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October 6, 2003

Purdue to engage Tippecanoe County in all-day visit

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University leaders, who are traveling the state to meet and learn from its citizens, will stop next in Tippecanoe County on Wednesday, Oct. 15, to visit schools and businesses.

Purdue President Martin C. Jischke and other Purdue leaders will visit the Kirby Risk Service Center, Lafayette Instrument Co., Caterpillar Inc., Glen Acres Elementary School and West Lafayette Jr./Sr. High School, in addition to other locations. The host for the visit will be Purdue alumnus Dana Smith, president of the Lafayette-West Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.

"Our goal with these visits is to listen and to learn," said Don Gentry, vice provost for engagement. "Purdue really wants to know how to best help our state, and to do that we need to experience it first-hand and meet its people. Of course, Lafayette-West Lafayette is our home town, but we want to take a fresh look at the community and perhaps see it in a new way."

This is the fourth year Jischke and university leaders have conducted these daylong visits to Indiana communities. Fifty previous stops have ranged from Aurora to Logansport and from Vincennes to the Indiana State Fair. Upcoming visits are being planned for South Bend, Columbus, Jasper, Bloomington and Gary.

A full day of activities is scheduled for the Tippecanoe County visit. Jischke and his party will be at the following locations:

• 7:30 a.m. – A breakfast for business and community leaders at the Holiday Inn Select City Centre, 515 South St., Lafayette. Jischke will speak.

• 9 a.m. – Tour of the Kirby Risk Service Center, 3574 McCarty Lane, Lafayette. Kirby Risk employs more than 60 Purdue alumni.

• 10 a.m. (tentative) – Visit to Miller Elementary School, 700 S. 4th St., Lafayette, to observe the Gentle Giants reading program. The program features Purdue football players reading to students.

• 10:45 a.m. – Tour of Lafayette Instrument Co., 3700 Sagamore Parkway North, Lafayette.

• Noon – Lunch with Purdue students and interns at Caterpillar Inc. State Road 26 East.

• 1:30 p.m. – Visit to Imagination Station, 600 N. 4th St., Lafayette, for a presentation by two Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) teams, which have designed five interactive projects. Eli Lilly and Co. serves as a corporate partner for one of the projects.

• 2:45 p.m. – Visit to Glen Acres Elementary School, 3767 Kimberly Drive, Lafayette, to observe the Practice and Learn Club (PAL) for bilingual students. The students receive homework help from Purdue students enrolled in their third year of Spanish.

• 5 p.m. – Visit to West Lafayette Jr./Sr. High School, 1105 N. Grant St., West Lafayette, for a robot demonstration by the West Lafayette High School robotics competition team. Since 2000 Purdue engineering and technology students have helped students from local high schools build a robot for regional and national competition.

• 6 p.m. – Attend a reception at the University Inn, 3001 Northwestern Ave., West Lafayette. The reception is sponsored by the Purdue Alumni Association and the Purdue Club of Tippecanoe County.

Jischke, who came to Purdue in August 2000, is the university's 10th president. He previously served for nine years as president of Iowa State University, another land-grant institution. His experience in higher education also includes 17 years as professor and dean at the University of Oklahoma and five years at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Jischke was the founding president of the Global Consortium of Higher Education and Research for Agriculture. He served as chairman and board member of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and as a board member of the American Council on Education, National Merit Scholarship Corporation and Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. He is on the boards of directors of the Association of American Universities and the American Council on Competitiveness.

After receiving his doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968, Jischke joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma's School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering. During his 17 years at Oklahoma, he served in multiple capacities. He became director of the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in 1977. He served as dean of the College of Engineering from 1981 to 1986, and he was named the university's interim president in 1985.

Writer: Marydell Forbes (765) 496-7704, mforbes@purdue.edu

Sources: Don Gentry, (765) 494-9095, dkgentry@purdue.edu<

David Petritz, Cooperative Extension Service director, (765) 494-8489, dpetritz@purdue.edu

Mike Piggott, director of community relations, (765) 494-4636, mpiggott@purdue.edu

Pam Ritter, senior director of corporate relations, (765) 494-2733, pritter@purdue.edu

Note to Journalists: Journalists are welcome to take photos or video footage at any of the planned stops. To make arrangements, contact David Petritz at (765) 494-8489, dpetritz@purdue.edu.


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