We Died BravelyDean Hallmark

SPRING 2002 VOLUME 9 ISSUE 1

The LEGENDS of PINE HILL CEMETERY

n Italian marble statue of a small boy kneeling with a lizard in his lap haunts the south end of Pine Hill Cem-etery on Armstrong Street. Though not intentionally so, it is a startling image. Violence has cruelly touched this sweet memorial to a beloved child: the statue is headless. The child buried there is Charles Stodghill Miles, who was only eight years old in 1937 when he died from an allergic reaction to an insect bite. The statue has been the object of vandalism sev-eral times in the last 60 years, repeatedly being stolen and recovered. The head was never found, though, and, adding insult to injury, the marble child now kneels with an also-decapitated lizard in his lap. This story is just one of many Ann Pearson, president of the Auburn Historical Society, knows about Pine Hill Cemetery. Her bumper sticker says it all: “Member of the Association for Gravestone

Studies.” As an unofficial tour guide one afternoon, she wore a faded black T-shirt with white block letters that read, “Pine Hill Cemetery.” Mary Norman, vice president of the Heritage Association and chairman of the Auburn Historical Preservation Com-mittee, was her companion tour guide that day. The two women finished each other’s sentences and added bits and pieces to each other’s tales of the gravestones. Pearson and Norman gave a tour of the plots, relating the stories of each one as they ambled through the six acres of Pine Hill. As recently as 40 years ago, cows were the primary caretakers of Pine Hill. They knocked over gravestones and wandered about until Mollie Hollifield (buried in Pine Hill in 1963 and restorer of the 37th Alabama Infantry’s Regimen-tal Flag which now hangs in Ralph B. Draughon Library; and the first woman elected to the board of directors of

the First National Bank of Auburn) organized a walk to raise money for a fence at the property lines of the cemetery. Since then, the Auburn Historical Society has dedicated its efforts to a long-term restoration of Pine Hill, including its annual Lantern Tour in April. The residents of the cemetery come to life when Historical Society members and friends act the parts of some of the cemetery’s more colorful inhabitants. In appropriate costumes, the actors share their characters’ stories: some sweet, some funny, some disturbing. Groups are guided through the plots at dusk, their way lit by more than 600 luminaries. Several years before the Civil War, Judge John J. Harper of Harris County, Ga., founded a Methodist college in the still nameless community. His son was courting a 16-year-old named Lizzie Taylor, who happened to be reading Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, “The Deserted Village.” She suggested the name “Auburn” after the town in the poem. Judge Harper, his three sons, and Lizzie are buried in Pine Hill, but Lizzie’s grave is unmarked and where she actually lies is unknown. The veteran tour guides began walking toward the back fence of the cemetery, where a Confederate memorial stands. A mass grave containing 98 unknown Confederate soldiers fills the large, grassy area in front of it. “There are actually 70 known Confederate soldiers buried in Pine Hill,” Pearson said. Each has a distinct marker identifying them as members of the Confederate Army. Pearson explained that Samford Hall now stands where Old Main stood before it burned, and that Old Main had been used as a Red Cross hospital during the Civil War. The soldiers who died there were laid to rest in the mass grave in Pine Hill. A favorite character in the cemetery is William (Uncle Bil-ly) Mitchell, who died in 1856. He had an obsession with his

Editor’s Note: Auburn the city and Auburn the campus have always been inextricably linked. Student staffer Jenny Britain ’02 discovered just that during a recent visit to Auburn’s oldest cemetery, Pine Hill, which dates back to 1837.

16 AUBURN MAGAZINE

by Jenny Britain ’02

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The LEGENDS of PINE HILL CEMETERY

feather bed and loved to sleep so much that he requested to be buried in it. His grave is easily distinguishable; it is above ground and quite large. Uncle Billy and his bed are buried there—so legend says—with his house shoes underneath. Turning south and heading back toward the front gate, the two women paused at Jeff Wynn’s gravestone. Wynn was killed by a cousin in a hunting accident in 1859. For un-known reasons, his family did not mark his grave. Wynn’s slave and companion, Amos, was grieved by the omission and determined to save enough money to place a marker at Wynn’s grave. Amos became a well digger in town—earning $4 a well—and worked until he could afford a simple marker that reads “Jeff Wynn. Died July 26, 1859. By Amos Wynn.” Almost 100 years later, after Amos Wynn had been buried in Baptist Hill Cemetery (Auburn’s oldest separate black burial ground, on East Thach Avenue), Dr. Charles Glenn heard the story and paid for a granite marker at Amos’ grave. Pine Hill is a final resting spot for many of Auburn’s famous. Familiar names of streets and buildings—names of people who have shaped Auburn—can be found within the cemetery’s gates. Five of Auburn’s 15 presidents and George Petrie, author of the beloved “Auburn Creed,” lie there. Jethro Walker, a prominent Auburn lawyer and plantation owner, was buried in 1858 after being shot in the head while read-ing his Bible in the parlor of his home. Legend says his son was his murderer. John Bowles Glenn, chairman of the first Board of Trustees was buried in 1869; Dr. John Hodges Drake, buried at Pine Hill in 1926, was the college’s doctor for more than 50 years. His favorite “remedy” for truancy was requiring the so-called patient to swallow two large and potent laxative pills. Dr. Charles Allen Cary, the first dean and

professor of the South’s first School of Veterinary Medi-cine, was buried in 1935; Dr. Luther N. Duncan, Auburn’s ninth president and builder of Graves Amphitheater, died in 1947; Frances Duggar, buried in 1977, once made a citizen’s arrest of Athletic Director David Housel for double parking at the Auburn Post Office. Red and Luckie Thomas Meagher, buried in 1995, owned the Doll House, an eatery later called the Flush or the Sani-Freeze. Founders, creators, entrepre-neurs—all have found rest in Pine Hill. As Pearson said, “If I had to choose the most historical site left in Auburn, I’d pick Pine Hill because it is a microcosm of the city: prominent faculty members, businessmen, mayors, doc-tors, lawyers, merchants....” Toward the end of the tour, Pearson and Norman pointed out a lone headstone against a fence, almost hidden from view. Though countless slaves

are believed to be buried in Pine Hill, there is only one marked grave of a black per-son: Gatsy Rice, whose dates are unknown. The rest of the slaves were buried near Rice’s marker on the north end of the cemetery. After Rice was freed, she worked as a seamstress and ran a boarding house in downtown Auburn. She cooked for and sewed military uniforms for the college boys. “An anonymous white man paid for her marker because he admired her courage,” Nor-man said. Pearson and Norman finished the tour and headed their separate ways: two women whose lives come together from time to time within the gates of this historic burial ground. The whispers of history in the old cemetery, all the familiar names—Dowdell, Biggin, Dudley, Lupton, Drake, Broun—are irresistible. Pine Hill Cemetery is a trea-sury of Auburn’s dead—for Auburn’s living.

SPRING 2002 17

18     AUBURN MAGAZINE

by Jimmy Pemberton ’58

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It’s impossible to know for sure what thoughts were going through Lt. Robert Edward (Dean) Hallmark’s mind 60 years ago this spring, as he waited in the pi-lot’s seat of his twin-engine B-25 bomber to follow Col. Jimmy Doolittle off the swaying deck of the air-craft carrier USS Hornet on April 18, 1942. It’s likely, however, that, as he reflected on the path which had brought him to his own personal rendezvous with his-tory, he thought of his time at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API), where he had cut short a promising football career to join the Army Air Corps and pursue his dream of becoming a pilot.

Hallmark,  a  native  of Greenville,  Tex.,  entered API  from  Paris  (Tex.)  Ju-nior  College  in  1936  on  a football  scholarship.  His freshman  photo  in  the 1936  Glomerata  shows  a handsome,  serious-look-ing young man. He was an outstanding  lineman  on the 1936 freshman football team,  which  beat  Georgia Tech  and  Birmingham-

Southern in the only two games they played. His name is ref-erenced in that same Glomerata as an outstanding plebe on the team.

But Hallmark’s ambition was not focused on being a football star at Auburn. He intended to become a pilot, and with war threatening in Europe, he dropped out of Auburn in 1937 and later joined the Army Air Corps. In 1941, he was assigned as a member of pilot training class 41E in Ontario, Calif. His in-structor there was an old Auburn classmate and friend, Roland B. Scott ’38. After graduating from class 41E, Hallmark went on to Moffett Field, on the south end of San Francisco Bay, for basic training. After finishing there, he took advanced train-ing at Stockton, Calif., where he received his pilot’s wings. He went on to specialized B-25 training, and later, joined Doo-little’s small group of B-25 aircrew training for a highly secret 

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raid on Japan.

Hallmark would have had little enough time to reflect that day, as he and his fellow pilots prepared to take the war to the Japa-nese homeland for the first time in a raid that was as much for public relations purposes as military ones. The mission was coming just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, at a time when U.S. morale badly needed a boost. The forces of Amer-ica and its allies in the Pacific war had been taking a beating ever since the sneak attack. Everywhere—from the Philippines and Wake Island to Singapore and the Dutch East Indies—the seemingly invincible forces of the Rising Sun were ascendant. 

Desperate for a victory, President Franklin Roosevelt force-fully expressed a desire to bomb Japan, just as soon and as hard as possible. The attack would be primarily  for psychologi-cal reasons, providing a boost for sagging U.S. morale and a wake-up call for the Japanese government, which had assured 

its citizens that the island nation was beyond the Allies’ reach. In response to Roosevelt’s wishes, a Navy officer named Fran-cis S. Low came up with the idea of launching lightly loaded B-25 Mitchell bombers from a carrier. 

The idea was extremely risky, as the B-25 was considerably larger than any aircraft previously launched from a carrier. But the Mitchell was the only plane in the U.S. arsenal small enough to fit on a carrier’s deck, yet with the range needed to allow the ships to successfully evade detection and escape after the launch. Even so, the mission would be one-way. The planes could not return to land on the carrier that launched them, meaning the crews would have to take their chances 

on  overf lying  Japan,  land-ing in China, and seeking out friendly  Chinese  soldiers  or partisans to help them evade the Japanese and link up with American forces.

On April 2, 1942, the Hor-net  (CV-8)  and  her  escort 

stood out of San Francisco Bay, her deck crammed with 16 B-25s,  the maximum number  it could accommodate. The carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) would later join the small task force to provide defensive cover, since the Hornet was unable to launch its own Wildcat fighters. The mission plan called for the Hornet to steam within 400 miles of Japan, so that Doo-little could take off so as to arrive over Tokyo just at sunset and drop his four incendiary bombs on a factory complex in the center of the city. The other 15 B-25s would then take off later, and, using the fires of Doolittle’s attack, strike their own targets. But, as simple as the plan was, it didn’t work.

The Japanese had strung a line of picket boats 650 miles offshore, and the Hornet and its escorts brushed across three of these boats in quick succession. One was sunk, but it was feared  that  a  second  boat  had  gotten  off  a  radio  message prior to being destroyed by gunfire. As a result, the original 

s the 16 B-25s—packed tightly nose to tail—sat idling on the deck of the Hornet, it was time to see if the months of intense training and planning would be worth it.A

rounding Doolittle’s  takeoff. “We watched him  like hawks, wondering what the wind would do to him and whether we could get off in that little run to the bow. If he couldn’t, we couldn’t.

“Doolittle picked up speed and held to his line, and, just as the Hornet lifted up on a wave...Doolittle’s plane took off. He had yards to spare. He hung his ship [plane] almost straight up on its props, until we could see the whole top of his B-25. Then 

he leveled off and I watched him come around in a tight circle and shoot low over our heads.” 

Each B-25 had a crew of five airmen: pilot, copilot,  engineer-gunner,  bombardier,  and navigator. This equated to a total of 80 air-men for the 16 B-25s used in the raid. The tail guns had been removed from the planes to further reduce weight, leaving the aircraft with precious little defensive firepower should they meet fighter opposition over the target. 

Surprise, therefore, was critical.

Hallmark’s B-25, dubbed the “Green Hornet” by its crew, took off sixth in line and set off just over the wave tops on the flight to Tokyo, where its target was a steel mill and industrial complex. Arriving over the target in the company of two oth-er B-25s, the “Green Hornet” encountered some antiaircraft fire, but made two runs over the target, dropping its four 500-lb. bombs on the surprised Japanese. Once the bombs were re-leased, Hallmark turned his Mitchell toward China and com-parative safety, but the fuel situation already looked grim. 

FALL 2001    47SPRING 2002  21

plan was junked and Task Force Commander Capt. Marc Mitscher ordered the B-25 crews to man their planes early, while the carriers were still 600 miles from the target. The extra 200 miles would stretch the range of the B-25s, and jeopardize their plans to land at designated Chinese airfields, but, with the Japanese possibly alerted, the precious carriers might be in grave peril if they steamed any closer. Col. Doo-little launched at 0815 hours, 18 April, 1942. The rest of the planes were right behind him.

During  training, every pilot had  learned to  take off at 60 knots within the length of a carrier deck—about 1,000 feet, marked off on a land airstrip—at a gross weight of 27,000 pounds. On this day, they took off in 350 feet into a 40-knot wind loaded with 31,000 pounds. Such a takeoff was theo-retically possible, but no one knew if it would actually work until Doolittle led the squadron off the deck. As pilot of the lead plane, the colonel had the shortest amount of deck space to take off in and the smallest margin for error.

Writing later in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, a memoir of the raid, raider pilot Ted Lawson, recalled the suspense sur-

he 16 special B-25s on the Hornet’s deck had been modified to carry 1,141 gallons of fuel (460 more than standard) and other special equipment.

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Carolina Pigeon or Turtle Dove, No. 4, Plate 17 American Sparrow Hawk, No. 29, Plate CXLII

Black-billed Cuckoo, 1828

The other 15 bombers in the raid hit Tokyo and four other cities, causing slight damage, but shocking Japanese leaders and civilians who had thought U.S. forces couldn’t reach their country from American bases. Each aircraft then set its own individual course for the Chinese coast, where each crew faced its own personal struggle for survival. Doolittle and 66 others came down in unoccupied China or the USSR, and eventu-ally made their way back to U.S. forces. Five of the 80 airmen drowned or were killed when they bailed out of stricken air-craft. And eight, including Hallmark and two of his crew, were captured in China.

“Both motors cut out about the same time,” recalled naviga-tor Lt. Chase J. Nielsen in testimony after the war. “The left wing hit the water first and severed the wing off right up close to the fuselage, and, as the fuselage hit, it split open all the way 

down to the bottom. The pilot [Hallmark] was thrown from his chair right out through the windshield. The gunner was still in his turret and went down. He said he thought he was about 20 fathoms deep but he finally got out.... We all finally got out of the plane and got the life raft out. Our life raft wouldn’t work and the bombardier and gunner were pretty badly beaten up.” 

The  most  seriously  injured  crewmen,  Sgt.  Donald  E. Fitzmaurice, the gunner, and Cpl. William J. Dieter, the bom-bardier, both drowned trying to swim ashore. Their bodies were later buried on the beach by Hallmark, Lt. Robert Meder, the copilot, and Lt. Nielsen, the navigator. Hallmark, who had 

survived going through the plane’s wind-shield on impact with the water, and Med-er had also been injured in the crash and could barely walk. 

The three survivors of the “Green Hor-net” encountered Chinese guerrillas, who worked  them  down  the  coast  for  three days to Wanchow, but they were unable to escape the Japanese dragnet. A large pa-trol of approximately 300 Japanese troops 

searched the village where  they were hiding and eventually flushed them out. The trio was taken to Shanghai, where they quickly discovered their ordeal had just begun.

he troubles for Hallmark and his crew began when they ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea off the China coast.T

Years later, testifying before a war crimes tribunal, Nielsen re-called some of the particulars of their treatment.

“They pushed me over to a wall and raised my arms above my head. There was a stout wooden peg in the wall that I hadn’t no-ticed before. They boosted me up and hung me...by the chain on my handcuffs. When they let me go my toes just barely touched the floor, but not enough to ease the strain on my arms. In a few minutes, the pain in my wrists was so intense that I was almost sick to my stomach.... My left arm that had been injured in the airplane crash was swollen and looked like it was getting blood poison in it. I don’t know how long I hung there before I passed out.” 

Hallmark and his surviving crew members weren’t the only ones undergoing such treatment. The crew of the No. 16 air-plane had bailed out over the Japanese-occupied city of Nan-chang, and all five had been captured immediately. After sev-eral days of brutal questioning, the No. 16 crew and the three survivors of the No. 6 [Hallmark] crew were flown to Tokyo for further questioning, although the Japanese already knew all the details of the mission, having retrieved documents from some of the crashed B-25s. 

They remained in the Japanese capital until mid-June, while the constant torture, solitary confinement, lack of medical treat-ment, and poor diet took a terrible toll. Hallmark and several other prisoners were coerced into signing statements in Japanese, not  realizing  that  the  statements were actually “confessions” in which they admitted to acts of terror, such as the intentional strafing of schools and bombing of residential neighborhoods, against civilians.

On June 18, the prisoners were put aboard a ship and sent back to Shanghai. There, they continued to live in terrible conditions for the next 70 days. All the men had dysentery and were suffer-ing from the early stages of beriberi. Hallmark, who had never recovered from wounds to his legs suffered in the plane crash, was in the worst condition of all. By late August, when the pris-oners found they were to be tried for war crimes, the once strap-ping Auburn lineman could no longer even stand. 

Taken to the courtroom on a stretcher, Hallmark was delirious during most of the proceedings. Not that it would have mattered. “When we realized that this was a trial of some sort, we asked for a translation, but this was refused,” recalled Lt. Robert Hite, the copilot of plane 16, in post-war testimony. “We were not told what the charges against us were or what our sentences were. No interpretation was made to us of any part of the proceedings.”

The verdict did not become totally clear until Oct.14, when Hallmark—by then very near death—was moved to solitary con-finement and informed that he and two crewmen from plane 16 were to be executed the next day. Each was allowed to write one 

or three days, Hallmark, Meder, and  Nielsen were questioned and tortured  by their captors.F note home. Hallmark’s  letter was directed to 

his father, mother, and sister in Dallas. He told them he had dreamed of being a commercial pilot after the war, and asked that they pray for him.

“I hardly know what to say,” he wrote. “They have just told me I am liable to execution. I can hardly believe it...I am a prisoner of war and I thought I would be taken care of until the end of the war.”

In public cemetery No. 1, just outside Shanghai, three white wooden crosses stood low to the ground. Late on the after-noon of Oct. 15, the three prisoners were brought in a truck with several guards, even though they could barely move be-cause of illness. Each was tied, marked on the forehead, blind-folded, and forced to kneel with their backs to the crosses and arms tied. 

The Japanese prison warden, Sgt. Sotojiro Tatsuta, made a short speech to the condemned, according to his own post-war testimony. “Men must die sooner or later,” he told them. “Your lives were very short but your names will remain ever-lastingly.” The prisoners asked Tatsuta to “tell the folks back home we died bravely.”

With  the  preliminaries  complete,  two  soldiers  from  the small firing squad aimed at each prisoner. At the signal to fire, shots rang out and the men died instantly. A quick check by medical officers confirmed their deaths and the bodies were immediately taken to be cremated. Some weeks later, the urns holding the men’s ashes were moved to the International Fu-neral Home in Shanghai, where they remained until the end of the war. Discovered after the war, they were returned to the U.S. and buried with full military honors in Arlington Na-tional Cemetery. The prisoner’s unmailed letters home were discovered after the war in the files of the Japanese Ministry of War. 

Within two years of the deaths of Hallmark and his fellow raiders, American B-29 Superfortresses of the 20th Air Force followed the path blazed to Tokyo and other Japanese cities and dropped  their bombloads with devastating—and war-ending—effect. Hallmark and the other executed and impris-oned Tokyo raiders were avenged many times over. In the end, the Japanese reaped the terrible results of the total war which they had initiated.

And  Dean  Hallmark,  despite  his  short  time  at  Auburn, proudly wearing the orange and blue, left a legacy of patrio-tism, honor, bravery, and sacrifice for the Auburn family that is hard to match.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I relied heavily on excellent material from the following two references in compiling this story: November-December 1987 The Auburn Alumnews, “Remembering a Fall-en Hero, Close Friend” by Roland B. Scott ’38; Air Classics, volume 28, number 8, August 1992, “Return to Tokyo” by Michael O’Leary. 

FALL 2001    47SPRING 2002  23

44     AUBURN MAGAZINE

EDITOR’S NOTE: Alumni and friends are often called up-on to help address Auburn’s pressing budget needs, but are sometimes confused and frustrated as to where the university’s funding comes from and how it is spent. At  the suggestion of Interim President William F. Walker,  Auburn Magazine invited AU Executive Vice President Don Large ’75 to share his perspective on Auburn’s financial condition, outlook, and priorities.

AM: Briefly characterize Auburn’s current financial status, along with whatever steps or developments you feel had the greatest impact on that status.

DL: Interestingly, Auburn’s current financial status can be viewed from two perspectives. From one perspective, our financial status is considered very strong. Actually, [Au-burn is fiscally] the strongest university in the state based on a recent review by Moody’s Investor Service. From a per-spective of dollars per student for carrying out our mission, however, we do not compare favorably to our peer group. Auburn’s state appropriations per student are approximate-ly $2,500 less than the average of our southern peer institu-tions. Additionally, we charge about 10 percent—or about $400—less per year for tuition than our southern peer insti-tutions. When you consider that these two sources make up approximately 90 percent of our unrestricted operating rev-enues, you begin to see the challenges we face with respect to funding our programs and facilities. 

As to steps or developments impacting the current finan-cial strengths noted by Moody’s, a couple of thoughts come to mind.  In the early 1990s the trustees and administra-tion recognized that financial support from the state would 

24     AUBURN MAGAZINE

likely be insufficient to maintain or grow all the programs and services that had evolved during the ’70s and ’80s.  The same was true, incidentally, for universities across the country.  

The Board directed that the university begin a new stra-tegic planning process to review all aspects of the institu-tion and develop plans and priorities to face the challenges of the 21st century. This effort involved several commit-tees and commissions, with participation of the adminis-tration, faculty, staff, students, Alumni and Foundation Board members, and trustees. The two primary vehicles for recommending changes were the Twenty-First Cen-tury Commission, operating from 1992 to 1997, and the Commission on the Role of Auburn University in the Twenty-First Century, operating from 1998 to 1999. Al-though a number of other actions also have contributed to our current financial strength, these actions were the most instrumental in focusing resources, prioritizing our goals, and developing future-focused strategies.

AM: What effect have developments such as the events of Sept. 11 and the economic downturn nationally had on Auburn’s financial condition and near-term future out-look?

DL: The financial effects of Sept. 11 on Auburn have been significant from at least two key perspectives.  The im-pact on the state economy, which ultimately creates funds to support appropriations to Auburn, has been impacted negatively, thus, reducing our revenues from the state. The university’s endowments have also experienced some 

SPRING 2002  25

Bachman’s Warbler, No. 37,

market declines consistent with those of many others in the equities market.  Fortunately, most of the market downturn has been recovered.

AM: Alumni and friends are often con-fused by what they perceive as mixed messages regarding Auburn’s financial condition and its critical funding needs.  Can you clear up some of that confusion?

DL: The confusion likely relates to the question just discussed. The bottom line is that we do not have nearly the same dollars per student for operations as our peers, but we have managed to do rather well with what we have been provided in terms of quality, productivity, and effi-ciencies. While we have come a long way with inadequate funding, it will be dif-ficult to continue to prosper without ad-ditional revenues, probably from private sources.

AM: Critics have often pointed to the en-dowments of Alabama’s colleges and uni-versities as evidence that higher education 

institutions have more money to spend than they admit and are, in effect, hoarding funds. Talk about the role Auburn’s endowment plays and the restrictions regarding its use.

DL: Endowments are often misunderstood—or in some cases—misrepresented for political purposes. Endowments are gifts provided to the university to be held in perpetuity and generally are restricted for use based on the donor’s in-tent. While endowments enhance a university’s opportuni-ties and are critical to its overall quality, these types of gifts are rarely available for general operating purposes because of their restricted nature. To give a concrete example, if the state were to prorate Auburn’s budget by 2 percent in the remainder of this fiscal year, we couldn’t just go to endowment funds to make up the $4 million shortfall, because our en-dowment funds are restricted to other uses. 

AM: Compare the fiscal operation of  the university with  that of a  large corporation or business.  What are the dif-ferences, similarities, challenges, and pitfalls inherent in such a comparison?

DL: Colleges and universities differ from other organiza-tions in many ways, but the most important ones revolve around values and goals. The mission of a college or uni-versity is to create public and private benefits—that is why higher education receives tax benefits and subsidies. Fi-nancial considerations are important, but they never rep-resent the core goals for which the institution exists. Aca-demic institutions can be leveraged, merged, or liquidated, but they cannot be bought, sold, or taken public or private like stock corporations. Their real goals are highly intangi-ble, involving improvements to human capital and the cre-ation of new knowledge. Business and financial goals must be designed to support the overriding academic goals. This is challenging, because goals do stem from intangibles and many constituencies are often part of or claim representa-tion in decision-making processes.

Much of the value of higher education’s benefits lies in the eye of the beholder.  There are a multitude of “behold-ers,” both inside and outside academia, and many have the inclination and capacity to influence institutional behavior.  It is not surprising, therefore, that colleges and universities must deal with high levels of conflict—levels higher than usually are encountered in or-ganizations with more homoge-neous goals. 

AM: Auburn has traditionally received less funding per student than most other colleges and universities in Alabama. What impact has this under-funding had on the university’s budget trends?

DL: This funding continues to challenge the university to focus its resources and priorities 

and avoid mission drift. Even with these actions, we continue to be chal-

lenged with paying our faculty at competitive salary levels 

and addressing our many deferred  maintenance needs. The fact we are funded relatively lower than our sister institu-tions in the state has forced us to make very difficult decisions and 

cuts  earl ier  than  the other institutions.

26     AUBURN MAGAZINE

AM: In recent years, Auburn has become increasingly more of a state-assisted, rather than state-supported, insti-tution. Can you elaborate on this trend and the effect it has had on the university’s budgeting process?

DL: During  the decade of  the eighties, there were few changes in the relative percentage distri-butions of our various revenue sources. However, during the past 10 years, a significant reduction in the reliance on state appropria-tions, and a significant increase in the relative contribution of stu-dent tuition and fees to the total revenues of the university has oc-curred. State appropriations in the last 10 years have decreased from 44 percent to 34 percent of 

total revenues, while tuition and fees have increased from 15 percent to 25 percent. As a result, in Alabama, as in most states, families are having to absorb more of the cost of a college education.

AM: How does Auburn’s current financial status compare to that of other comparable universities in the state? Re-gion? Nationally?

DL: The university’s strong financial position is affirmed by its bond ratings. In October of 2001, Moody’s per-formed an assessment of the financial strength of Auburn and upgraded the university’s bond rating. Our current Aa3 rating is higher than any other academic institution in Alabama, and matches the bond rating for the State of Alabama. This rating places us in the same company as the University of South Carolina, the University of Kentucky, and North Carolina State, for example.

According to Moody’s, “the stable outlook on all univer-sity bonds reflects...expectations of continued enrollment and financial resource growth, as well as maintenance of current sound financial management practices.” A lot of this success has to be credited to the strong fiscal oversight of the trustees during the nineties. They often had to make tough decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resourc-es. The high quality of our faculty and the repu-tation of Auburn as a result also contrib-uted greatly to Moody’s positive view of our future. 

AM: Auburn has traditionally lagged behind other peer universities in the amount of tuition it charges.  Is this still the case?  What long-term trends do you foresee in terms of tuition?

DL: Yes, Auburn has and continues to lag behind other peer institutions in the amount of tuition it charges (ap-proximately $1,600/semester for in-state students). We are currently at about 90 percent of the regional average. The trustees have approved a goal of moving in a system-atic manner toward 100 percent of the average. We hope to reach this average within the next two years.

AM: Auburn has utilized the services of a number of con-sultants, attorneys, and specialists in recent months for purposes such as developing a master plan for campus, rec-ommendations with regards to a presidential search, and a study of the university’s communications efforts. How do expenditures for such services fit into the university’s bud-geting process?

DL: Two factors come to mind that most influence the uni-versity’s use of consultants or outside assistance. First, by any measure, Auburn’s administrative structure is thin. You would expect this with the dollars per student on which the university is operated. Second, we are increasingly in an age of specialization, where it would be inefficient to make permanent hires to provide us with the expertise needed to address the multifaceted issues that the university faces from time to time. As a result, the university has turned to specialized outside expertise under certain situations. Each situation has its own decision points with the value of  po-tential benefits weighed against anticipated costs.

As to the reference to the Master Plan, this was a critical and forward-thinking decision of the trustees. With hun-dreds of millions of dollars in construction needs and plans over the next 10 to 20 years and the desire to evolve Auburn into a more pedestrianized campus, this decision was an ex-cellent one, I believe. Many other institutions have wisely done similarly. My only regret is that this decision was not made sooner.

As to the study of the university’s communication ef-forts, I recommended to Dr. [former President William V.] Muse that we seek a review of our current communications 

structure. What we have now remains similar to the structure of 20 years ago, while 

the world has changed  rather dramatically. Both Dr. Muse 

and I believed the universi-ty’s future structure and strategic initiatives in this area would be in-strumental in Auburn’s continued success. As 

a result, we engaged a 

FALL 2001    47SPRING 2002  27

national communications firm with significant experience in higher education to advise us in this area. Significant enhancement opportunities were identified and are being implemented.

As to assistance with the presidential search, the trustees received a great deal of input from various constituencies indicating a need to delay a national presidential search. There was a general feeling that a number of matters or is-sues needed to be addressed before a search could be suc-cessfully initiated. Accordingly, the trustees engaged a nationally renowned consultant in the area of presidential searches to advise them how to best proceed given the input they were hearing.

As to how these decisions fit into the budgeting process, the university has historically allocated funds on a yearly basis to address emerging needs or requirements and has historically turned to outside assistance for certain special-ized areas in lieu of attempting to staff the university with such expertise.  Additionally, perhaps some perspective of these expenditures to the budget might be helpful. The consulting arrangements just discussed [master plan, pres-idential search, communications] crossed over two fiscal years and combined will exceed slightly more than a half million dollars. Budgeted expenditures during that same two-year period amounted to approximately $1.1 billion. 

AM: What is the relationship between the university bud-get and the Auburn athletics budget?  Do the two overlap or complement each other in any way?

DL: Athletics, consistent with our other auxiliaries, such as Housing, Dining, Bookstore, etc., is budgeted separately, but included in the overall university budget documents. Each auxiliary, including Athletics, is expected to cover all its expenses by way of the revenues it generates, and each auxiliary does accomplish this requirement.

AM: What role does federal funding play in the Auburn budget? How are such funds distributed, and where, other than funding for research, do federal monies play a major role?

DL: Federal funding plays a significant role in Auburn’s budget and in the overall quality of the institution.  Much of the federal funding is for contract- and grant-related research and, as such, the funds are restricted for the pur-poses provided. While these funds do not necessarily help in the daily operations of the university, they are critical to its overall success, reputation, and quality. We have been fortunate in recent years in receiving great help from Sen. Richard Shelby in this area of funding.

AM: What role does private support currently play in Au-burn’s budgeting strategies, and what role do you see it play-ing in the future?

DL: Private support, similar to that of federal support, is critical to the university’s success, quality, and reputation. Private funding usually provides enhancement opportuni-ties for the university in areas such as scholarships, profes-sorships, capital needs, and other critical areas. Because of the restricted nature of most gifts, however, they do not necessarily provide operational relief for the budget. Private support is essential, though, in moving the university for-ward to national prominence.

AM: What is the university’s current number one funding priority...and why?

DL: The university’s current number one funding prior-ity is faculty and employee salaries in general. The trustees have recognized this and challenged the administration to find ways to reach regional averages as quickly as possible. Currently, for instance, Auburn faculty salaries are at ap-proximately 90 percent of the regional peer average. We simply must do better in this area.

SPRING 2002 43

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following excerpt is from a new book, First House, that focuses on the early careers of a number of acclaimed architects who studied at Harvard University in the ’40s, among them the late Paul Rudolph ’40. Author and New York City architect Christian Bjone explores Rudolph’s unique early work, some of which can still be seen in and around Auburn. Rudolph went on to a brilliant career that included the chairman-ship of the Architecture Department at Yale University, where the Art and Architecture building he designed is considered a monument of the period. His life came full circle in the 1990s when he was asked to design Auburn University’s new Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art. Sadly, he died in 1997 before beginning that work. Published in the United Kingdom this spring, First House will be available in the U.S. in July.

Paul Rudolph in 1954

44 AUBURN MAGAZINE

In 1940, Auburn, Alabama, had a population of 8,297 souls.

The reason for the town’s existence was the Alabama Poly-technic Institute (later renamed Auburn University), a school with a strong identity relating to its engineering department and collegiate sports, secondarily to its School of Architecture.

Paul Marvin Rudolph’s career began here, with an undergradu-ate degree and a unique senior project, an opportunity to build a house that he designed as his “first house.” Professor T. P. At-kinson of the University’s Foreign Languages Department commis-sioned the young Rudolph, age 22, for an improvement on his property in a leafy resi-dential neighborhood corner lot. The house was a one-story brick building incorporating some then unheard of technical innovations such as central heating, corner windows, and a copper standing seam roof.(2)

It was labeled by many of the town’s residents as a “builder’s house” due to its similarity to local builders’ advertisements in the 1950s. It is also possible to compare this first house with a series of similar houses designed by Walter Gropius, who would later become Rudolph’s teacher at Harvard.

In 1930, while still in Germany, Gropius proposed prefabricated house designs for the Hirsch Copper and Bronze Works that, at f irst glance, look amaz-ingly similar to the Atkinson house.(3) This is not to suggest that Rudolph knew of this distant German precedent—three examples of the Gropius houses were displayed in America in 1931(4) —but only that this unique similarity indicates both were trying to deal with the same problem—a rationalization of the forms of Frank Lloyd Wright. The even modules of the pre-fabricated copper wall panels and the use of the one-window types in the Gropius building occurs again in

Rudolph’s copper roof seams and the equal hor izontal ly banded casement windows—all of it put together to produce the hip roofs and banded windows characteristic of Wright’s early Chicago work.

We know Gropius had ad-mired the Wasmuth Portfolio of Wright’s work published in Germany in 1917 and Rudolph had seen the prairie school houses of Wright when he vis-ited the Columbia Exposition of 1933 in Chicago, also illus-trating some Wright buildings in his senior thesis paper.

That 1940 student paper by Rudolph titled Glass in Ar-

chitecture and Decoration illustrates Wright’s Falling Water, Gropius’ social housing, Neutra’s California houses, art deco mirrors, and eclectic crystal chandeliers. The illus-trations of this student report summarize the true visual interests of the author; the first would be admiration of the great men of modern architecture and the second would be a love of the decorative richness of geometric design.

These interests are highlighted by the one major item on the interior of Rudolph’s first built design: the ornamental mural. [Auburn’s] 1940 catalogue of classes for the first semester of fourth-year architecture studies has required class no. 447: “Mural Design,” a class Rudolph most cer-tainly took and utilized in his first building. (5)

The existing carved homosote (a new building material of the time) mural covers the top half of the freestanding central rectangular masonry fireplace, measuring six feet high by 10 feet long on one side. The subject of the mural seems to be young men on a tropical beach struggling with a diagonally patterned fishing net.

The figures are in outline scribed into the homosote in a V-shaped groove. The space surrounding them is filled entirely with a patterned surface, also inscribed. These

“The things that I thought yesterday I no longer feel.

New ‘truths’ have presented themselves, making great principles of

six months ago ridiculous.Perhaps I am young, and some day will

come to a true understanding:perhaps I will always search and

never find a base upon which to build.”Paul Rudolph, 1940, from the foreword of

his senior thesis, Glass in Architecture and Decoration (1)

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him...For this my son was dead, and is alive again,

he was lost, and is found.Luke 15:22, 24

(1) Rudolph, Paul (1940) Glass in Architecture and Decoration, senior thesis for the School of Architecture, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, unpaginated foreword.

(2) Howy, John (1995) The Sarasota School of Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, p. 29.

(3) Nerdinger, Winfred (Ed.) (1990) Walter Gropius Archives volume 2, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Garland Publishers Inc. and Harvard University Art Museum, New York, pp. 237-57.

(4) Herbert, Gilbert (1984), The Dream of the Factory-made House, Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsman, MIT Press.

(5) Alabama Polytechnic Institute 1939-1940, catalogue number announcements for 1940-1941, Department of Architecture, p. 85.

FALL 2001 47SPRING 2002 45

patterns suggest the f lowing waves of the ocean beyond. The waves are abstracted to a continuous series of concen-tric circles, swirls, and spirals with radiating lines. These patterns are the stylistic signature of Rudolph’s later work. This graphic motif can be seen in the abstract representa-tion of water in many of his site plans and as diagrams of spatial f low. The preference for repeated linear-scribed patterns can be seen in the textures of the exterior cladding

of his buildings: from bush-hammered concrete to split- face block.

A lthough Rudolph had gone on to do other wall art, such as the polished metal mural (the same pattern as the f ishing net previously described) in his Singapore office lobby and other art such as the 1967 “Nude Bill Board” photomural in his New York City apartment bedroom, the Atkinson mural shows an amazing visual agility for a be-ginning designer.

Not more than 200 yards north of the Atkinson house is the second Rudolph building in Auburn: the Applebee residence. This building was designed in 1954, built in 1955, and published in 1956. Professor Frank W. Applebee was head of the school’s Applied Art Department for many years, including the time Rudolph was an undergradu-ate. His invitation to Rudolph to design his home marked

Rudolph’s return to his alma mater as a recognized profes-sional. (6)

This new building is a good indication of his ability to synthesize the effects he admired most in the great men of modern architecture. Rudolph wrote in 1977: “The International Stylists, especially Le Corbusier, had exten-sively explored the inside, outside, topside, and bottomside

relationships of a building presented simultaneously and Frank Lloyd Wright had investigated the potentials of ar-chitectural space and light more than any other architect of the twentieth century. It has often been my goal to wed the programmatic and spatial concepts of the International Style to Wright’s more suitable handling of interior volumes of space.” (7)

The design is an International Style symmetrical rect-angular prism with the public functions in the center and the private bedrooms at the ends. The ends are articulated

(6) Anon (1956), Cantilevers Create Multi-level Interest: House for F. Applebee, Auburn, Alabama, Architectural Record, mid -May, pp. 200-01.

(7) Rudolph, Paul (1977) Architecture and Urbanism, “100 by Paul Rudolph/ 1946-74,” p. 4.

Rudolph’s “flying boxcar”

house in Auburn

46 AUBURN MAGAZINE

Carolina Pigeon or Turtle Dove, No. 4, Plate 17

Black-billed Cuckoo, 1828

Baltimore Oriole, No. 14-4, Plate 217, 1860

as completely cantilevered from the main building. The plan concept can be seen as a simplified version of an earlier unbuilt proposal for a Rudolph Florida house, the Cohen residence of 1952, and that house can itself be seen as being inspired by Marcel Breuer’s own home in New Canaan, Conn., and similar form of the Canaan desk by Breuer.

The bedrooms extend out more than 14 feet from the main building. This cantilever was designed to be braced by a one-inch diameter steel rod placed diagonal-ly through the side stud walls and tied back to the wood roof beams. During construction, the contractor was so alarmed at the minimal structure specified that he dou-bled the number of steel rods in the walls and connected them to new steel columns, which extended into the foundations. When the building was almost complete, the whole neighborhood turned out to see the support frames knocked out from under the jutting forms. A resi-dent recalls that “it didn’t fly, but then it didn’t collapse

either.” That was the beginning of its local nickname, “the flying boxcar.” The significance of the Applebee house is that it comes at the end of Rudolph’s International Style-inspired investigations. It is the last of his “Harvard shoe-boxes and goldfish bowls,” but it exhibits some of the best qualities of those homes: a clarity of enclosing space and framing structure within the tight constraints of a limited budget and simple materials. Within those constraints, the individual stylistic voice of Paul Rudolph is obvious.

The very year the Applebee house design was finished, Rudolph lectured at the American Institute of Architects convention in Boston: “We are leaving behind the house of the ’40s as a confused one which tried to express what went on behind each bay. Thus, the living room could be filled with glass which went to the f loor, but the bedroom bay had to have glass stops at 2'-6'' height to provide privacy. The kitchen bay had its windows a few inches higher still, making a series of steps. Today, we are more interested in the total expression.”(8) This was a perfect description of the Applebee residence, which was no longer the correct image of the future. In the following year, 1957, Rudolph was appointed chairman of the School of Architecture at Yale University.

After this, the creative f loodgates were opened for a cascade of elaborate f luid forms that marked his career with incredible rise and promise, which then reversed in the prosperous 1980s and he became, in the architectural world, dramatically forgotten—unbuilt and unpublished. Near the end of Rudolph’s life, Auburn University con-tacted him with a fitting opportunity for its most famous artistic alumnus. Welcoming back its prodigal son, the uni-versity offered him the commission for the new Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art. Unfortunately, within a year of this offer, Rudolph passed away, without the chance to put pen to paper. (9)

Looking back at the career of Paul Rudolph, it is possible to see that the passing tide of fashion raised his fame and fortune, but later left him beached high and dry. This leads us to wander back to the first beach, in the mural inside the First House—a beach that was expansive, sunny, calm, and with all the promises of the future.

(8) Rudolph, Paul (1954) Changing Philosophy of Architecture, A.I.A. Boston Convention Speech, Architectural Record, August, p. 116.

(9) Correspondence, May 17, 1996, Paul Rudolph to Thomas Tillman, Auburn University.