New lecture series will cater to students questioning their academic paths
The College of Engineering is using National Engineers Week to recognize gifts to the college from numerous benefactors. Among the donations are two endowments valued at $750,000 from John Held (BSME ’60) and his wife and fellow Purdue graduate, Yvonne Held. The endowments will support the John and Yvonne Held Mechanical Engineering Scholarship and the Held Alumni Lecture Series.
The lecture series will bring alumni -- especially those with nontraditional career paths -- to campus to share their experiences with students.
John Held, who decided engineering wasn’t for him as he was finishing up his degree at Purdue, later earned a law degree, and combined his two degrees to become a patent attorney for a Chicago technology and intellectual property firm. He says he wanted to support the lecture series to reach engineering students who might be unsure about their academic choices.
“The lecture series is intended for students who find themselves in my position -- questioning whether they want to be a practicing engineer,” Held says.
The couple, whose daughter and son-in-law also graduated from Purdue, took steps to establish their gift in 2010.
“I’d been thinking about doing it for a while,” Held says. “There are two schools of thought: One is that you don’t give a grocery store anything extra just because they sell you life-giving groceries; the other is that college and law school created the basis for whatever success that I have enjoyed in my life, and I should give something back so future generations can have the same opportunities that I had.
I belong to the latter school.”
On Monday, the College of Engineering announced nearly $18 million in scholarship gifts. Throughout this week, the college will celebrate donations totaling nearly $20 million. National Engineers Week at Purdue runs Feb. 21-25.
