Purdue trustees approve STEM atrium naming, disability insurance administrator

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Thursday (Oct. 10) approved the naming of an entryway at a teaching facility for Nobel Prize recipient Ei-Ichi Negishi.

Trustees also approved a new disability insurance administrator and a Master of Science degree at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. 

The entrance and foyer in the under-construction STEM teaching lab facility will be called the “Dr. Ei-Ichi Negishi Atrium” in honor of the 2010 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Negishi, the H.C. Brown Distinguished Professor in the College of Science, received the Nobel for discovering the Negishi Coupling, a process that condenses organic zinc compounds and organic halides under a palladium or nickel catalyst to obtain a C-C bonded product. He has been published over 400 times, including two books, and his work has been cited more than 17,000 times.

Trustees also approved Guardian Life Insurance as third-party administrator for the university’s disability plans and Purdue University Global’s long-term disability plan. The three-year, $4,785,501 contract is expected to save the university $675,000 annually on long-term disability premiums, with half of those savings going directly to employees through lower premium rates. 

Additionally, trustees voted to approve the creation of a Master of Science degree program in cybersecurity and trusted systems at IUPUI. This residential program will differ from programs at Purdue West Lafayette and Indiana University Bloomington, to focus on addressing local industry needs by delivering hands-on cybersecurity courses, many with lab components, and to complement the lab instruction with courses that have a significant engineering component. 

Sources: Jay Akridge, akridge@purdue.edu

Chris Ruhl, ruhlc@purdue.edu

Candace Shaffer, shaffe14@purdue.edu