Welcome back letter from President Chiang, Provost Wolfe

Dear Purdue students, faculty and staff colleagues,

Happy New Year and a Boilermaker welcome back to Spring Semester 2023 at Purdue University. We hope you had a wonderful and restorative holiday break. As we approach this new semester, we look forward to an engaging and rewarding year of learning, discovery and engagement, and we know each of you is excited to continue your hard work toward our shared goals of growth in talent, careers and knowledge. To all of our undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty and staff, we are committed to providing a supportive environment where you can pursue your highest aspirations – and succeed at them.

Fundamental to this success is a new initiative we are launching today: the universitywide Action Council on Student Housing and Wellbeing (SHW). This group, whose full membership is listed below, will be led by Patrick Wolfe, Provost and EVP for Academic Affairs and Diversity, and Chris Ruhl, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. It includes the presidents of Purdue Student Government and Purdue Graduate Student Government, senior leaders from across key Purdue functions, and a proud Purdue student parent. To our students, we have listened and we have heard you. We announce, effective immediately, additional investment in Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) to broaden our proactive support and fully meet student needs in counseling and psychological services. And recognizing that our master’s and Ph.D. students are the engine that powers both Purdue’s research and teaching missions, this Action Council will also focus on the important issues faced by 12,000 graduate students in West Lafayette.

To continue enhancing the vibrancy of intellectual life on campus and to celebrate the scholarly impact of our colleagues, we are organizing various events with broad participation. For example, the Presidential Lecture Series will continue, and the first speaker of 2023 will be David MacMillan, the 2021 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry. Scheduled for 6 p.m. Feb. 13 in Fowler Hall, a separate invitation and RSVP for this open lecture will soon be sent to the campus community. Another example, with a smaller physical scale but equally exciting, are the Westwood Lectures, a monthly lecture series that will be resumed this year, featuring a wide range of our own faculty’s scholarship. A separate email will be sent to faculty in the near future.

Our listening and learning sessions with faculty will continue this semester with President Chiang, and more will be added with Provost Wolfe beginning in February. We have also scheduled town halls in which we look forward to meeting with staff and students over the coming months. These include a Jan. 19th town hall with undergraduate students, one with graduate students on Jan. 26th, and one with staff colleagues on Feb. 16th. Additional details will be forthcoming, and we look forward to learning from your perspectives, questions and aspirations.

As we begin another semester tomorrow morning, we are grateful that each of you has chosen to be here with us as a valued member of our Purdue community. One brick higher each day: Boiler Up!

Mung Chiang
President

Patrick Wolfe
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity

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Action Council on Student Housing and Wellbeing (in alphabetical order):

Co-Chair: Chris Ruhl, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Co-Chair: Patrick Wolfe, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity

Michael B. Cline, Senior Vice President for Administrative Operations

Jason Dietz, Senior Director of Financial Affairs

Robert Frosch, Vice Provost for Academic Facilities

John Gates, Vice Provost for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging

Andrew Jensen, President, Purdue Student Government

Linda Mason, Dean of the Graduate School

Beth McCuskey, Vice Provost for Student Life

Eva Nodine, Vice President and Deputy Chief Financial Officer

Jackie Perkins, Director of Student Life Marketing

David Rollock, Associate Dean for Student Success and Retention, Graduate School

Alex Seto, President, Purdue Graduate Student Government

Jenni Birch Szolwinski, Purdue Parent

Alyssa Wilcox, Chief of Staff to President and Senior Vice President for Partnerships

Kris Wong Davis, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management