ENHANCING TEACHING AND LEARNING

Auburn’s distinctive educational experience blends academic rigor and out-of- the-classroom learning. Your gifts through this campaign have furthered the Auburn experience by endowing faculty positions and chairs, enabling us to recruit and retain renowned teachers, mentors, and scholars in a fiercely competitive environment. You funded new areas of study that make our graduates more marketable and helped create new facilities with modern technology that sparks learning and accommodates new teaching styles.

76,347,933

AMOUNT RAISED

84

ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS

22

ENDOWED CHAIRS

Pioneering Supply Chain Research

Beth Davis-Sramek, Gayle Parks Forehand Professor in the Harbert College of Business, is a trailblazer. As the first woman to join the supply chain management team within the college’s Department of Systems and Technology, she is paving the way for the inclusion of women in this growing area of discovery and in business roles that women traditionally have not filled. On a broader scale, she is leading the expansion of supply chain management with research focusing on companies’ environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Global commerce depends on supply chains to move goods and to fuel competition, but there is an environmental cost involved. Davis-Sramek’s research explores how companies address the environmental impact of their supply chains and how to measure and minimize their global environmental footprint, while continuing to meet consumer demand.

A gift from Gayle Parks Forehand, a 1970 business administration graduate, and her husband, Joe, a 1971 industrial engineering graduate, created the endowed professorship that Davis-Sramek holds, providing the prestige and the resources necessary for her to forge new ground in her field.

Confronting Cyber Threats

The protection of our information, systems, and networks remains one of the nation’s greatest challenges. As a pioneer in artificial intelligence, machine learning, genetic algorithms, and evolutionary computation, Gerry Dozier, professor of computer science and software engineering, is committed to keeping our information secure. He holds a Charles D. McCrary Endowed Chair in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering which was instrumental in recruiting him back to Auburn after being away for 10 years. He previously served on the faculty at Auburn.

Dozier’s research in critical infrastructure protection is on the front lines of cyber defense, addressing public and private sector cyber threats that jeopardize national security. His work with experts at Auburn’s McCrary Institute for Critical Infrastructure Protection & Cyber Systems, including faculty members in Auburn Cyber Research Center, civil engineering, economics, and poultry science, provides simulations and strategies to safeguard critical infrastructures and individuals’ cyber identities and privacy.

The opportunity to do original research with exceptional colleagues through his endowed faculty position is allowing Dozier to continue his innovative work in the field of cyber protection. The McCrary Endowed Chair was created through a generous $10 million investment from the Alabama Power Foundation in 2014 to honor its retiring CEO Charles D. McCrary, a 1973 Auburn mechanical engineering graduate.

Rosephanye Powell

Rosephanye Dunn Powell, professor of voice in the Department of Music in the College of Liberal Arts and the Charles W. Barkley Endowed Professor, is internationally recognized as the most published and performed African-American female composer of choral music. Powell teaches courses in vocal pedagogy, art-song vocal literature, and applied voice. She also serves as the conductor of the Women’s Chorus, associate conductor for the Gospel Choir, and she conducts high school All-State and honor choirs throughout the country.

Former Auburn basketball star and NBA legend “Sir Charles” Barkley established the professorship to support the important role that faculty members play in the lives of Auburn students and to help recruit and retain underrepresented professors. The professorship is awarded to a faculty member with superior credentials in teaching, research, service in their disciplines, and a demonstrated commitment to promoting diversity.