Auburn University

Auburn University is a public land-grant university in Auburn, in Lee County [1][4]. It was chartered on February 1, 1856 as East Alabama Male College, opened in 1859, and was renamed Auburn University in 1960 after earlier names as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama and Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Its 2023 to 2024 enrollment was 33,015 students on a campus of 1,841 acres, and it is Alabama’s largest land-grant university [2][1]. Students and alumni are called the Auburn Family, the mascot is Aubie the tiger, and the colors are navy blue and burnt orange [1].

Founding

In 1854 leaders of Auburn and Greensboro asked the state Methodist conference to place a college in whichever town first pledged $100,000. By 1856 Auburn had raised $100,000 and Greensboro $300,000, and Greensboro received Southern College, later Birmingham-Southern College. The conference then agreed to found East Alabama Male College in Auburn, which was chartered on February 1, 1856 [1][3].

The college opened in October 1859 with one building, Old Main, a 51-member board of trustees and President William J. Sasnett, a Methodist minister. In its first term six professors taught 193 students, 113 of them in a preparatory department. The curriculum was classical, modeled on a Yale plan from 1828, and the first five bachelor’s degrees were awarded in July 1860 [1].

The Civil War and the land-grant school

The college closed in 1861 at the start of the Civil War, and Old Main served as a Confederate hospital from 1864 to 1865. It reopened in 1866 under President James F. Dowdell. The Methodist church transferred control to the state in 1872, when the legislature, guided by Sheldon Toomer and J. L. Pennington, chose it as Alabama’s land-grant college and renamed it the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama [3][1][5].

Land-grant mission

The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 gave Alabama 240,000 acres of federal land to fund an agricultural and mechanical college. The act required military science and useful arts such as agriculture and engineering, so students wore cadet-grey uniforms and followed military-style discipline. Presidents Isaac Taylor Tichenor, David French Boyd and William Leroy Broun led the shift over the objections of classicists. In 1882 Tichenor cut the required curriculum from four courses to two, agriculture and chemistry or mechanics and engineering [1][6].

Broun, who served in 1882 to 1883 and again from 1884 to 1902, created separate engineering and science departments, a pharmacy curriculum and the Agricultural Experiment Station under the Hatch Act of 1887, and he restored general studies. In 1899 the school became Alabama Polytechnic Institute, known as API [1].

Women and student life

Tichenor proposed admitting women in 1869, but the board refused until 1892, when women joined the student body. Fraternities began unofficially in 1878 and were recognized in 1885, and Lambda Chi Alpha built the first fraternity house in 1916. Smith Hall opened in 1921 as the first women’s dormitory, and a dean of women position was created in 1923. Football began in 1892, and the university is a charter member of the Southeastern Conference [1][3].

Extension and research

President Charles Coleman Thach (1902 to 1920) expanded the experiment station system and started what became the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. In 1909 Luther Noble Duncan and others began corn clubs for boys and canning clubs for girls, and by 1911 the USDA and the College of Agriculture created the Department of Agricultural Extension. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 provided matching funds for county agents, and the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 led API to train high school agriculture teachers [1]. Auburn co-manages the state’s extension system with Alabama A&M University, which places agriculture agents in each county [6].

Research facilities have included the Space Power Institute, the Center for Microfibrous Materials Manufacturing, the National Center for Asphalt Technology and the Forest Products Development Center [4]. The university owns and operates the 334-acre Auburn-Opelika Robert G. Pitts Airport near Opelika [3].

Depression, war and growth

Under Bradford Knapp the college added electrical engineering research and the School of Science and Literature, but by the end of 1932 it had gone ten months without paying salaries. Luther Noble Duncan, president for 12 years, used political connections to win Works Progress Administration funds for buildings. Enrollment fell from 3,752 in 1941 to 1,710 in 1943 while API trained more than 39,000 military personnel, including 10,000 on campus [1].

Enrollment rose from about 2,300 in 1945 to more than 8,000 in 1947, and students were housed in surplus tugboat cabins and a former prisoner-of-war camp in Opelika. After Duncan died in 1947, Ralph Brown Draughon oversaw the transition into a true university, creating a separate Athletics Department and Graduate Council, and the Draughon Library was built in 1963. The school became Auburn University in 1960. Harold Franklin, a graduate student, enrolled on January 4, 1964 as the university’s first African American student [1][3].

Modern Auburn

Harry M. Philpott, president from 1965, created five vice-presidencies and the School of Business and tripled extramural research funding. Auburn University at Montgomery was created in 1967 and began instruction in 1969. Jay Gogue, an Auburn graduate, became president in 2007 and added a College of Osteopathic Medicine and a School of Nursing. Auburn received a Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 2001, has been ranked among the nation’s top 50 public universities since the 1990s, and has graduated six NASA astronauts. In 2008 the College of Liberal Arts launched the online Encyclopedia of Alabama, which Auburn still hosts [1][4]. See Montgomery.

Campus and landmarks

The campus has 427 buildings, 206 of them academic, and the library holds about 5.3 million volumes. Landmarks include Samford Hall, Old Main, Smith Hall, Comer Hall, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art and the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center. The university has awarded more than 327,000 degrees since 1856 [2][1][3].

Athletics and traditions

The football program was organized in 1891 by professor George Petrie, and Auburn beat Georgia 10 to 0 on February 20, 1892 in Atlanta. Shug Jordan coached from 1951 to 1975 with a 176-83-6 record and an AP national championship in 1957. Pat Dye won 99 games and four SEC championships in 1981 to 1992, and Gene Chizik led the 2010 team to a national title with a 22 to 19 win over Oregon. Auburn has three Heisman winners: Pat Sullivan (1971), Bo Jackson (1985) and Cam Newton (2010) [7]. Jordan-Hare Stadium was completed in 1939 and expanded to 85,214 seats under Dye. The first Iron Bowl in Auburn was played on December 2, 1989, a 30 to 20 Auburn win; all earlier games were at Legion Field in Birmingham [7]. See University of Alabama and American football.

The swimming and diving program has won 13 NCAA and 23 SEC championships and produced more than 2,200 All-Americans. After football victories fans roll the oak trees at Toomer’s Corner with toilet paper; the original oaks were replaced in 2015 and rolling resumed in 2016. The marching band received the 2004 Sudler Intercollegiate Marching Band Trophy [1][3].

Notable alumni

Alumni include Apple chief executive Tim Cook, basketball player Charles Barkley, architect Paul Rudolph, writer Anne Rivers Siddons, Governor Kay Ivey, Governor William J. Samford, astronauts Jim Voss, Jan Davis and T. K. Mattingly, inventor Miller Reese Hutchison and Marine Corps Commandant Carl Epting Mundy Jr. [1][3].

FAQs

When was Auburn University founded? It was chartered on February 1, 1856 and opened in October 1859.

What was Auburn called before 1960? Alabama Polytechnic Institute, after earlier names East Alabama Male College and the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama.

How big is Auburn University? 33,015 students in 2023 to 2024 on 1,841 acres.

What is a land-grant university? A school founded under the Morrill Act of 1862 to teach agriculture, engineering and the useful arts.

Who are Auburn’s Heisman winners? Pat Sullivan (1971), Bo Jackson (1985) and Cam Newton (2010).

Sources

1. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Auburn University (AU)
2. Auburn University: About Auburn
3. BhamWiki: Auburn University
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Auburn University
5. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Auburn University (history summary)
6. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Land Grant Colleges in Alabama
7. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Auburn University Football

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 10, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue