- Establishment of Departments
- Select Historical Events
- Buildings of the College
- Historical Images of Auburn University
Establishment of Departments
Many of the subjects taught within the College of Liberal Arts have been at the core of Auburn University and its earlier names right from the foundation of the East Alabama Male College in 1856. Students almost 150 ago would study English, history, and modern and ancient languages. Over the years, other departments were added to this set, coming from other schools and colleges or separating themselves from existing departments. These changes reflect the way Auburn University and, in particular, the College of Liberal Arts and its predecessors, has always considered the need of its students first, giving them opportunities for learning wherever they wanted.
One of the earliest reports, from 1872, shows this commitment to the Liberal Arts in its request for faculty chairs in president and professor of moral philosophy, logic, history, rhetoric, and political economy; pure mathematics; natural sciences, including astronomy, metallurgy, mechanic arts, and civil engineering; chemistry, including agricultural and analytical geology and mineralogy; ancient and modern languages; mental philosophy, English language, and literature; agriculture, horticulture, and pomology; and commandant and teacher of military tactics and engineering. (Board Minutes, March 20, 1872.
http://www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/auhy/au%5Fpolitics.htm#selection)
Auburn’s commitment to the liberal arts in particular, specifically stated in the land-grant charter, is reflected in the formation of a “General Course” that all students have to take and that covers Latin, modern foreign languages (French, German, Spanish), and History. “These classes are taught in Langdon Hall by one professor. “I shall never forget my first year,” wrote George Petrie [Professor since 1887]. “I taught French, German, Latin, History and English…and had thirty-seven recitations a week.” Right from the beginning, then, did Auburn have (very small) departments of English, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, and History. In 1899, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama changed its name to Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Two years earlier, the cadet band was founded. It will take Auburn almost 50 years to get a Music Department established, but the musicians make the case frequently because the students who are members of the band have a hard time being good students and fulfilling their obligations to the band with its frequent performances.
Two other subjects make an early appearance: In 1913, the AU Theatre was founded with a department of its own by 1953. Psychology has been a department since at least 1914, when it was still called Mental Science.
A precursor of Criminology is founded in 1935 with the Department of Toxicology and Criminal Investigation. The end of World War II with its boom in enrollment sees the establishment of a Music Department and Dramatic Arts in 1945 with the School of Architecture and Fine Arts.
The department of Speech forms with its separation from English in 1951. It is responsible for the Speech and Hearing Clinic that was founded in the late 1940s to screen preschool children. The clinic allows the establishment of a new clinical training program in 1953, which will lead to the formation of the department of Communication Disorders in 1982.
In 1953, the department of Sociology is formed.
In 1963, the departments of Philosophy and Psychology are formed (although philosophy had been taught at Auburn since its beginnings).
In 1968 or 69, Political Science splits off History and forms its own department, and Psychology moves out of the College of Education into the College of Liberal Arts.
1987 sees the formation of the College of Liberal Arts and College of Science and Mathematics out of the split of the School of Arts and Sciences. With this split, the College of Liberal Arts gains a number of departments that were previously housed in other colleges and schools: Fine Arts, Theatre, and Music move out of the School of Architecture.
The most recent departmental development is the joining of Communications (formerly Speech) and Journalism into one department in 2000.