Purdue News Roundup
Purdue News Roundup
She will oversee implementation of "Enhancing Undergraduate Commitment, Integration and Persistence," a program made possible with a $5 million, five-year grant from the Lilly Endowment. The grant, announced in July, is part of $24 million in Lilly Endowment grants to five public and nine private Indiana colleges and universities. Roney served as chair of the Purdue grant proposal project team. Her appointment as senior project officer, effective immediately, was jointly made by Purdue President Steven C. Beering and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert L. Ringel.
"That one of our key senior academic administrators will oversee this important initiative underscores Purdue's commitment to enhancing undergraduate student retention, which will bear not only significant personal rewards for our students during their lives and careers, but will have a profound effect on our state's economic well-being in the highly competitive world of tomorrow," Beering said.
Ringel noted: "Purdue feels an intense obligation to help young people succeed in attaining their educational goals. With Dr. Roney's able guidance from proposal to implementation, we intend to put in place the personnel, equipment and educational experiences to assure that a student entering Purdue graduates within six years."
He said that by 2010, the project should yield completion of an additional 4,000 baccalaureate degrees at Purdue Calumet, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, Purdue North Central and Purdue West Lafayette. During the 1996-97 academic year, Purdue students earned 7,026 baccalaureate degrees systemwide.
"The grant programs were designed to achieve the goal of increasing graduation rates 5 percent at each of our campuses by the end of the five-year grant period," Roney said. "It's an exciting challenge that will include significant systemwide involvement of our faculty and staff. Purdue has a long tradition of good-faith efforts to enhance retention in the past, but the Lilly grant will make a key difference in implementation."
By the end of the grant period, the intended six-year graduation rates and numbers of additional students completing baccalaureate degrees will be:
Roney said the figures include both full- and part-time students, hence the lower percentages at regional campuses where higher proportions of students enroll part time.
The Lilly Endowment grant will allow the addition of a full-time staff member in the registrar's office and a full-time staff member for the retention project, and half-time clerical and account clerk positions for the project.
Roney said she will work closely with campus coordinators at regional campuses: M. Beth Pellicciotti, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment management at Purdue Calumet; Frank L. Borelli, vice chancellor for student affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne; and Linda M. Duttlinger, assistant to the vice chancellor for academic services at Purdue North Central.
The grant will fund programs to increase student interest in attending college, to help students adjust academically and socially after arriving on campus, and to improve teaching and counseling services for students. The grants are part of the Lilly Endowment's continuing effort to improve Indiana's 47th ranking among the 50 states in the percentage of college-educated persons in the work force.
Roney has been Purdue's registrar since 1994 and an Office of the Registrar staff member since 1982. She holds a Purdue doctoral degree in student personnel administration. She earned bachelor's degrees in psychology and elementary education and a master's in counseling and personnel services, all from Kansas State University.
CONTACTS: Ringel, (765) 494-9709; Roney, (765) 494-6161.
Child's Play Touring Theatre, a Chicago-based children's theater company, will perform its production "One Monster After Another" at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, in Purdue's Loeb Playhouse in Stewart Center.
The performance, presented by Purdue Convocations with support from Cinergy and PEFCU, will include the world-premiere performances of the three pieces written by the local students.
The stories are "Football Days" by Ariel Steinweg-Woods and Erika Thomas, fifth-graders from Klondike Elementary School; "The Sea" by Alex Hagen, Janelle Washburn and Nastassja Richardson, third-graders from Edgelea Elementary School; and "The Ferocious Monster" by Ms. Butler's first-grade class at Happy Hollow School.
Child's Play Touring Theatre, the only theater in the United States dedicated exclusively to performing literature written by children, met with students in Lafayette-area schools on Sept. 9, 10 and 11. In these workshops, children were taught and encouraged to write poems, stories or plays and to submit them as part of a contest. Children's creations were sent to Child's Play for evaluation, and the theater group selected the three winners for local presentation. All the other plays presented as part of "One Monster After Another" also were written by children.
Child's Play Touring Theatre was founded in 1978. Since then, it has performed for more than 2.5 million children and adults. The troupe has read more than 350,000 stories and poems written by children from kindergarten through eighth grade. More than 6,500 young writers have been able to see their words transformed into live theater.
Tickets are $11 for the public, $6 for students, at campus box offices. Charge by phone at (765) 494-3933 or 1-800-914-SHOW.
CONTACT: Jeff Langford, Convocations publicist, (765) 494-9712; e-mail, jilangford@convos.purdue.edu
Harbaugh is a veteran of four space shuttle flights, logging more than 800 hours in space. He also has completed more than 18 hours of spacewalks, or extravehicular activities.
Harbaugh earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue in 1978 and is one of 21 Purdue alumni selected for space flight. He became a NASA astronaut in 1988.
In 1991, Harbaugh was a member of the first space shuttle crew to dock with the Russian space station Mir. In February, he flew on the space shuttle Discovery's 10-day mission that included the repair and upgrade of the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. For his work on that mission, during which he completed two spacewalks, Harbaugh earned NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal.
Harbaugh currently is the acting manager of NASA'a Extravehicular Activity Projects Office. He is responsible for overseeing the development of all spacewalk requirements, techniques and tasks for shuttle missions, as well as those for the assembly and operation of the International Space Station.
Harbaugh's campus visit is sponsored by the Purdue Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Purdue Engineering Student Council.
CONTACT: Nan Ross, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, (765) 494-1924.
Purdue is one of nine colleges nationwide that will expand its aviation curriculum to meet FAA standards, with a specific goal to enhance education and training in air traffic control. Purdue's Department of Aviation Technology was chosen for the initiative based on its curriculum, faculty, facilities, interviews with students and support for the overall aviation program.
The object of the initiative is to increase the pool of potential qualified candidates the FAA can consider for future air traffic control positions, as well as boost employment opportunities for participating students.
Mike Nolan, associate professor of aviation technology, said the partnership with the FAA is a natural fit. "We have the academic program and a history in aviation that puts us in a position to produce a higher percentage of successful candidates for controller jobs," Nolan said.
In fact, four of Purdue's programs of study are already FAA-certified, and the air traffic control option will need only some minor adjustments to meet the initiative's requirements.
Purdue in 1930 became the first university in the country to establish an airport and the first university to offer a flight training program for college credit. The Department of Aviation Technology was created in 1955.
CONTACT: Nolan, (765) 494-9992; e-mail, mnolan@purdue.edu
The conference runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the East and West Faculty Lounges of the Memorial Union. The event, featuring lectures with time set aside for questions and discussion, is co-sponsored by the Purdue Department of History and the Department of Convocations and Lectures.
The theme of the symposium focuses on the cross-fertilization of revolutionary ideology among Europe, the United States and Latin America in the 17th and 18th centuries. Avoiding the "great man in history approach" to political events, this conference will situate American and European revolts in a broader intellectual and social context in order to examine the ways in which revolutionary thought is adopted and transformed over time.
Taking part in the symposium, and the times they will speak, are: Lois G. Schwoerer, the Elmer Louis Kayser Professor of History at George Washington University, 9 a.m.; John M. Murrin, professor of history at Princeton University and president-elect of the Society of Historians of the Early Republic, 10 a.m.; William Sewell, who holds the Mac Palevsky Professor of Political Science chair at the University of Chicago, 1 p.m.; and Eric Van Young, professor of history at the University of California at San Diego and associate director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 2 p.m. A roundtable discussion will begin at 4 p.m..
The event is free and open to the public. Seating will be first-come, first served, and no tickets are necessary. For more information, contact the Department of History at (765) 494-4122 or the Department of Convocations at (765) 494-9712.
CONTACT: Michael A. Morrison, associate professor of history, (765) 494-4804.
The 64th annual Christmas Show hits the stage six times in three days in Elliott Hall of Music:
Tickets prices are $16 for adults; $14 for Purdue students and $12 for high school students or younger. They are available at Purdue box offices, (765) 494-3933, or from Purdue Musical Organizations at (765) 494-3941 or 1-800-893-3041.
A December tradition since the 1930s, the Christmas Show presents a spectrum of holiday songs and scenery that celebrate both the popular and religious aspects of the Christmas season. The show features the student members of PMO ensembles: the Varsity Glee Club, Purduettes, University Choir, PMO Express and Purdue Bell Choir. Thousands of people from throughout the Midwest visit campus annually for the show, which plays to sell-out audiences every year.
They are Douglas L. Carter, an aviation technology major from Thorntown, Ind. ; Jeremy N. Fisher, a technical graphics major from Mishawaka, Ind. ; and Scott W. Sabau, a general flight technology major from Auburn, Ind. Each has received $1,000 toward tuition and fees based on their SAT scores and high school class placement.
-- Three Purdue University students will be recognized during the monthly Golden Taps ceremony at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, at Spitzer Court, Cary Quadrangle. The students are Nathan A. Frank, a junior in the School Liberal Arts, from Syracuse, Ind.; Anthony Kinkade, a junior in the School of Technology, from Crown Point, Ind.; and Julie Ann Swengel, a junior in the School of Technology, from Greenwood, Ind.
-- The Purdue chapter of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity will celebrate its 75th anniversary at the West Lafayette campus with a gathering of alumni and friends during Homecoming Weekend. More than 350 people will take part in the events Saturday, Oct. 18, at the chapter house, 330 N. Grant St., and in the Faculty Lounges of the Purdue Memorial Union. The Pi Kappa Phi national council, the ruling body for the fraternity's 135 chapters, will meet on campus that weekend to recognize the success and longevity of the Purdue chapter. The local chapter has initiated nearly 1,500 men during its 75-year history.
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Compiled by J. Michael Willis, (765) 494-0371; e-mail, mike_willis@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
