By Troy Turner
Marion Military Institute, which hails as the nation’s oldest military junior college, has entered into an agreement with Auburn University to serve as a feeder school for Auburn’s aviation program. The move continues a relationship between the two campuses that began more than a century ago on the grid iron.
Auburn offers two aviation programs: Professional Flight, and Aviation Management; both of which continue to see a steady growth of interest from students in civilian and military backgrounds. Its School of Aviation is connected to programs involving several major airlines, and Auburn has an aviation education history dating back to the 1920s.
Marion Military Institute, meanwhile, is steeped in military tradition while serving as a member of Alabama’s community college system. The school, located in west-central Alabama, was established in 1842.
“This new aviation program transfer agreement with Auburn University, along with our new partnership with a flight training provider, will allow Marion Military Institute to finally realize our vision of a formal aviation program to produce pilots and aviation professionals to help meet the needs of the civil aviation sector,” said school president, Marine Corps Col. David Mollahan, (retired).
Candidates for the transfer must have a 2.5 grade point average and must have earned a private pilot’s license before being accepted at Auburn as a junior.
The agreement becomes effective Jan. 1, 2024.
A football history
Long before taking their relationship to the airport runways, Auburn and Marion met as football competitors, and although Auburn holds a 5-0 record in the series, the lone game played on the Marion campus was a close one.
The two teams first met in 1914, with host Auburn taking a 39-0 win behind a team that many considered to be national champions that year, although it was never made official. Michael Skotnicki wrote about the 1914 team in his book, Auburn’s Unclaimed National Championships.
Four years later in 1918 during World War I, the teams met in Marion. That game ended with a narrow Auburn victory, 20-7.
The series concluded in 1922, with a 61-0 Auburn win.
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To learn more about Marion Military Institute’s aviation program, go to: MarionMilitary.edu/fly.
To learn more about Auburn University’s School of Aviation, go to: https://cla.auburn.edu/aviation/.
