WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Blake Mycoskie, entrepreneur and founder of TOMS shoes, will speak at Purdue on Thursday (Oct. 29) as part of the Purdue Series on Corporate Citizenship and Ethics. The 7 p.m. talk, in Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse, is free and open to the public.

Blake Mycoskie, entrepreneur and founder of TOMS shoes, will speak at Purdue on Thursday (Oct. 29) as part of the Purdue Series on Corporate Citizenship and Ethics. The 7 p.m. talk, in Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse, is free and open to the public. Mycoskie's company operates on the one-for-one business model, giving one pair of new shoes to a child in need with every pair sold. (Photo contributed)

Mycoskie’s talk is presented by the Krannert School of Management and the College of Education’s James F. Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship and is sponsored by the Purdue Employees Federal Credit Union, Karl and Kathy Krapek, and the Chrysler Foundation.

Mycoskie’s company, TOMS shoes, operates on the one-for-one business model, giving one pair of new shoes to a child in need with every pair sold. More than 140,000 pairs of new shoes were delivered to children around the world in three years. By the end of 2009, TOMS will give an additional 300,000 pairs of new shoes to children in need all around the world, including in the United States.

In February at the Clinton Global Initiative University plenary session, former President Bill Clinton introduced Mycoskie as “one of the most interesting entrepreneurs (I’ve) ever met.” Mycoskie and TOMS have been featured in People magazine’s “Heroes Among Us” section and in the Bill Gates Time magazine article “How to Fix Capitalism.”

Mycoskie has created five businesses since college. His first was a successful national campus laundry service; his second startup, Mycoskie Media, caught the attention of Clear Channel Media and was bought by it. Between business ventures, he competed in the CBS primetime series “The Amazing Race.” With his sister, Paige, Mycoskie traveled the world and came within minutes of winning the $1 million grand prize.

After “The Amazing Race,” Mycoskie attempted to create the first TV cable channel dedicated entirely to reality programming. His fourth startup was an online driver’s education school that featured hybrid cars and SUVs. Mycoskie sold the driver’s school in order to focus on the creation of TOMS Shoes.

The Purdue Series on Corporate Citizenship and Ethics began in 2003. Speakers chosen from a variety of disciplines discuss business ethics and the role citizens play in corporate ethics, providing an overview of the impact of corporate ethics on business, the economy and society as a whole.

Harry Markopolos, the “whistle-blower” in the Bernie Madoff investment scandal, also is scheduled to speak at Purdue as part of the series. Markopolos’ talk will be at 7 p.m. April 22.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University ranked 22nd among the nation’s public universities and 61st among all universities, according to U.S. News & World Report magazine rankings released Thursday (Aug. 20).

Purdue University ranked 22nd (up from 26th in 2008) among the nation's public universities and 61st (up from 66th in 2008) among all universities.

The ranking is a move up from Purdue’s ranking of 26th last year. Purdue ranked 61st among all universities, tied with Clemson University, Fordham University, Texas A&M University and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. This also is an improvement for Purdue, which ranked 66th last year.

“These rankings reflect our continued commitment to the student experience. It has been a year since we adopted our New Synergies strategic plan, and these rankings show that it is working,” President France A. Córdova said. “We are focusing our efforts on student success, and it is paying off. Students from across the nation and around the world know that when they come to Purdue, they will receive a high quality education due to the outstanding work of our faculty and staff.”

Factors that helped Purdue move up in the rankings are higher graduation rates and more classes with fewer students, Córdova said. She also noted that the alumni giving rate increased from 16 percent to 18 percent.

In the “Programs to Look For” category, Purdue is among 14 public and private universities cited for the quality of its internship programs, 24 cited for their first-year experience, and 22 cited for writing in the disciplines.

“It’s exciting and rewarding to see that the plans we have put in place to improve the academic experience of our students is being recognized,” said Randy Woodson, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost.

“The improved rankings, while gratifying, are not the goal. The goal is to make a difference for students, and the rankings are just a reflection of the fact that we are making strides on that front.”

Purdue’s College of Engineering tied for ninth nationally among doctoral-granting universities, sharing the spot with Cornell University and University of Texas-Austin. The college also ranked ninth last year.

The Krannert School of Management shared the 21st position with Georgetown University, Pennsylvania State University and University of Washington among doctoral-granting universities. Krannert has consistently been included in the top 25, ranking 17th last year and 21st in 2007.

Specialty programs in both management and engineering also ranked among the top five in several categories.

Among engineering specialties, four Purdue schools placed in the top five nationally: biological/agricultural, No. 2; industrial/manufacturing, No. 3; aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical, No. 4; and civil, tied at No. 5 with Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Purdue’s Krannert School had two top five specialty rankings: No. 4 in productions/operations management, and No. 4 in quantitative analysis and methods, tied with University of California-Berkeley.

The data for determining the nation’s best institutions of higher education come from questionnaires U.S. News sends to all accredited four-year colleges and universities. The magazine then determines its rankings based on measures that fall into seven broad categories: assessment by administrators at peer institutions; retention of students; faculty resources; student selectivity; financial resources; alumni giving; and “graduation rate performance,” the difference between the proportion of students expected to graduate and the proportion who actually do.

The magazine bases its specialty rankings on a spring 2009 survey of deans and department heads at peer institutions. The schools receiving the most votes are listed.

Information on the rankings can be found at the U.S.News & World Report Web site at http://www.usnews.com/. The magazine’s college guidebook, “America’s Best Colleges,” contains a directory of the more than 1,400 institutions.

More on Purdue’s past U.S. News and other rankings is available online at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/ranking.html.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Tickets are on sale for the annual Krannert Leadership Speaker Series dinner, which raises money for scholarships.

Elaine Chao, labor secretary in President George W. Bush’s administration, will be the keynote speaker at the Oct. 1 event, the ninth in the series.

Elaine Chao, labor secretary in G. W. Bush administration, will keynote the October 1 Krannert Leadership Speaker Series dinner.

The series has raised more than $125,000 in scholarship money for undergraduate and graduate students in the Krannert School of Management.

Chao, labor secretary for the eight years of the Bush administration, was the first Asian Pacific American woman to serve in a president’s cabinet.

She focused her tenure on increasing the competitiveness of the work force in the 21st century workplace. The U.S. Department of Labor updated regulations to provide millions of low-wage, white-collar workers with strengthened overtime protection. In 2002, the department led the effort to resolve a West Coast ports dispute that was costing up to $1 billion a day. In 2003, union financial disclosure regulations were updated to give rank-and-file members more information about how dues are spent. In 2006, the Pension Protection Act was signed into law, benefiting 44 million Americans who are under defined benefit plans. In 2008, the department updated the Family and Medical Leave Act to give military families job-protected rights to care for wounded service men and women.

Chao previously held positions in government and the private sector, among them director of the Peace Corps, deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation, president and CEO of United Way of America, and distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Chao, who immigrated to the United States at age 8, has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Mount Holyoke College. She is married to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The dinner will be at 6:30 p.m. in Purdue Memorial Union. Deadline for reserving tickets is Sept. 11. For information and to reserve tickets, contact Tim Newton, Krannert director of external relations, at 765-496-7271 or e-mail tnewton@purdue.edu

Sponsors for the leadership series are Boston Scientific, Saint-Gobain Containers, Air Products, Accenture, WellPoint, Lafayette Printing, Grow Indiana Media Ventures and Purdue alumni.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A Purdue University student will be honored in Washington, D.C., on Monday (April 14) with the North-American Interfraternity Conference’s Award of Distinction.

Steve Holtsclaw, a senior in the School of Management from Carmel, Ind., will receive the award during the annual North-American Interfraternity Conference awards banquet.

Holtsclaw, who was the 2007 Interfraternity Council president and a member of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, was selected for the honor for his work with the IFC, fraternity and sorority community, and partnerships he created with other student organizations.

He is one of four students receiving the award this year, according to the North-American Interfraternity Conference. Kyle A. Pendleton, assistant dean of students and Interfraternity Council adviser, said Holtsclaw is the first Purdue student to receive this award.

The North-American Interfraternity Conference is comprised of 71 member organizations with approximately 5,500 chapters on more than 800 campuses in the United States and Canada and approximately 350,000 undergraduate members.