August 7, 2014
In the Spotlight
A revamped Boiler Gold Rush, Purdue's orientation program for new students, will get underway Aug. 16 for about 5,500 new students. "We've restructured the entire program," says Kasi Jones, senior assistant director at Student Success at Purdue and coordinator of orientation programs. "Based on what the University has learned from the Foundations of Excellence self-study, we're doing a full week of orientation and incorporating specific learning outcomes. ... Our perspective has changed. We would touch on some things in the past, but this year we will go in depth on resources that are available to students and give them much more information about everything, academically and socially."
In the photo: Students participating in the 2013 Boiler Gold Rush walk into Ross-Ade Stadium for the Boiler Up Rally.
Faculty and staff news
Frank Dooley, associate vice provost of undergraduate academic affairs, has been named interim vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs, effective Friday (Aug. 1).
Due to an increase in the number of fraudulent websites created on Purdue's servers, ITaP has changed the way faculty, staff and student career account websites are created. Effective today (Aug. 7), individuals who have never stored files in their www folder will need to create the folder manually to add it to their home directory. Existing, valid home directory Web pages will not be affected.
The parking lot west of the Harrison Street Parking Garage and east of Building Services and Grounds has reopened and is for University vehicles only. Departments and schools with University vehicles, especially those that are not used often, should park them in the reopened lot.
A list of obituaries of recent and retired Purdue faculty and staff.
People
On Wednesday (Aug. 6), Loretta Rush was named chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. Rush, a Purdue alumna, was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2012 by then-Gov. Mitch Daniels, who now serves as Purdue's president.
Research news
A Purdue professor is among seven researchers selected by NASA for Early Career Faculty awards to pursue new technologies in robotics, lasers and other systems for space exploration.
Here is a list of research studies that currently are looking for participants.
General news
Purdue's summer commencement ceremony on Saturday (Aug. 9) will be shown live via webcast at https://www.kaltura.com/tiny/kmdv5. The ceremony is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in Elliott Hall of Music. Indiana Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann is the keynote speaker.
Purdue North Central students already have saved a collective $100,000 in tuition costs thanks to a tuition discount plan offered for the first time this fall semester. The plan gives PNC students a 10 percent tuition reduction for each credit hour taken beyond 12 hours per semester. The discount plan is designed to provide financial incentives for students to increase the number of credit hours taken each semester and encourage them to graduate in four years.
An iPhone app from Purdue can help women who are pregnant or nursing safely eat seafood, which is a good source of nutrients for babies, but it is also the subject of concern about ingesting mercury and other contaminants.
A free, no-ads mobile app called Estar that has been launched by Mobile Enerlytics LLC on Google Play provides smartphone owners with a tool that shows how fast different smartphone applications drain smartphone batteries.
Purdue sports
For more information on Purdue sports, go to www.purduesports.com.
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