Auburn University (AU or Auburn

Auburn University  is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 25,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state. Auburn was chartered on February 7, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts school affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1872, the college became the state's first public land-grant university under the Morrill Act and was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. In 1892, the college became the first four-year coeducational school in the state. The curriculum at the university originally focused on arts and agriculture. This trend changed under the guidance of Dr. William Leroy Broun, who taught classics and sciences and believed both disciplines were important in the overall growth of the university and the individual. 

Website: http://www.auburn.edu/

Academics: Auburn has traditionally been rated highly by academic ranking services, and has been listed as one of the top 50 public universities for 20 consecutive years. The 2011 edition of U.S. News and World Reports ranks Auburn as the 82nd university in the nation among public and private schools and 37th among public universities. Auburn was the only college or university in Alabama included in the inaugural edition (1981) of the widely respected Peterson's Guides to America's 296 Most Competitive Colleges.

Auburn is a charter member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which is currently composed of 13 of the largest Southern public universities in the US and one private university, Vanderbilt. Among the other 12 peer public universities, only the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, and the University of Alabama are ranked ahead of Auburn in the 2011 edition of U.S. News & World Report. This high ranking and reputation for academic quality is in spite of the fact that Auburn's $378.6 million endowment is currently the second smallest of the 13 SEC universities. An attempt to increase the endowment by $500 million began in 2005 with the "It Begins at Auburn" campaign. As of August 2006, the campaign had raised $523 million, making it the largest campaign in university history.

SEC Academic Initiative:  Auburn University is a member of the SEC Academic Consortium. Now renamed the SECU, the initiative is a collaborative endeavor designed to promote research, scholarship, and achievement among the member universities in the Southeastern Conference. The SECU formed its mission to serve as a means to bolster collaborative academic endeavors of Southeastern Conference universities. Its goals include highlighting the endeavors and achievements of SEC faculty, students, and member universities and advancing the academic reputation of SEC universities.

In 2013, the Auburn University participated in the SEC Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia, which was organized and led by the University of Georgia and the UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute. The topic of the Symposium was "Impact of the Southeast in the World's Renewable Energy Future."

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 building spurts, beginning in the 1950s, 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 effort to make a more appealing walkway, these two sections have been 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.