Like all inbound college students, Monica Hagler had a shopping list
of needs, wants and expectations when she began looking for a school. That's
about the only stereotype that exists when you look at her.
She moves with a quiet charm and easy cadence that hides the strength
of the academic gifts that brought her here, first as the winner of a freshman
engineering scholarship and then as a university-level presidential
opportunity scholar.
She has the glow of an Auburn student.
Her first visit to Auburn was as a high school junior in the college's
MITE program Minority Introduction to Engineering even though she
had dreams of becoming a lawyer.
When she returned to school for her senior year, however, she
attended Bishop State Junior College at night under an advanced student
program, where a friend talked her into taking a chemistry class.
It was there that a teacher kindled her interest in science and put
Auburn on the horizon as the place where she could follow her newfound interests.
Her academic credentials took her other places as well, notably
Virginia, which also held her interest.
To Auburn's good fortune, she admits proudly but shyly, she was
and is daddy's girl.
"He didn't want me going too
far," the senior chemical engineering student says. "I'm so close to him."
She also adds that the small-town charm of Auburn attracted her.
"I felt that I would be able to concentrate on my studies here," she
points out. "And the people were just great. I'd be
walking on campus, and everybody would speak to me . . . I'm
from Mobile, and at first it, I don't know,
surprised me so much."
She was also overwhelmed, like so many freshmen.
"The town was so small and the campus was
so big. I remember walking to my first class. It was
. . . a long mile," she smiles.
Her career at Auburn has been balanced by a brunt of activity she
hints has left only time as the thing she lacks. She has chosen now to concentrate
on undergraduate research, leaving a job behind to do so.
She is using her background in chemical engineering to work on
sulfonated polyanalines, a new class of electronic substrates that will allow
microcircuits to be assembled easily and cheaply, and on a large scale, in
both number and dimension.
"It's been very exciting to me, and has made me think about the
possibilities of graduate school through the interaction that I've had with
graduate students," she relates. "Having seen it,
I really want to do research."
She has won two awards for her research: second place at the fourth
annual NSF-AMP Student Research Conference held in Tallahassee, Fla., in
July, and first place in energy-related research at UAB's internship conference in
Birmingham, held over the summer under the sponsorship of the Alabama
Alliance for Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Science Education.
She adds with a smile that the interaction she has experienced with
research faculty has convinced her that "the professors here aren't so strange after all."
And while she may take a job straight out of Auburn with an
undergraduate degree it depends, she says, on the
market she insists that her employer would have to give her
the option of further study.
"The process of learning is so important," she says,
and its a feeling she shares with others.
She has been involved as well in a mentoring group
for minorities that places upperclassmen and freshmen
together over pizza once a week.
"We're doing in an informal way what we hope the Minority Engineering
Program (MEP) will do on a regular, more structured basis as it becomes a
reality," she notes.
"We share our experience at Auburn with these students . . . tell them not
to drop out of the engineering program when they're discouraged early on . .
. to get help with homework . . . not to get caught up with friends in less
demanding programs."
She adds that "being a freshman engineering student can be a lot if you're not ready for it . . . there is a lot of pressure there. I wish I could just
shake one thing into freshmen: get help if you need it!"
The implementation of the MEP program is going to be important for
Auburn, she says, and it's clear she puts retention above recruiting as its
focus. She served on the committee that brought Dennis Weatherby to the College
of Engineering as its first MEP director.
At the same time she calls attention to Christine Curtis of the chemical
engineering faculty as her mentor.
"I was slacking her class," she
admits. "And she took the time out to talk to me. A lot. She instilled something
in me that I'll never forget: you can have anything you want if you fight hard
for it.
"That includes grades. She was hard on me, and I learned a lot."
It's an awareness that she will take with her into graduation next August
as a senior in chemical engineering's pulp and paper option.
Professional plans? Couldn't tell you now.
"There's so much out there. The environment. Politics, which I've
always loved. I've even wondered about working for GAP clothing, because they
are so forward-minded about recycling."
What would she do to change Auburn?
"The College of Engineering needs more scholarship support. There are
so many schools out there that offer so much more in terms of aid. I can't
stress that need more strongly."
Bright, articulate and focused. No wonder her father, an assistant
director in the Port of Mobile's customs division, won't let go of her. But when
that day comes he will unleash a storm of opportunity into the world that will
reward him a thousand times over.
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