ray Baker ’68 of Auburn died Sept. 8. He was an engineer with BFGoodrich in Opelika.

Reo Kirkland Jr. ’71 of Brewton died Sept. 17. An attorney and former prosecutor, he served two terms as an Alabama state senator.

Danny Frank Bonham

’72 of Birmingham died Aug. 26. He retired as an electrical engineer with Alabama Power.

Jorge Alberto Subi-

rats ’72 of Mobile died Aug. 1. He was a high school teacher, coach and real estate agent.

James Daniel Cas-

sady ’75 of Montgom-ery died Aug. 3. He served as president of the Auburn University at Montgomery Alumni Association and as a board member for the Auburn University Foundation.

James Edmund

Royds ’80 of Williams-burg, Va., died Sept. 10. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he served in the military for 23 years.

John Franklin San-

dlin ’80 of Kennesaw, Ga., died Sept. 18. He owned Sandlin Frame Studio and taught computer science at St. Joseph Catholic School.

Leslie Riley Cubelic

’82 of Alpharetta, Ga., died Aug. 21. She worked in medical sales with Lederle, Genen-tech Inc. and Mallinck-rodt Inc.

Nicole Elise Bour-

geois ’98 of Atlanta died Oct. 8. An active member of the Atlanta Junior League, she was a financial accoun-tant for Alpha Delta Pi sorority’s national headquarters. She also served as adviser for the Gainesville, Ga., Alpha Delta Pi chapter and had recently joined Coca-Cola North America.

In Memoriam



My car roared north up the beautiful stretch of Interstate 85 that lies between Auburn University and home. It was one of those perfect Alabama fall days when the air was crisp but not yet cold. The trees put on a colorful show with their leaves of red and yellow. Just past the line of trees, open fields zoomed by. As we left Montgomery, the familiar green blur of highway signs raced past: Tuskegee 19 miles. Without warning, a rush of tears started streaming down my face. They spilled over my cheeks and onto the new Auburn University T-shirt I bought the day before. It was like someone turned a spigot on, and I tried to move my face so that my wife would not see. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t hiding my tears because of some macho thing. I’m an actor. I cry for money, on cue when I must. However, this was private. “What is it?” my wife asked. I couldn’t tell her. Not that I didn’t want to. It’s just that the pain came right from my gut, like it was being ripped out. The look on my wife’s face let me know I needed to say something. I pulled the car over to the side of the interstate. Af-ter a few moments, I said, “It’s taken me 30 years, but I finally feel like part of the team.” It started back in March 2002. My wife, joyce (she spells her name with a lowercase “J”), at our home in Florida, called me in Los Angeles where I was on the set. “You got a letter from Terry Henley.” Terry “Henlo” Henley was one of my college teammates from my days at Auburn University. He was inviting me back to Auburn for a reunion (of the 1972 football team). My first thought was: “I’m not going!” Mixed emotions stumbled over themselves as they raced through my mind. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my alma mater; Auburn and I had a complicated history, but I’d made my peace. I had forgiven so much, but I hadn’t totally shaken the pain of those years. I didn’t want to open old wounds. I called James. “You going?” I asked him over the long-distance line from Los Angeles to Auburn. “I was going to call you,” he said. “I talked to Terry. Told him I’ll be there.” James Curtis Owens’ smooth, melodious voice was sooth-ing as always. A minister now, James still has the same calm-ing effect he had on us when we were students. We black kids on campus always called him “Daddy Owens” because he was so calm and serene.

Our lives had taken divergent roads. James and I were the first two black players to play football at Auburn. For the first three years of my career we were inseparable, and not just be-cause we were the only blacks on the team. We respected and liked each other. All these years later, James lives just a few miles from Au-burn University’s Jordan-Hare Stadium, where we played our games. I ended up on the West Coast. “You’re going?” I asked, surprised that James was ready to cross the bridge to our past. I was worried about going back to see guys with whom I’d shared one of the most special times in my life. I hadn’t been back since 1995. Living in Florida and work-ing in Los Angeles didn’t make it easy. I’d only been to a hand-ful of games since the last game I played in the 1974 Gator Bowl. I moved on when I moved on. Now I was going back to a reunion. The night of the reunion came, and joyce and I were rid-ing an elevator up to the opening reception. I’ve played ball in front of 70,000 people. I’ve done live theater. I’ve done television shows that have been seen by millions. Films I’ve acted in have played all over the world. I’m never nervous. I always know I can perform when called upon. Except for this night. I was nervous. The elevator door opened and there stood the 1972 Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference, Ter-ry Henley. His infectious smile froze me. The other guys rushed up to us and I was caught up in a sea of well-meaning old teammates. I realized something that night. All of us had lived through a time of change in our society. It was not just James and I that had lived in and through a painful era. We all had. Things would never be the way they were. Odds are, a coach will never stay at Auburn 25 years like Coach Jordan. Also, it would be the last time Auburn would field a team with only two black players. That night James and I received the respect for the contributions we made to Auburn football. As the night ended, my teammates went out of their way to make James and me feel that we belonged. The conclusion to this story had finally been written. It had taken 30 years.

Excerpted from Walk-On: My Reluctant Journey to Integration at Auburn Uni-versity, by Thom Gossom Jr. Gossom has enjoyed a successful writing and acting career, including roles in “Fences,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Fight Club.” He lives in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and Santa Monica, Calif.

HealingBY THOM GOSSOM JR. ’75

The Last Word


I N M E M O R I A M

auburn magazine spring 2009

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