December 2015
Dear alumni and friends,
This month I thought I’d spotlight our students and some of the great things they are doing — in the classroom, in the community, on the playing field and elsewhere. While it would take multiple pages to tell you about all the good that is happening on our campuses, here are just a few that seem like a “big deal.”
In the past few weeks, there have been lots of interesting opportunities for intellectual discussions on campus. On the evening of Dec. 1, the Purdue Graduate Student Government hosted an excellent panel discussion with Geoffrey Stone, a distinguished law professor from the University of Chicago, and Azhar Majeed, a director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), on the intricate and timely topic of free speech in academia. Washington Post columnist George Will also visited campus in early December for a standing room-only intellectual discussion on a variety of current events and the state of modern journalism — and of course, baseball.
We should all be extremely proud of the Purdue University Dance Marathon students, who during the weekend of Nov. 14-15 raised more than $1.1 million for Riley Hospital for Children. PUDM has become a tradition on our West Lafayette campus and this year, the 10th annual event, the total was the most ever raised. What a testament to our students’ caring and concern for others. Over the course of a year, students on all of our campuses donate hours of their time volunteering and raising money for causes they believe in — and that spirit of volunteerism, we know, will continue as they leave here and continue their community impact.
In October, a team of students from the Krannert School of Management, led by senior Rachel Crouch, placed third in a smartphone app developer competition with their app, KidEatz, which helps parents keep tabs on what their kids eat. You can read more about their creative app here: www.krannert.purdue.edu/news/features/KidEatz.php.
Ahead of Indiana’s bicentennial next fall, a team of students and faculty has designed a set of torches that will be relayed through each of the state’s 92 counties during the bicentennial celebration. The team, part of Purdue’s Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program, has designed some of the most innovative and high-tech torches ever — able to withstand a 200 mph trip around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and be safe enough for a child to handle.
Two Purdue cross-country runners, senior Matthew McClintock and junior Hope Schmelzle, represented Boilermaker athletes well in the NCAA Championships in late November in Louisville. Wrapping up a historic season, McClintock finished 133rd and Schmelzle finished 91st. Earlier in the season, McClintock was named the Big Ten Men’s Cross Country Athlete of the Year, having set the all-time Big Ten Championships 8,000-meter record and becoming Purdue’s first Big Ten champion in more than seven decades. In the women’s Big Ten Championship race, Schmelzle set an outstanding personal record, finishing fifth.
Andrew Cordova, a junior at Purdue Calumet, is the campus’ first cross-country runner to qualify for the NAIA national championships, in which he set a personal best time and finished 102nd.
Our men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams won the Purdue Invitational in late November, setting numerous records during the event. Emily Fogle, a senior in the College of Health and Human Sciences, set a new pool record in the 200-meter breaststroke with a time of 2:07.30. Marat Amaltdinov, a sophomore in the Krannert School of Management, also set the men’s pool record in the same event. Maddie Barta, studying biomedical engineering, established a new Purdue freshman record with her finish of 1:57.88 in the 200-meter backstroke.
The Boilermaker basketball teams are also off to stellar starts, filling Mackey Arena with unmatched energy and excitement, reinforced by our men’s team’s top 10 ranking.
Our student-athletes give us much to be proud of and rally around. I encourage you to read about more of their recent accomplishments at www.purduesports.com.
On the stage, Purdue Theatre’s recent productions of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” and “Betty’s Diner” have received rave reviews. If you have a chance to visit campus this spring, I encourage you to witness the talents of our theatre students for yourself during their two remaining productions, “The Liar” and “Eurydice.” The Purdue Christmas Show also drew large crowds once again, thanks to the always spectacular work of the Purdue Musical Organizations.
These are just the tiniest fraction of great things our Boilermakers have been up to lately. I encourage you to check out the Purdue website and our newsroom site to keep up to date on important news and announcements.
Boilermakers, it seems, are by their nature driven to succeed and work tirelessly toward their goals, humbly and quietly making a difference in so many ways. This season reminds us to be thankful for and to congratulate all in the Boilermaker community for their contributions great and small.
Sincerely,
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.
President