Auburn is currently ranked 11th in the ONE Campus Challenge, an annual nationwide competition that takes place Feb. 1 through Mar. 31.
The challenge is hosted by ONE, an organization that campaigns against world hunger, poverty, disease and other global issues.
"It's a national organization; it's a bunch of nonprofit organizations that are doing work in the field," said Nathan Warner, senior in ecological engineering and campus leader for the ONE Campus Challenge.
The goal of the Campus Challenge is to raise awareness about global issues on college campuses and recruit people to aid in the ONE campaign. Throughout the competition, campuses try to earn points through various actions.
"It's a point-based system where you get points for the number of, they call it recruits or the number of people that you have, the number of people that you invite, the number of people that sign the petition for vaccines," Warner said.
Schools can also gain points by organizing campus events and responding to weekly challenges initiated by ONE.
"The main thing is just we want to get people excited about what's going on at the Auburn campus," Warner said. "We want to get them engaged and to take the initiative."
At the end of the competition, the campus with the most points will be awarded a prize.
"So once they pool up all the points at the end, I know the winning team will go to Washington, D.C., for a conference, so that's kind of a perk," said Nathan Gray, sophomore in biomedical sciences and assistant in Auburn's ONE campaign.
Representatives from the winning campus will have the opportunity to meet the ONE leadership team and ONE co-founder, Bono, and will help present the ONE campaign in meetings with government officials.
However, for Warner, Gray and the rest of Auburn's ONE representatives, the point of the challenge is not to win.
"Pretty much what we're wanting to do is to create kind of a hub, just a network to be able to connect all the different organizations on Auburn's campus," Gray said.
Warner said he hoped to use the ONE Campus Challenge as a springboard for increased communication among service and humanitarian organizations at Auburn. His final goal is a coalition of all the organizations that will last beyond the ONE campaign.
"The ONE Campus Challenge, we're using that as a kickoff event for this student citizenship initiative," Warner said. "So that's connecting, involving student organizations that weren't involved."
Gray said he hopes the coalition will help student organizations communicate with one another about the various projects they are working on and maximize student awareness of issues that are being tackled in the community and around the world.
"We want to find people that are already doing great things on Auburn's campus and we want them to see that through this coalition they can do a better job at what they're doing," Gray said. "And they can know how other people and other organizations can partner with them, whether it's a volunteer project or, you know, the Zap Out Hunger campaign, the competition next weekend."
Gray said the plan is to increase the strength of the coalition over the next year and be involved with the ONE Campus Challenge next spring.
According to Warner, organizations that have already joined the ONE coalition include the Auburn Sustainability Action Program, the Committee of 19, IMPACT, the Mocha Club, Engineers Without Borders, the Pharmacy Club and the Red Cross Club.
Universities are particularly good settings for humanitarian projects such as ONE, said Azeem Ahmed, junior in business.
"There's just so much potential in universities, particularly in the South, but all over," Ahmed said. "The stuff that's going on at Auburn or at Alabama is amazing, and if we could find a way to take all that stuff at colleges, that information, and apply it directly to the field, it would be amazing the stuff we could accomplish."
Ahmed said anyone interested can be involved.
"My real thing would be, find your passion, find what you're really interested in," Ahmed said. "It may take you a while to find it. Volunteer work in the community and see what really interests you and go from there. I mean, every field needs help in some sort or another, whether it's business, medicine, or sustainability. Every field at Auburn University can be applied to solving world issues or even local issues."
Top 10 universities in the challenge are the University of Florida, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Clark University, University of Pittsburgh, Seton Hall University, University of South Carolina, Union University, Webster University, and University of West Georgia.
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