Office of Sustainability

On the Topic of Artificial General Intelligence - A Panel Discussion
2024-11-01 10:00 (America/Chicago) | Event Venue | Lowder Hall – Room 111, 405 W. Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, AL, 36849, United States
On the Topic of Artificial General Intelligence – A Panel Discussion
As we witness the pronounced effect that large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are having on every facet of our lives, we find ourselves asking questions like, “What’s is the future of AI?”, “Will AI eventually equal and/or surpass human general intelligence?”, and if so, “What will this Artificial General Intelligence look like, act like, and be like?” In this panel discussion, guests will learn and explore, firsthand, from three leading AI experts the answers to these questions.
Anh Nguyen, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University
Santu Karmaker, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering & Computer Science, University of Central Florida, and former Auburn University Computer Science and Software Engineering Assistant Professor
Sathya Aakur, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University
This lecture is apart of a series being hosted by Auburn University’s official artificial intelligence initiative. The series offer attendees a valuable chance to learn about the latest developments, ethical issues, and societal effects of AI. Participants will deepen their knowledge of this transformative field while engaging in discussions that could influence AI’s future direction.
Forums are open to the public – in person in Lowder 111 and via Zoom (https://auburn.zoom.us/j/81706339239). To view additional lectures in the series visit the announcement on the College of Engineering website.

Last day to hand-deliver absentee ballot DEADLINE
2024-11-04 09:00 - 15:00 | Event Venue | Various Locations
Today is the last day to hand-deliver an absentee ballot for the 2024 General Election.
To learn more about voting, you can visit the Office of Sustainability’s voting page or the Alabama Secretary of State website.
PLEASE NOTE: The voting information on our website could be subject to error. It is good practice to gain information from an official government source to ensure credibility and accuracy.

Election Day 2024
2024-11-05 07:00 - 19:00 | Event Venue | Various Locations
Polls in Alabama open for in-person voting in the 2024 General Election.

Absentee ballots returned by mail must be received by noon DEADLINE
2024-11-05 09:00 - 15:00 | Event Venue | Various Locations
Today, absentee ballots returned by mail must be received by noon for the 2024 General Election.
To learn more about voting, you can visit the Office of Sustainability’s voting page or the Alabama Secretary of State website.
PLEASE NOTE: The voting information on our website could be subject to error. It is good practice to gain information from an official government source to ensure credibility and accuracy.

Sustainability and Social Justice by Gary Machlis; Seminar Series
2024-11-13 11:00 - 12:00 | Event Venue | School of Forestry and Wildlife Science – Room 1101, 602 Duncan Drive, Auburn, AL, 36849, United States
Join Auburn University’s College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment for their 2024 Fall Seminar Series featuring Dr. Gary E. Machlis as he talks on sustainability and social justice. Key aspects from his new book Sustainability for the Forgotten will be covered followed by a book signing and meet & greet.
Dr. Machlis is a University Professor of Environmental Sustainability at Clemson University with an extensive background in sustainability efforts which include working with the U.S. National Park Service, Interior’s Strategic Sciences Group, and more. He has also helped extensively following large disasters including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Hurricane Sandy, and Haiti’s devastating earthquake.
Faculty, students, and the public are invited to attend this program. Advanced registration is not required. Refreshments will be available after the seminar. Parking is available on the third and fourth floors in the South Quad Parking Deck across from the CFWE Building on Duncan Drive. For more information please visit the event calendar on the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment’s website.

Building AI for Humanity: Emory's Approach to AI
2024-11-15 10:00 | Event Venue | Lowder Hall – Room 111, 405 W. Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, AL, 36849, United States
Building AI for Humanity: Emory’s Approach to AI presented by:
Joe Sutherland, Director, Center for AI Learning, Emory University
Sutherland will discuss Emory’s approach to building AI capability through the AI. Humanity initiative and the Center for AI Learning, and offer lessons learned from the perspectives of our faculty, student, and staff who participate in our research, curricular, co-curricular, and community service programs.
This lecture is apart of a series being hosted by Auburn University’s official artificial intelligence initiative. The series offer attendees a valuable chance to learn about the latest developments, ethical issues, and societal effects of AI. Participants will deepen their knowledge of this transformative field while engaging in discussions that could influence AI’s future direction.
Forums are open to the public – in person in Lowder 111 and via Zoom (https://auburn.zoom.us/j/81706339239). To view additional lectures in the series visit the announcement on the College of Engineering website.

Meet Me at the VIC
2025-01-29 10:00 - 12:00 | Event Venue | Auburn University Student Center, Student Center, 255 Heisman Dr, Auburn, AL, 36849, United States
Auburn University College of Human Sciences’ Cary Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies will host its 6th annual Meet Me at the VIC (Volunteer, Internship, and Career) Fair which will convene dozens of regional nonprofits with AU undergraduate students who seek to help support local, regional, and national nonprofit efforts.
Nonprofits seeking to register for the Meet Me at the VIC may do so via this link.
Contact Brittany Spillman at spillbl@auburn.edu or 334-844-3557 with any questions.
This event is open to Auburn University students and faculty interested in networking with nonprofit professionals throughout the region.

Davis Arboretum Second Tuesday Tours
2025-02-11 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-03-11 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-04-08 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-05-13 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-06-10 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-07-08 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-08-12 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-09 12:00 - 13:00 and 1 more date | Event Venue | Donald E. Davis Arboretum
Experience the Davis Arboretum like never before! Make plans to attend our new “Second Tuesday Garden Tours” beginning Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 12:00 PM! Grab your friends and colleagues and meet us at the Arboretum pavilion for a delightful midday stroll through our beautiful garden as you learn about the wonderful world of Alabama’s native plants.
Tours will meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month with additional tours available during the stunning peak bloom and vibrant color change seasons.
Join us as you rediscover the wonder and beauty of Auburn University’s Davis Arboretum!

Beyond the Farm
2025-03-26 11:00 - 14:00 | Event Venue | Student Center Greenspace
Join the Ag Council for the 2024 Beyond the Farm event! Come by to learn more about agriculture and to interact with the different offices, groups, and organizations that will be tabling!

NAIA Spring Cultural Festival
2025-03-29 10:00 - 16:00 | Event Venue | Campus Green, 500 Heisman Dr, Auburn, AL, 36849, United States
The Native American & Indigenous Alliance is having their biggest event ever: The NAIA Spring Cultural Festival! Come to the Campus Green on March 29th to enjoy this free event! There will be Native food, art vendors, demonstrations, cultural dancing, and drumming! This event is free to everyone!

Spirit of Sustainability Awards Ceremony
2025-04-23 15:30 - 16:45 | Event Venue | The ALFA Pavilion at Ag Heritage Park
The Auburn University Spirit of Sustainability Awards program exists to recognize individuals or groups of Auburn University students, faculty, staff, and alumni that exemplify the Auburn spirit by making significant contributions toward sustainability on campus or in a community at any point along the Sustainability Compass: Nature, Economy, Society, individual or collective Wellbeing. Nature undertakings exemplify how we can restore, protect, and live in accord with the laws of Nature. Economic achievements contribute to a prosperous economy that is viable, fair, and inclusive. Societal work cultivates connectedness, caring, equity, and engagement. Efforts for Wellbeing nurture individual health, fulfillment, happiness, and collective wellbeing.
While all nominations echo various points of the Sustainability Compass, awardees are chosen based upon their motivation and commitment to sustainability; the impact of their work; and the degree to which they engage and involve others in their efforts.
We will be distributing the awards at the Spirit of Sustainability Awards Ceremony on April 23rd, 2025. For more information about these sustainability awards, please click here to visit the award page on our website.

Professional Development Sponsorship Program Application Period
2025-05-01 00:00 - 2025-05-31 23:30 | Virtual Event | Check Event Page for Link, United States
Auburn University non-student employees may submit an application for consideration for the Office of Sustainability’s Professional Development Sponsorship Program. The funds support learning opportunities related to sustainability and current job responsibilities, and applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central on May 31, 2025, to be considered.

Women Artists in Ascendance
2025-08-26 10:00 - 18:00 | Event Venue | Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art
Featuring objects on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art alongside the university art collection, Women Artists in Ascendance pulls back the curtain on the story of modern American art by displaying works from a dozen women artists who were goliaths in their own right, including Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan and Lee Krasner.
Organized in partnership with Art Bridges

2025 International Conference On Forest Carbon & Resilience
2025-08-29 - 2025-09-01 | Event Venue | The Hotel at Auburn University – Dixon Conference Center
The International Conference on Forest Carbon and Resilience (ICFCR) is presented by the Auburn University College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment to expand knowledge within the areas of forest-based carbon and resilience, the role of forests and forest products in carbon storage and sequestration, and the resistance, adaptation, and resilience of forests in changing environments.

Speaker: Catherine Coleman Flowers
2025-09-11 17:00 | Event Venue | Mell Classroom Building – Room 4550, Auburn, Alabama, 36849, United States
In Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope, Catherine Coleman Flowers explores the intersection of environmental issues, civil rights, and social justice through both personal and political lenses. Flowers draws on her experience fighting for vulnerable rural communities of color who lack access to clean, safe environments, weaving together stories from her own life with broader analyses of climate change, poverty, and systemic disinvestment. Through reflections on history, faith, and interconnectedness, she charts a path toward equity and environmental justice. This collection of personal essays serves as both a call to action and a roadmap for creating a more just and sustainable future for all communities.
Catherine Coleman Flowers is an internationally recognized environmental justice activist and the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice. A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Flowers sits on the board of directors of the Climate Reality Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and RMI. She has served as the co-vice chair of the inaugural White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and is a practitioner-in-residence at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Flowers is the author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret. In April 2025, TIME named her as one of six leaders to receive the TIME Earth Awards. In 2023, Flowers was recognized as one of the TIME 100 most influential people in the world, and as one of Forbes’ 50 Over 50.

Branching Out: The Public History of Trees with Brian Dempsey and Carrie Barske Crawford
2025-09-17 11:30 - 13:00 | Event Venue | Pebble Hill, United States
Part of the OLLI at Auburn Brown Bag Series
Trees are often viewed primarily as natural resources, yet they also hold powerful places in our cultural landscapes and collective memory. Branching Out: The Public History of Trees, a 2025 essay collection from the University of Massachusetts Press, explores trees through this cultural lens and examines their important role in public history practice.
University of North Alabama historians Dr. Brian Dempsey and Dr. Carolyn Barske Crawford each contributed essays to the volume. In “An Island of Trees Called Old Hickory: History and Place in the Mississippi Delta,” Dempsey examines a small stand of trees on the edge of Cleveland, Mississippi. Though ordinary in appearance, the site embodies deep cultural associations that illuminate how people connect with and interpret their local landscapes.
In “‘The Most Useful Tree:’ The American Chestnut, Stories, and Species Restoration,” Crawford explores how the American Chestnut Foundation leverages memories of the tree’s once-vital economic, social, and cultural role in Appalachia to support ongoing restoration efforts. Her work highlights the potential for powerful partnerships between scientists and public historians. Together, Dempsey and Crawford will share insights from their research and invite the audience to reflect on why trees matter—not only ecologically, but as anchors of meaning in public history and cultural life.

Constitution Day Speaker - Fred Gray
2025-09-17 16:00 | Event Venue | Foy Hall – Room 258
Mr. Gray, perhaps the most noted civil rights attorney in the nation, will reflect on his unique and storied journey arguing for the constitutional rights of African Americans. In his first ten years as a lawyer, Attorney Gray was legal counsel in what would become four landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases and for over seven decades handled numerous civil rights cases, including the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. His clients include Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Congressman John Lewis. Gray represented Harold Franklin in the lawsuit that desegregated Auburn University. In 2022. President Joe Biden awarded Gray the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor given in the United States.

Sponsored By: the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts, Auburn University Libraries, the Department of Political Science, and the Charles Wesley Edwards, Sr.
Endowment for the Humanities. The Constitution Day lecture is a part of the Discover Auburn Lecture Series.

Third Thursday Literary Series: Jacqueline Allen Trimble
2025-09-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Event Venue | Pebble Hill, United States
Refreshments and book sales will be available at 6 PM; the reading will begin at 6:30 PM.
Jacqueline Allen Trimble is a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow (Poetry), a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, and an Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellow (2017, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in various journals including Poetry Magazine, The Louisville Review, The Offing, The Rumpus, Salvation South, and Poet Lore.
The Third Thursday Literary Series is sponsored by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, Department of English, and Southern Humanities Review in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University; the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Auburn University; and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

Inspired by William Bartram: Southern Landscapes by Philip Juras
2025-09-24 10:30 - 13:00 | Event Venue | Pebble Hill, United States
Part of the OLLI at Auburn Brown Bag Series
Growing up in Georgia, artist Philip Juras could only dream of the bountiful southern nature that William Bartram documented two and a half centuries ago. Inspired by Bartram’s writing, Philip has created a body of paintings depicting both contemporary and historic natural landscapes from across the South.
He will present work from his exhibit and award-winning book The Southern Frontier, Landscapes Inspired by Bartram’s “Travels”, along with new drawings and paintings that explore some of the forgotten landscapes Bartram so eloquently painted in words. By celebrating the beauty and richness of the nature we still have today while also conveying what we have lost, Philip’s work helps us imagine what can be restored for future generations.

Moon Festival
2025-10-03 12:00 - 14:00 | Event Venue | Cater Lawn, Auburn University
Taiwan Center and Korea Center joint Moon Festival/Chuseok event with food, games and student performances

Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day
2025-10-04 09:00 - 13:00 | Event Venue | Environmental Services Department Complex, 4277 Wire Road, Suite 100, Auburn, AL, 36832, United States
The City of Auburn Environmental Services Department hosts two Household Hazardous Waste Collection Days in the spring and fall. These free events give Auburn residents the opportunity to drop off hazardous materials that are illegal to dispose of during weekly garbage collection. We will also accept paper documents for secure, on-site shredding as well as computers/electronics for recycling.

Taiwan Center -Taiwan Night
2025-10-17 17:30 | Event Venue | Foy Hall – Room 208, United States
Join the AU-NCKU Taiwan Center at Taiwan Night and experience what a Taiwanese night market might be like in Taiwan! There will be games, prizes and free food (+ free boba tea from Kung Fu Tea)!
If you haven’t been to a traditional Taiwanese Night market, don’t miss out and come join in on the fun! We hope to see you there!
