Professor Richard Guthrie
2006: A Year of Historical Events for the College of Agriculture
I can recall my younger years when I thought that 150 years seemed like an eternity, but time flies so fast nowadays that I have to make myself stop regularly to appreciate what the College of Agriculture has achieved since becoming Alabama’s land-grant university.
Yes, 2006 marks Auburn University’s sesquicentennial. Although the land-grant designation was made official in 1872 and the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama became a reality at that time, our beginnings as a university started a few years earlier.
Funded by proceeds from the sale of land granted to the State of Alabama by the U.S. Congress in the Morrill Act of 1862, the A&M College became the core of a major comprehensive university that we now know as Auburn University. In 1883, the Alabama Legislature established an agricultural experiment station in the A&M College, and in 1887, Congress appropriated funds through the Hatch Act to support the work of the agricultural experiment station. The SmithLever Act authorized state cooperative extension programs in 1914 and Auburn was assigned the responsibility for extension programs by the state Legislature.
Remarkable progress has been made in agriculture and related areas as a result of the highly educated workforce produced by Auburn’s land-grant programs. Technological advances generated in the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and disseminated through Alabama Cooperative Extension System programs have enabled significant economic and social development throughout Alabama.
While the year 2006 marks the end of 150 years of progress, it marks the beginning of a major campaign to raise funds for Auburn University. The campaign kickoff, held on Feb. 3, 2006, coincided with festivities planned to celebrate the sesquicentennial. The College of Agriculture has set a $27.7 million goal for private giving that will take the college beyond any past campaign. Our CoAg development staff of Chris Gary, Mark Wilton and Katie Hardy has been hard at work and will continue working with the CoAg Campaign Committee and directly with potential donors to make this campaign highly successful.
I hope to see every one of you this year as we celebrate our heritage and build for a bright future for agricultural programs
–Richard Guthrie, CoAg Dean & AAES Director