Relocation of Purdue’s Welcome Center and Boilermaker Station creates a combined welcome center

The Boilermaker Station and Welcome Center have relocated due to the major renovation project on the Purdue Memorial Union Club hotel. The two guest centers have moved into Purdue’s Stewart Center, Room 102, to create a combined, all-encompassing welcome center called the Boilermaker Station Welcome Center.

The new space provides a welcome space for all Boilermakers — prospective students and families, current students in the Purdue Alumni Student Experience (PASE) or alumni visiting campus — and guests. The Purdue Alumni Association and the Office of Admissions are collaborating to staff the new center.

Previously, the alumni association staffed the Boilermaker Station. Purdue Marketing and Media staffed the Welcome Center, and the Office of Admissions used the center as the starting point for guided tours of the campus. Purdue Marketing and Media has transitioned the previous welcome center tour functions to the Office of Admissions.

The Boilermaker Station Welcome Center features a 98-inch touchscreen display highlighting Purdue’s traditions, milestones, leaders and accomplished alumni; historic Purdue newsreels, a photo opportunity with a replica Gateway to the Future arch and access to an alumni directory. The alumni association’s website on the center can be found here.

Tours of campus, coordinated by the Office of Admissions, now leave from the new center. The Boilermaker Station Welcome Center is the place for students to pick up their PASE kits or learn more about the purchasing or upgrading of an alumni association membership. The new center is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and for scheduled Office of Admission tours. It also will be open on Saturdays of home football games, including 8-11:30 a.m. Saturday (Sept. 7) before Purdue football's game against Vanderbilt.

Stewart Center’s Room 102 previously was a computer lab, and renovations on the new Boilermaker Station Welcome Center were completed in August. ITaP has relocated student computers to Parrish library; the Humanities, Social Science and Education library (commonly known as HSSE); and other ITaP labs for the fall. ITaP will be looking for a permanent relocation for the future. The recently closed Welcome Center was established in the Purdue Memorial Union in January 2013, and the Boilermaker Station was new to the Union in March 2017.

Renovations on the Purdue Memorial Union Club hotel will expand its facilities to include the area that used to be the Welcome Center and Boilermaker Station. The space will be converted into the new formal restaurant and bar that will provide a living laboratory learning environment for hospitality and tourism management students. The renovations were made possible through a donation made by Purdue alumnus and former trustee Bruce White and his wife, Beth, along with the Dean and Barbara White Foundation. 

Writer: Madison Sanneman, 317-903-5642, msannema@purdue.edu

Sources: Kat Braz, senior director of creative communications for the alumni association, kat@purdue.edu   
Megan Dorton, senior associate director of admissions, mdorton@purdue.edu
Greg Kline, IT communications manager, gkline@purdue.edu