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MOMENTUM
A Web Letter from the Office of the Provost - May 2022
Provost Jay Akridge

By Mary Jane Chew

A Message from Jay

Dear Colleagues,

Grades are in and our 2021-2022 academic year is coming to a close.  COVID-19 again brought challenges, but thanks to your efforts, and those of our students, we took a big step closer to normal – or whatever normal will eventually be post-pandemic….  While the end-of-semester stresses were there, we closed our academic year with a flourish – plenty of smiles, laughter, handshakes and hugs at the many (in-person!) end-of-year celebration and recognition events held across campus.

Our biggest and most important celebration is coming this weekend – our Spring 2022 Commencement. If any class deserves a celebration, it is the class of 2022 – these students basically had only one uncompromised year at Purdue before the world was turned upside down in the spring of 2020.  We talk about the persistence of Boilermakers, and this class has demonstrated that persistence with grace as they navigated the challenges of COVID-19.

We are back in the Elliott Hall of Music this year, after a virtual Spring 2020 Commencement and the Spring 2021 Commencement in Ross-Ade Stadium.  Some 5,777 undergraduates, 231 professional students and 915 graduate students will be walking across the Hall of Music stage in seven ceremonies beginning Friday afternoon and concluding Monday morning.  A total crowd of 35,000+ is expected on campus for the celebrations – with many, many more watching via livestream.  If you have forgotten what unbridled joy looks like or just want to have your spirits lifted, hang around outside of Elliott and Hovde as the graduates and their families and friends gather post-commencement – euphoric only begins to describe the scene.

The campus looks beautiful, thanks to the good work of our Administrative Operations staff.  I have watched them for several weeks cleaning beds and planting flowers, putting down mulch, hanging floral baskets and so many other less visible, but no less important, tasks to ensure that our students and their families have plenty of attractive backdrops for photographic memories.  Chris Pass and her “small but mighty” commencement team do some incredible work to make this weekend happen.  Handing 6,692  students their actual diplomas as they walk across the stage takes something very close to magic, along with a fully engaged Registrar Keith Gehres and his team.

So many more of you are directly part of commencement.  We remain thankful for our campus partners who volunteer their time in support of commencement efforts. Some of you audit student records to ensure they have met graduation requirements, some will serve as marshals, shepherding students where they need to be when they need to be there, some of you will participate in the ceremony as faculty representatives or hooding your doctoral students, others are engaged in hosting unit graduation celebration events – I could go on.

Of course, each and every one of you owns some part of commencement.  Whatever your role at Purdue, in some direct or indirect way, you support our first land-grant mission – our teaching and learning mission.  And, while the ceremony is a beautiful and moving testament to the hard work of our students, their families and friends, and your support, the most exciting part is yet to come as these newest Boilermakers launch their careers in business, government or academe.  Others will move on to graduate or professional school.  And all will draw on their Purdue education – in and outside the classroom – to take that first “giant leap” toward their personal and professional dreams.  My thanks for the role you played in creating this very special moment for our students – and all of their fans.

One class graduates and another is on the way.  Final numbers will come later, but we had record applications (again) for our fall 2022 class.  After the unexpectedly large entering class in fall of 2021, when non-resident (out of state) students accepted our admission offer at a much higher rate than previously seen, we took a number of steps to even better manage to our target enrollment this year.  Fewer students were admitted, we used a deferral process to better control acceptances, and a wait list was employed.  Some of these tactics were not popular with prospective students or their families, but they were essential in order to manage the size of our incoming class, enabling us to deliver the quality educational experience students come to West Lafayette for.

In the end, it is clear that more and more students want to be at Purdue. They want what you are providing.  And, while our final numbers won’t be close to last year’s entering class, we will be above our target – only this time by a much more manageable amount.  It is important to note that we remain an outlier here – for so many higher education institutions, enrollment is declining, not increasing.  My thanks to our Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Kris Wong Davis and her team for all they have done to deliver what looks to be an exceptional fall 2022 class in the face of some enormous uncertainty as traditional student preferences and college choice behaviors continue to evolve.

Thanks again for all you have done to support our spring 2022 graduates through their pandemic-impacted student experience here.  And, thanks for all you do to make Purdue a place where record numbers of students want to be.  There is plenty to celebrate this weekend – both going and coming….

I wish each of you a productive, enjoyable, and rejuvenating summer.

All the best,

Jay