June 30, 2005

Purdue University President Martin C. Jischke made these remarks Thursday (June 30) during a meeting of the Purdue University Board of Trustees.

President Jischke's comments to the Board of Trustees

Good morning. It is always a pleasure to have you on our West Lafayette campus.

This is the final board meeting of Fiscal Year 2004-2005. It has been a very, very successful year. I would like to both thank you and congratulate the board for all that has been accomplished.

We have made solid progress on our strategic plans. We are moving forward in all our focuses of learning, discovery and engagement.

Purdue has assumed an important leadership role in our state as we build for a stronger future.

Five years ago when Patty and I arrived on this campus and the wheels for Purdue’s strategic plans were set in motion, we knew we would need strong support from our friends, alumni, our faculty, staff and retirees.

We knew they believed in Purdue. All of us were confident that Purdue people would step forward to support this important work.

Time has proven us right. We put our faith in the right people.

Thanks to the outstanding support of friends, alumni, parents of students, faculty, staff and retirees we have been able to raise our Campaign for Purdue goal to $1.5 billion.

The end of the Campaign is now just two years away. And I am confident we will succeed.

Our total raised to date is $1.18 billion. By the end of May – with one month still remaining in the fiscal year – we had raised $236.4 million in 2004-2005! That is the second best year in the history of Purdue.

You will be hearing more about all of this from Senior Vice President for Advancement Murray Blackwelder. Murray is doing a terrific job in leading this effort.

The entire university community has joined to make it a success. It is particularly gratifying that our Campus Campaign has already surpassed its $40 million goal.

Faculty, staff and retirees have now raised $42 million. This has enabled us to raise our Campus Campaign goal to $50 million in 2007. It is truly inspiring to see the people who work at this university invest so strongly in its future.

Last year our sponsored program support hit a record level of $243.4 million, systemwide.

This year, as of June 17, we have sailed past that and set a new record. Sponsored program support as of mid-June was $279.6 million, systemwide. We are running 15 percent ahead of last year. The total number of awards this year is 3,809, 14 percent ahead of last year.

Congratulations to our faculty on this outstanding work.

We are hiring record numbers of new faculty.

As you know, our strategic plans call for the addition of 300 new faculty. To date we have authorized 146 of those positions – almost half.

This fiscal year alone, we have hired 142 tenure/tenure track and clinical/professional faculty. Sixty-five of these were strategic plan hires.

Fifty-seven percent of the total hires were women and minorities. From 2001 through this fiscal year we have hired 483 faculty, 58 percent of them women and minorities.

We are literally changing the face of this university as we move into the 21st century.

We are hiring top faculty. Our number one choices are coming to Purdue.

Our College of Liberal Arts had the third highest number of faculty hires this year – 22, compared to 23 in agriculture and 25 in engineering. Three of those liberal arts hires were tenured full professors at their current universities.

We have more examples.

The School of Veterinary Medicine has hired Jim Leary as professor of basic medical sciences and biomedical engineering. Dr. Leary is an internationally known flow cytometrist who was a full professor at the University of Texas at Galveston Medical School.

In our College of Education, Dr. Lynn Bryan will be a new associate professor of science education. Dr. Bryan is a split hire between the College of Education and the College of Science. She was previously at the University of Georgia, and this past year she was named the Science Educator of the Year in the state of Georgia.

Consumer and Family Sciences has hired associate professor Daniel Mroczek in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies. Dan has an outstanding national reputation in the field of gerontology and brings to Purdue, from Fordham, not only a strong research program, but a consistent record of funding from the National Institutes of Health.

In our School of Management, we have a new husband-wife team in the management information systems area. Professor Yu Hu will receive his Ph.D. from MIT with a concentration in management science and information technology. One of his areas of research is Internet markets. Professor Zhulei Tang will receive her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University with concentration in management information systems. One of her areas of research is protecting online privacy.

Kevin Behling will join the faculty this fall in the Department of Building Construction Management. He was awarded the Associated General Contractors of America Education and Research Foundation, Heffner Graduate Award Fellowship in 2004.

Jerry M. Woodall who was at Purdue until 1998, has returned as a distinguished professor. Dr. Woodall has published over 320 papers and has been awarded 67 U.S. patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Carol Handwerker and John Blendell are a widely known and admired "power couple" in the field of materials science and engineering. Carol has served as the chief of the metallurgy division at National Institute of Standards and Technology since 1996. They will be at Purdue this fall, and their arrival in West Lafayette has already made a tremendous impact on the reputation of our School of Materials Engineering.

Dr. Carol Ott has joined Purdue's Department of Pharmacy Practice. She is a board-certified specialist in psychiatric pharmacy. Dr. Ott's research focuses on identification and medical management of adverse events associated with psychotherapeutic medications. She has developed a unique approach to the ambulatory management of these patients which will serve as a prototype for practitioners nationwide.

These are just a few examples of the people we are bringing to Purdue. We are positioning this university for a new century in learning, discovery and engagement.

Our enrollment continues strong and on-track for next fall.

Last fall we had more than 24,000 applications for a little more than 7,000 places in our freshman class.

This year we changed our application from a two- to a four-page form to help us accomplish a more holistic approach to admittance. Some of our peer institutions also made this change, and their applications dropped by several thousand. But ours continue above 24,000 for next fall.

We had a very strong recruiting cycle this year, and we are on track for another outstanding freshman class with increased numbers in areas such as National Merit Scholars.

We are in the third week of our Day on Campus program. It will continue until July 8.

We are ahead of last year in the number of students participating and registering for fall classes. Among new highlights this year is a Parents' Lounge hosted by Starbucks and the Purdue Memorial Union. This gives parents a chance to take a break and have some complimentary snacks and drinks. And it gives the students a break from their parents to get out on campus and explore on their own.

We also have Day on Campus Student Ambassadors who are circulating around the Union, answering questions, directing students and parents, and creating a welcoming and friendly atmosphere.

Boiler Gold Rush registrations are coming in strong and we anticipate our largest group of participants to date.

During the first week of Day on Campus, we had 60-80 students register in person, each day, which is about 50 more per day than in past years.

Our 400-plus student leaders will return to campus starting August 10 to complete the training they have been involved in for the past year. They are extremely excited to welcome our new class of Boilermakers.

We know from our experience that freshman students who participate in Boiler Gold Rush before classes begin in August have a higher rate of success at Purdue.

Our collaborative work with other Indiana universities is stronger than at any time in our history.

For example, last fall the Indiana University School of Medicine and Purdue formed a pilot program to promote biomedical research collaborations. The program provided $150,000 this fiscal year for grants to enable researchers from the two universities to team up on work that is likely to spawn larger ongoing programs and attract outside funding. We received 37 proposals for these funds. Seventeen of them have been funded. I believe the results will be very exciting.

The future of Purdue and our state is being impacted today by our work in Discovery Park.

Since the idea for this research and learning area was announced in 2001, Discovery Park has received nearly $125 million in sponsored research. It has received $100 million in donations for buildings. About 850 faculty members are associated with ongoing research at the park

The park has been a critical factor in forming eight startup companies and at least 40 patent filings.

Discovery Park currently includes four buildings which are either completed or under construction: the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, the Birck Nanotechnology Center, the Bindley Bioscience Center and the e-Enterprise Center. We will soon start construction on a Discovery Learning Center.

Our e-Enterprise Center will also be home to our Advanced Manufacturing Center and the Purdue Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering.

A major factor in our success with Discovery Park is Lilly Endowment.

In 2001 Lilly Endowment helped to launch Discovery Park with a $26 million grant. These funds enabled us to get our work in Discovery Park up and running even before the facilities could be completed. It enabled us to name directors for these centers. It made possible all the great progress we have seen to date.

In January, Purdue received a second $25 million grant from Lilly Endowment.

Purdue has directed $10 million of this for the creation of four new Discovery Park centers. These four new centers will fit within and complement existing interdisciplinary research efforts at Discovery Park. And they will build upon the needs and opportunities of our state.

We asked faculty to come with ideas for these four centers. We were very encouraged to receive 53 proposals.

Today it gives me a great deal of pleasure to announce the first of these new four centers.

Thanks to Lilly Endowment, today we are launching a Center for the Environment in Discovery Park.

This center will create a new common ground for those who wish to harness the planet's resources and those who wish to preserve them.

Today at Purdue, there are 200 people actively involved in environmental research.

One of the goals of Discovery Park is to bring our researchers from throughout the university together where they can work as teams on large-scale, interdisciplinary projects.

The Discovery Park Center for the Environment will showcase the fact that environmentalists and people interested in economic development not only can work together, but that they can attain more of their individual goals when they do.

Our objective with this center is to replace the traditional notion that environmental stewardship is a cost of doing business with a new concept. The new concept is this: Protecting environmental integrity is essential to the current and future prosperity of our state.

We will focus on enhancing the environment in the marketplace by using discoveries at the interface of science, engineering and technology to simultaneously enhance stewardship and drive economic development.

The economic opportunities in this for the state of Indiana are enormous.

Improving the environment is increasingly important to businesses. A majority of Fortune 500 companies include environmental sustainability objectives in their corporate strategic plans. Many industries also have discovered that consumers prefer to purchase products that have been produced in an environmentally friendly way.

This new center will be a place where communities, corporations and groups can come together and partner with interdisciplinary research teams working to understand and address environmental problems.

Indiana's economy is closely tied to its natural resources. This center will help our state better manage its wealth for maximum economic benefit and sustainability.

The center will focus in three areas:

• First – Integrating discoveries based upon anticipatory research to develop knowledge and innovative technologies;

• second – entrepreneurship leading to industrial partnerships for testing and commercializing technologies that are environmentally beneficial; and

• third – engagement involving policy analysis, regulatory guidance and public education.

In addition to our faculty and staff, there will be many opportunities for students to contribute to this center.

This is all about learning, discovery and engagement, fulfilling our land-grant missions.

We will be announcing plans for the additional three centers in the weeks ahead.

One of the major ingredients in our success at Discovery Park is the leadership that has stepped forward to spearhead our work. We have had outstanding leadership from Chip Rutledge and all our center directors.

I am pleased to announce this morning that we have found another great individual to head up our new Center for the Environment. Bernie Engel is here with us, and he will serve as interim director. Bernie, will you please stand.

Bernie is a professor and head of the agricultural and biological engineering department. He is an outstanding choice and we look forward to everything he will accomplish.

Thank you Bernie, and you have the full support of this university in your important work.

In making this announcement today, I want to emphasize our deep gratitude to Lilly Endowment.

Lilly Endowment is one of the greatest assets of our state. Its support has been the foundation of the progress at Purdue since we launched our strategic plans. Lilly Endowment is an enormous help to all of higher education in Indiana, along with providing assistance to communities and organizations throughout our state.

What Lilly Endowment is doing at Purdue today is impacting the future of our students, our faculty and Indiana.

I can't tell you what great discoveries will change the way we all live and work in the days ahead. I can tell you only that these discoveries are coming.

And in Discovery Park, our students and faculty will be researching and learning in all the great possibilities that will emerge.

It has been said that the future is not a place we are simply moving toward. It is a place we are building every day of our lives through everything that we do.

With this investment, Lilly Endowment is helping to build a better tomorrow.

Thank you.

To the News Service home page