奥本大学｜Auburn University

奥本大学Auburn University于1856年建校，位于亚拉巴马州的奥本大学城。奥本大学是该州最大的校园，大部分学生是亚拉巴马州的居民。1967年在蒙哥马利建立分校。奥本大学在130多个领域提供学位并在许多领域提供该州仅有的公共支持项目，包括农业、林业、建筑、建筑学、药学和兽医学。尤其是它在文学、科学、数学、商业、教育和工程等学院都有很强的研究项目。目前ROTC项目在军事指导方面具有非常重要的地位。奥本大学有综合性的研究生院，该院授予64个领域的硕士学位和40多个领域的博士学位，其中许多在奥本是仅有的。在农业、林业、生物和物理学、数学、工程、教育及人文科学、药学和兽医学方面都比较强。最近，比较好的研究出现在文学、社会学和商业等方面。作为研究教育和科研的综合性中心，为适应现代社会的变化，奥本开发一些研究项目。奥本大学主图书馆藏书24,000,000多册，23,000,000多件缩微资料，15,000,000件政府出版物及136,000件地图。期刊19,000多种，包括160种报纸。奥本大学图书馆的万维网为用户提供进入INTERNET及大量远程数据库，如在局域网上的CD-ROM数据库。奥本大学设农学院、建筑设计学院、商学院、教育学院、林业及野生学院、人类学院、文学院、护理学院、药学院、兽医学院、数理学院、研究生院、荣誉学院等。可授予硕士、博士学位。

英文介绍

1.History

Old Main, the first building on Auburn s campus, was destroyed by fire in 1887.Auburn University was chartered by the Alabama Legislature as the East Alabama Male College on May 6, 1856, coming under the guidance of the Methodist Church in 1859.The first president of the institution was Reverend William J. Sasnett, and the school opened its doors in 1859 to a student body of eighty and a faculty of ten. The early history of Auburn is inextricably linked with the Civil War and the Reconstruction-era South. Classes were held in Old Main until the college was closed due to the Civil War, when most of the students and faculty lt to enlist. The campus was used as a training ground for the Confederate Army, and Old Main served as a hospital for Confederate wounded.

To commemorate Auburn s contribution to the Civil War, a cannon lathe used for the manufacture of cannons for the Confederate Army and recovered from Selma, Alabama, was presented to Auburn in 1952 by brothers of Delta Chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity.It sits today on the lawn next to Samford Hall.

2.Campus Arrangement

The Auburn campus is primarily arranged in a grid-like pattern with several distinct building groups. The northern section of the central campus (bounded by Magnolia Ave. and Thach Ave.) contains most of the College of Engineering buildings, the Lowder business building, and the older administration buildings. The middle section of the central campus (bounded by Thach Ave. and Roosevelt Dr.) contains the College of Liberal Arts (except fine arts) and the College of Education; mostly within Haley Center. The southern section of the central campus (bounded by Roosevelt Dr. and Samford Ave.) contains the most of the buildings related to the College of Science and Mathematics, as well as fine arts buildings.

Several erratic build spurts from the 1950s on have resulted in some exceptions to the subject clusters as described above. Growing interaction issues between pedestrians and vehicles led to the closure of a significant portion of Thach Avenue to vehicular traffic in 2004. A similarly sized portion of Roosevelt Drive was also closed to vehicles in 2005. In an fort to make a more appealing walkway, these two sections have be converted from asphalt to concrete. The general movement towards a pedestrian only campus is ongoing, but is often limited by the requirements for emergency and maintenance vehicular access.

The current period of ongoing construction began around the year 2000. All recently constructed buildings have used a more traditional architectural style that is similar to the style of Samford Hall, Mary Martin Hall, and the Quad dorms. The Science Center complex was completed in 2005. This complex contains chemistry labs, traditional classrooms, and a large lecture hall. A new medical clinic opened behind the Hill dorm area. Taking the place of the old medical clinic and a few other older buildings, is the Shelby Center for Engineering Technology. Phase I of the Shelby Center opened in the Spring of 2008, with regular classes being held starting with the Summer 2008 term. A new Student Center will open in 2008.

3.Student life

Housing

Auburn s initial Campus Master plan was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. For most of the early history of Auburn, boarding houses and barracks made up most of the student housing. Even into the 1970s, boarding houses were still available in the community. It wasn t until the great depression that Auburn began to construct the first buildings on campus that were dorms in the modern sense of the word. As the university gradually shifted away from agricultural and military instruction to more of an academic institution, more and more dorms began to replace the barracks and boarding houses.

Auburn s first dorms were hardly luxurious. Magnolia Dormitory, built in the 1950s and demolished in 1987, was once used by the state of Alabama in its dense against a lawsuit brought by state prison inmates. The inmates claimed that housing two men in a cell of particularly small dimensions constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The state argued in court that students at Auburn actually paid to live in even smaller living spaces at Magnolia Dorm. The inmates lost the case. Its twin , Noble Hall, used as a women s residence, was demolished only in 2005 and was condemned during at least the final year in which it was inhabited.

In the last twenty years, the city of Auburn has experienced a rapid growth in the number of apartment complexes constructed. Most Auburn students today live off-campus in the apartment complexes and condos, which surround the immediate area around the university. Less than 25 percent of Auburn students live on campus.

Auburn s on-campus student housing consists of four complexes located at various locations over campus -- The Quad , The Village , The Hill , and The Extension . The Quad is the oldest of the four, dating to the Great Depression projects begun by the Works Progress Administration and located in Central Campus. Made up of eleven buildings, the Quad houses undergraduate students. Nine of the buildings are coed by floor, the remaining two are female-only.

The Hill is made up of 14 buildings and is located in South Campus. The Hill houses mostly undergraduate women with the exception of the two high-rise dormitories (Boyd and Sasnett), which are coed by floor. All of the Hill dormitories house at least one sorority with their chapter rooms in the basement.

The Extension is a block of six buildings (labeled A, B, C, D, E, and F), each consisting of two-bedroom apartments, housing undergraduates.

The Village, formerly known as married student housing, recently housed a variety of students, to include undergraduates, graduates, and married students. In May 2006, this housing complex was closed to students and was demolished during the summer and early fall of 2006; however, it will be rebuilt in 8, 4-story buildings to accommodate 1,700 residents.The new Village is scheduled for completion in 2009.

Greek life

Greek associated students make up roughly 18 percent of men and 34 percent of women at Auburn.

Male Greeks in Auburn are roughly divided into two separate areas: Old Row and New Row. Old Row traditionally was made up of the fraternities whose houses were located along Magnolia Avenue on the north side of campus. New Row is made up of fraternities whose houses were located along Lem Morrison Drive southwest of campus. However, being an Old Row or New Row fraternity doesn t really depend on where the house is located but on the age of the fraternity. Therore, there are some Old Row fraternities with houses on New Row Lem Morrison Drive because they moved there. Today s Old Row on and around Magnolia Avenue was once the New Row, as the first generation of fraternity houses at Auburn were on or near College Street. Most of these houses were demolished by the end of the 1970s, and only two fraternity houses remain on College today.

There are sixteen sororities represented at Auburn University. Sorority recruitment is a week-long process held by the Panhellenic Council in August every year. Sororities are located not in individual houses like Auburn fraternities, but in the designated dorms located on the Hill. This has had the unintended side fect of keeping dues for these sororities among the lowest in the nation. Each dorm has a sorority chapter room within it for the sorority designated to that dorm.