May 20, 2005

Purdue University President Martin C. Jischke made these remarks Friday (5/20/05) during a meeting of the Purdue University Board of Trustees.

President Jischke's comments to the Board of Trustees

Good morning.

I am certain I speak for everyone when I say how happy we are to be holding our board of trustees meetings this week at Purdue North Central. Thanks to Chancellor Dworkin and everyone here for all you have done to prepare for this.

This is a beautiful campus, and the progress being made here for our students and for north-central Indiana is truly impressive.

There is a great deal of excitement on this campus as it progresses on its strategic plans. Purdue North Central has formed a strong partnership with this area focused on education, economic development and quality of life. We are all very pleased with everything that is taking place here.

It has been another great year systemwide at Purdue. Thanks to this board for all you have done in moving this university another brick higher.

It is commencement time on our campuses, and that is always among the most exciting times of year. Purdue has been awarding degrees at five campuses and eight College of Technology locations throughout Indiana this month.

During ceremonies at the West Lafayette last weekend, nearly 5,800 degrees were presented in four ceremonies. This included 4,490 undergraduate degrees, 231 professional degrees, 796 master's degrees and 281 doctoral degrees.

On May 8 at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 961 Purdue degrees were conferred to graduates from the Indianapolis and Columbus campuses. Here at Purdue North Central, commencement was held on May 10, and 495 degrees were conferred. In Fort Wayne on May 11, there were 757 Purdue graduates. Purdue Calumet will hold its commencement this Sunday, where 550 degrees will be conferred.

Congratulations to all our graduates and to our faculty members, who did such an outstanding job preparing them for their futures.

We have a large number of honors going to Purdue faculty and students this spring.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has extended two of its annual fellowships to Purdue faculty members, Marianne Boruch and Sabre Kais.

Guggenheim fellowships are grants designed to assist select individuals who are pursuing creative research and artistic endeavors. The average grant amount in past years was almost $36,000. No special conditions are attached to the grants, and fellows may spend the funds in any manner they deem necessary for their work.

Marianne Boruch is a professor of English and director of Purdue's Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing Program in the College of Liberal Arts. She will use the fellowship to complete her sixth collection of poems. Professor Boruch arrived at Purdue in 1987 to develop the graduate creative writing program, which she has directed since that time.

Dr. Kais is a professor of theoretical chemistry in our College of Science. He will use his award to further his research in developing finite-size scaling, a theoretical method that may help in the development and design of unusual new materials with specific electronic properties. These materials could have application in next-generation computer chips that are faster, more efficient and use less energy than contemporary chips.

This is very exciting, and congratulations to both these outstanding members of our faculty.

We have more faculty and staff awards to announce.

Professor Alexander King, head of our School of Materials Engineering, has been named a Jefferson Science Fellow.

The Jefferson Science Fellows program was established in 2003 by the United States Department of State to engage the American academic science, technology and engineering communities in the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. The program is administered by the National Academies and supported through the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the U.S. academic community, professional scientific societies and the Department of State.

Dr. King will be on a one-year sabbatical while he takes part in this fellowship. Congratulations to him on this outstanding honor.

Purdue faculty are indeed the key to everything we are working to accomplish. They are doing outstanding work in research and in the classrooms.

Among the highest honors faculty can receive are those that come from students.

On our West Lafayette campus this spring, Stephen P. Beaudoin, an associate professor in Chemical Engineering, has been honored with the Purdue Student Government Excellence in Teaching Award.

Purdue Student Government also annually names an Outstanding Academic Advisor. This year’s award went to Leanne Williams from the College of Agriculture.

Congratulations to Professor Beaudoin and Leanne Williams.

I also have exciting news concerning our Graduate Program. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships at Purdue have hit a new high!

Thirteen students who selected Purdue as their proposed graduate school were awarded 2005 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Twenty students who selected Purdue received honorable mentions in the competition.

National Science Foundation Fellowships provide three years of support consisting of a $30,000 annual stipend and a $10,500 annual cost of program allowance that the Graduate School supplements with tuition scholarships to cover the total amount of awardees' annual tuition.

Last year, Purdue students received three National Science Foundation Fellowships and nine honorable mentions. During the previous five years, Purdue averaged five fellowships and just over seven honorable mentions a year.

Of this year's 13 fellows, five are in mechanical engineering, three in electrical and computer engineering, and one each in aeronautical and astronautical Engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, industrial engineering, and life sciences.

This is the impact of our strategic plans as we make this university increasingly attractive to the top students in our nation and throughout the world.

Two undergraduate students on our West Lafayette campus have received a national honor. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, recently announced 320 scholarships for the 2005-2006 academic year to undergraduate sophomores and juniors.

Recipients from Purdue are: Anna Treaster, who is majoring in physics/mathematics. Her career goal is a Ph.D. in astrophysics. And Chase Douglas, who is majoring in computer engineering. His career goal is a Ph.D. in computer engineering/computer Networks.

The 2005 Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,091 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.

Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 58 Rhodes Scholarships, 72 Marshall Awards and numerous other distinguished fellowships. The Goldwater Scholarship is among the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

Congratulations to Anna and Chase.

While a great deal has been accomplished this year, we have continued to face very difficult, very challenging budgets.

This morning the board will consider a Fiscal 2005-2006 budget that is very tight.

We are all concerned about the cost of higher education and keeping Purdue affordable for our students. We are constantly working to reduce our expenses, and independent studies have shown Purdue is very efficient and accomplishes a great deal on a lean budget.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting an award to a member of our staff who has had an incredible impact on reducing costs. Throughout the year, I present One Brick Higher Awards to individuals who are making an enormous difference at our university.

At a President's Forum yesterday in West Lafayette, Dennis Feldman was named our newest One Brick Higher Award recipient. I'd like to tell you a little about him.

Before the creation of ITaP, Purdue lacked a systematic way to leverage individual investments being made across the campus in the purchase of computing hardware and software. Departments and administrative units were left to negotiate on their own, one on one with vendors. When ITaP was formed, Denny Feldman was charged with developing a system to make the Purdue dollar go farther by negotiating with vendors through the single voice of the entire campus.

In the Spring of 2002, Denny assembled a top-notch team of information technology licensing specialists to build the foundation for Purdue's negotiating strength.

The mission was daunting. Not only was he to coordinate all licenses for ITaP software, hardware, consulting and maintenance, he also had to identify opportunities to help other departments and organizations on campus facing similar challenges.

The results to date are in. They are – in a word – awesome!

Under Denny's guidance, ItaP has negotiated 655 agreements, including 240 that were new and started from scratch. In the past two years, Denny Feldman has successfully negotiated quoted prices down by $5 million!

Congratulations to Denny. He has had an enormous impact on our university.

And throughout Purdue, on every campus, in every college and department, people are continually looking for ways to reduce expenses. We appreciate the involvement of everyone in this continuing effort.

A group of Purdue students made a national TV appearance this spring.

As you know, we have a Rube Goldberg competition on our campus every year. The contest is named for the cartoonist who found difficult ways to accomplish relatively simple tasks.

The national contest this year was won by the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers. They developed a machine that takes 125 different steps to change the batteries in flashlight.

On April 15 they appeared nationally on ABC TV's Jimmy Kimmel Live! show. Since the program aired locally at 12:05 a.m., some of you might have missed it! So we have a two-minute portion of the program to show you this morning.