With more than 26, undergraduate students, over 6, post-graduate students, and a total enrollment of more than 34, students with 1, faculty members, Auburn is the second-largest university in Alabama. It is one of the state's two flagship public universities. The university is one of U. In , under the Morrill Act , it became the state's first land-grant university and was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama.
In , it became the first four-year coeducational school in Alabama and in was renamed Alabama Polytechnic Institute. In , its name was changed to Auburn University to acknowledge the varied academic programs and larger curriculum of a major university. In , the Alabama Legislature chartered an additional campus in Montgomery which is governed by the Auburn University Board of Trustees as a member of the Auburn University system.
Sasnett , and the school opened its doors in to a student body of eighty and a faculty of ten. Auburn's early history is inextricably linked with the Civil War and the Reconstruction -era South.
Classes were held in "Old Main" until the college was closed due to the war when most of the students and faculty left to enlist. The campus was a training ground for the Confederate Army, and "Old Main" served as a hospital for Confederate wounded.
To commemorate Auburn's contribution to the Civil War, a cannon lathe used for the manufacture of cannons for the Confederate Army and recovered from Selma, Alabama , was presented to the college in by brothers of the Delta chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity.
