Flight is an amazing thing; Pink Floyd has written a few songs about it. A human piloting a massive piece of metal thousands of feet into the sky is something to behold, even though it may seem mundane in our constantly moving culture.
Since 1942, Auburn has made the dream of flight come true for hundreds of students with the desire to get a job in the Aviation industry, but that dream is in serious danger.
If the University senate doesn't see the light in the next few months, the Aviation Management program will lose all of its flight training courses. When those are gone, all the prestige the program has earned over the years will be gone as well.
Dr. Bill Hardgrave, dean of the college of business, is acting quite aloof and seems to have his heart set on gutting the program, which is causing those of us who want to save the program a great deal of stress.
We want to know why such a valuable program is being destroyed.
In a recent press release, Hardgrave said, "We're putting a plan in place that addresses some recent challenges and puts the program in a position to grow."
Some of the challenges Hardgrave is referring to are a lack of tenured faculty, a low number of students within the program, and - of course - loss of money.
We believe these problems can be solved simply. For example, the program's reputation is certainly good enough to merit recruiting some tenure-track instructors in order to meet accreditation requirements. As for the low number of students, the department of Economics XXXXXXXX. And the whole university is losing money, hence the egregious tuition hike.
So what's the real reason the College of Business wants to flush one of its finest programs down the drain?
After partnering with jetBlue, closing down a vital part of the program seem foolish. When you consider how the aviation industry has grown in Alabama over the past few years, it almost hurts to imagine why Hardgrave would want to deprive students from having the best education possible.
The University prides itself on educating its students to become industry leaders, no matter where they go. Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple, is a testament to Auburn's ability to create the best of the best.
Unfortunately, we can only speculate as to why this Auburn doctrine is being ignored. Maybe Dean Hardgrave has a profound hatred of airplanes and all things air travel. Maybe the College of Business is liquidating the airport in order to finance polishing Lowder's XXXX dome. We can't really say.
What we can say is this looks the type of unnecessary streamlining happening all over the country. It's the constant struggle between the honest, hard-working everyman and the vicious tycoons who value profit and quantity over quality.
The Plainsman stands behind the students fighting for the integrity of the Aviation program, and we hope they are able to show the people in charge the only reason they have a job is because of the students.
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