Auburn Board of Trustee member Sarah Newton was appointed as the president pro tempore of the Auburn Board of Trustees for the 2009-2010 academic lead the Board in its affairs in the absence of Governor Bob Riley, the president of the Board.
"I want to use this time to promote Auburn," Newton said. "We have a great story to tell, and we need to tell it every chance we have to prospective students and their families, alums, business leaders, government officials and everyone else who has a stake or interest in Auburn's future."
The decision of the trustees to appoint Newton, a former principal at Fayette Elementary School, was unanimous. John Blackwell, an Auburn trustee, accredits her appointment to the leadership she has displayed since 2004 when she was appointed to the Board of Trustees.
"I think her leadership on the Academic Affairs Committee is why everybody rallied around her," Blackwell said. "She clearly understood the role that academic committees should play, and she provided guidance toward that end. When we discovered that there was a great need for a reading and writing initiative at Auburn, she championed that goal."
According to the Executive Summary of the writing initiative that Newton helped implement, it hoped to reduce the class size of freshman composition courses to 19 students or less, begin a Writing in Disciplines program for each major and increase the capacity of the Writing Center to accommodate every student.
Blackwell said Newton's passion and involvement in this academic initiative are what landed her the position of president pro tempore.
"Through testing that was done, we saw that both incoming freshmen and graduating seniors' reading and writing skills had room for improvement," Blackwell said. "It was her leadership there that put her in the position for president pro tempore."
Gaines Lanier, a fellow trustee, agrees that Newton's work in the writing initiative made her qualified and deserving of the president pro tempore position.
"I believe that she was the person who put a lot of energy toward the research for the writing initiative," Lanier said. "She has been a hard working member on the Board of Trustees. She has been extremely prepared in whatever she has been asked to be involved with. She is engaged in the University's activities and has spent time with each of the colleges to understand what each is about and what their issues are."
Raymond Harbert, the newest trustee on the Board, is also confident that Newton is the right woman for the job.
"I think that she had been operating the last couple of years as the number two position," Harbert said. "I know that she has been extremely well prepared. There is a certain measure of comfort and confidence in knowing that she has spent her entire life working in academics in the state of Alabama. That gives her a strong grounding in the position she is in."
Even with the confidence that her fellow trustees have in her, there is no doubt that she will face challenges as the next president pro tempore for the Board of Trustees.
"I think the biggest issue that we are going to be facing at Auburn is how we are dealing with cutbacks coming from the state and the economic delays we face in Alabama," Harbert said. "Most of what she is going to be dealing with will be reactive with what kind of allocations and appropriations we get from the state."
The coming academic year brings its own set of challenges, but Lanier is confident that he is prepared.
"I think she is well qualified. It is a great honor to her, and I thinks he deserves it," Lanier said.
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