5 minute read
Be the Creed
Be the Creed BE THE CREED // STUDENT I believe in the human touch, which cultivates sympathy with my fellow men and mutual helpfulness and brings happiness for all.
BY JEREMY HENDERSON
BRITTANY RANSOM
Junior Mechanical Engineering
Brittany Ransom considered Georgia Tech. She considered Vanderbilt. She chose Auburn because someone went the extra mile.
She’d come from Huntsville for an informal visit. She was wandering around the Shelby Center. She heard “hello.”
“I think he was a chemical engineering major,” she said. “He said, ‘I know no one is around to give campus tours right now, but I can give you one if you want.’ I left thinking, wow, Auburn really wants to see you succeed.”
For three years, that’s what Ransom has done. The mechanical engineering junior has landed more student organization leadership positions than you can count.
She’s currently vice president of the Auburn student chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, and the president of the Auburn chapter of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges Scholars Program.
But Ransom isn’t just padding her portfolio for kudos. She’s doing it to put herself in a position to go the extra mile — or miles.
“The buildings around us make us who we are,” she said. “I’ve heard of hospitals in other nations so poorly made that people sometimes get worse when they’re in the hospital. To be able to reinvent infrastructure there could really save an entire community.”
Listen to our podcast with Brittany Ransom at
eng.auburn.edu/ginning
I believe in education,
which gives me the knowledge to work wisely
and trains my mind and my hands to work skillfully.
BY CHRIS ANTHONY
KAI CHANG
Long before he was a professor, Kai Chang remembers his own days sitting in a college classroom, listening to a convoluted lecture in a logic circuits class. He recalls thinking, “Maybe I could do a better job explaining this.”
It wasn’t a stretch. Since joining Auburn’s computer science and software engineering faculty in 1986, Chang has garnered effusive praise from students for his engaging teaching style. “Interactive, funny and informative” is how one student described him in a course evaluation.
“Programming is not an easy concept,” Chang said. “And when you talk about all the details, sometimes it can be boring. So, I try to stir up interest in the students.” He does that through interesting examples and tying lectures back to Auburn sports and current events.
Now, after 35 years at Auburn, Chang is retiring in July. While his teaching has touched generations of Auburn students, his work as an administrator has also left an indelible mark.
As a former graduate program officer and department chair, Chang played a significant role in CSSE’s success in attracting female and minority students. It was a notable achievement when CSSE graduated 10 Black doctoral students in 10 years during the 2000s.
Now, as he looks back on his career and the department’s success, he sees CSSE well positioned to continue its diversification and ascent in the rankings.
“Auburn computer science and software engineering has a bright future,” Chang said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
I believe that this is a practical world
and that I can count only on what I earn.
Therefore, I believe in work, hard work.
BY AUSTIN PHILLIPS
KATIE HARDY
Building Manager Brown-Kopel Center
When the college opened the doors to the Brown-Kopel Center in August 2019, there was one person who was able to step up and take on the responsibility of managing the 94,000-square-foot student support facility: Katie Hardy.
For more than 20 years, Hardy has been a vital asset for Auburn University. For most of her time at Auburn, Hardy worked with the offices of Development in Planned Giving, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, College of Agriculture and the College of Engineering. While Hardy was working with engineering, she saw firsthand the commitment from alumni and donors to get behind the Brown-Kopel Center project, so she jumped at the chance to be the one who got to manage the building. “In the development office, we were raising funds for it so you got to see it come to life both from the ground and the programming aspect of it, and I just thought it would be a great transition from the development world when we open the doors of this place,” Hardy said.
But just seven months later, the entire purpose of the building to collaboratively bring students together was turned upside down when COVID hit in March 2020.
“The students have done a great job of adjusting to the COVID guidelines. It’s nice to see them coming in, obeying the rules, learning, studying and collaborating with others, even with the restrictions that we have,” she said.
Hardy has been a huge factor in the college’s ability to keep the building open and operating during the pandemic, and she’s looking forward to the day when all study rooms and tables in the atrium are full of engineering students, gathered around preparing for that next big test.
I believe in my Country, because it is a land of freedom
and because it is my own home, and that I can best serve that country by
BY LAUREN WINTON
NORM TEW ’82 and ’84
Electrical Engineering Boeing
Behind every great country exists a complex defense system to protect its people from foreign adversaries. Norm Tew, ’82 and ’84 electrical engineering, has served as the engineer behind many of the nation’s best defense systems.
Tew recently announced his retirement after more than 39 years in defensive weapons systems development, where he serves as the vice president and general manager of the Missile and Weapon Systems division of Boeing Defense, Space and Security.
Tew was one of the chief engineers and project managers who created the architecture for the United States’ ballistic missile defense system. These complex space and terrestrial-based systems ensure that all states, including Alaska and Hawaii, are protected.
“We can all sleep well at night knowing that we are protected all day, every day. Many people don’t know about the missile defense system we have in place, but hopefully just the fact that we have it is enough to deter our enemies from attack,” Tew said.
Tew got his start at Auburn Engineering, learning the complexities of control systems and applied physics and mathematics in his engineering classes.
“The things I learned at Auburn have a real-world application in the workforce,” Tew said. “Probability and statistics, control systems, programming … all of these courses and skills I learned at Auburn helped me to create complex, physics-based simulations. What I learned at Auburn allowed me to do what I do today.”
