WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Princeton Review has named Purdue University among the top 20 colleges in the nation in a variety of campus-life categories, including best athletics, best college newspaper and best campus food.

In January, Purdue ranked in Princeton Review's 100 best value colleges for 2009. The education services and test-prep company said the rankings were an attempt to highlight schools that offered high-quality education at a reasonable price.

Purdue ranked 15th for its intercollegiate and intramural sports and 19th for on-campus food. In addition, The Purdue Exponent ranked 17th among college newspapers.

The ratings, published in Princeton Review’s “The Best 371 Colleges – 2010 Edition,” are based on surveys of 122,000 students at colleges across the United States during the 2008-09 and/or previous two academic years.

In January, Purdue ranked in Princeton Review’s 100 “best value” colleges for 2009. The education services and test-prep company said the rankings were an attempt to highlight schools that offered high-quality education at a reasonable price.

For the most recent ratings, respondents were asked about themselves and their school’s academics, administration, campus life and student body. Princeton Review did not rate academic programs, but rather created 62 rankings based on students’ campus experiences and other institutional data.

“These ratings bear testimony to the excellent quality of student life Purdue offers,” said Randy Woodson, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost. “Purdue offers a world-class education, and campus life is an integral part of that. We work hard to ensure student life is enriched through the residential experience and extracurricular activities.”

Princeton Review reported students saying: “Purdue boasts an ‘absolutely amazing’ freshman orientation program, and, with more than 800 clubs and organizations, ‘there is something for everyone.’”

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University’s summer commencement ceremony on Saturday (Aug. 8) will be broadcast live for television and Internet audiences.

The event is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at the Elliott Hall of Music. Purdue President France A. Córdova will address graduates during the ceremony.

The 1,287 degrees being awarded include 484 undergraduate degrees, four professional degrees, 445 master’s degrees and 354 doctoral degrees.

The event will be aired live on Comcast Channel 5 and Boiler TV. It also will be shown live via Webcast at mms://video.dis.purdue.edu/graduation

The link will not become active until 48 hours before the ceremony.

To watch the event online, viewers must have Windows Media Player installed on their computers. It can be downloaded for free at http://www.Microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/
download/AllDownloads.aspx

Commencement videos will be available for $30 per DVD. Order forms can be obtained at http://www.purdue.edu/registrar/pdf/DVD_Form.pdf or by calling 765-494-3933. Forms may be submitted before or after the ceremony within two weeks of the event.

For more information, call 765-494-6157 or e-mail commencement@purdue.edu

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — France A. Córdova celebrates her second anniversary as president of Purdue University today (July 16).

Over the past year, Córdova has focused on implementation of Purdue’s strategic plan, “New Synergies,” which lays out goals of launching tomorrow’s leaders, promoting both research and its commercialization, and meeting global challenges.

France A. Cordova will mark her second anniversary as president of Purdue University on Thursday (July 16) with a gathering on the Purdue Mall. Purdue faculty, staff and students are invited for lemonade, cookies and a chance to chat with Cordova from 3:30p-5p on the mall, in front of Hovde Hall.

“As I finish my second year here at Purdue, one of the accomplishments I am most proud of is progress we’ve made on the ‘New Synergies’ strategic plan. This plan combines the exemplary and diverse ideas of our campus community and stakeholders, and will help position Purdue among the top-ranked research universities in the world,” Córdova said. “Our students are the beneficiaries as we turn the concepts of the plan into reality. I appreciate all of the wonderful efforts that have been made so far by our faculty and staff, and I encourage others to get involved in our exciting future.”

The Access & Success campaign, launched in spring 2008, ensures that students have access to a Purdue education and the support to succeed once they arrive on campus. To date, more than $100 million has been raised for programs and scholarships. The first scholarships were awarded in the fall 2008 semester.

Recipients of the Trustees and Presidential scholarships that were created as a part of the campaign have received a total of $10.7 million. In April Córdova announced the Purdue Marquis Scholarship Program, which will help Indiana students who are in the top half of their class, who qualify for minimal or no state and federal aid, and whose families earn between $40,000 and $100,000 annually. Selected Indiana students will be funded at $2,000 per year, starting with the 2009-10 freshman class.

The academic characteristics of Purdue’s 2009 freshman applicant pool surpassed that of the previous year. This year’s freshman applicants averaged a 22-point SAT score increase on the 2400-point scale and a 16-point increase on the critical reading and math 1600-point scale. The students’ average class rank has increased by three percentage points. This year’s admitted student group includes Chelsea Arthur of New Carlisle, Ind., named Indiana’s Top Young Scientist.

To help ensure that students succeed academically once at Purdue, beginning in fall 2011 the university will require incoming students to have completed four years of high school math. Studies show that high school students who take senior-level math increase their odds of completing a bachelor’s degree by 73 percent.

Purdue also has continued its efforts to drive economic development in Indiana. Purdue and Indiana University will jointly lead the Indiana Innovation Alliance, a broad-based research alliance that will help the state grow its bio- and life-sciences industries, improve public health, and increase the number of physicians being trained in Indiana. The alliance will bring together a wide spectrum of businesses, government and universities to share research facilities and other resources to expand the state’s capacity to support new and existing companies in the biology and health-related fields. The Indiana General Assembly authorized $20 million for the project over the 2009-11 biennium.

Purdue recently received $20 million in bonding authority from the Indiana General Assembly for a new drug discovery facility that will serve to keep Purdue and the state at the forefront of pharmaceutical research and drug discovery.

Meanwhile, Purdue Research Park continues to spur economic growth in Indiana’s high-tech sector and now includes parks in West Lafayette, Indianapolis, Merrillville and New Albany. Purdue Research Park at AmeriPlex-Indianapolis, which opened in January, will accommodate up to 75 businesses and create 1,500 jobs, mostly in life sciences and high-tech areas.

Two new buildings opened in West Lafayette, the 80,000-square-foot Innovation Center that houses a national software solution center for EDS, an HP company, and the 105,000-square-foot Herman and Heddy Kurz Purdue Technology Center.

On a global scale, Córdova unveiled plans for Purdue’s Global Public Policy Institute earlier this month. The institute will cultivate solid, evidence-based research for policy-makers, help to create synergies between researchers across disciplinary lines in order to address global challenges, and benefit students through internships and degrees in public policy.

Córdova also extended Purdue’s partnership with Cummins Inc. and Cummins College of Engineering for Women during a 10-day trip to India and Hong Kong.

“It’s been an exciting year here at Purdue, and this is just the beginning,” Córdova said.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Executive Committee of the Purdue University board of trustees on Monday (July 13) approved tuition and fee rates for the next two academic years and a conceptual general fund operating budget for the current fiscal year.

Board chairman Keith Krach, vice chair Mamon Powers Jr. and trustees JoAnn Brouillette and Michael Birck voted unanimously to approve after listening to 10 students, graduate students and parents speak at a public hearing.

At the West Lafayette campus, resident students will pay an additional $388, and nonresident students’ tuition will increase by $1,394. This translates into an increase of 5 percent for resident and 6 percent for nonresident continuing students each of the next two academic years.

When comparing state support versus tuition, Indiana's share of the academic mission was 50% in FY1993. Today that share is 31%. Purdue receives 20% less in state appropriations per full-time equiv. student than its peers and other Big Ten public institutions.

There also will be a new $500 fee per academic year for new West Lafayette campus students tied to strategic plan improvements for academic programs. However, first-time Indiana undergraduate students will have this $500 fee rebated this year, using stimulus funding provided to Purdue by the General Assembly. Students enrolled prior to the summer of 2009 will not be assessed the fee. Funds generated by the proposed strategic plan fee will be used to invest in academic curricula, financial aid, student success programs, and assist in attracting and retaining top faculty.

The approved conceptual general fund budget – $1.1 billion system-wide for the current fiscal year – was drafted after the state approved its biennial spending plan.

“It was a hard decision, but a lot of thought went into it,” Krach said. “We had to balance three major factors: preserving the quality of a Purdue education, staying competitive with our peer institutions given our tuition is among the lowest in the Big Ten, and making sure the organization was run responsibly and keeping costs low.”

Purdue President France A. Córdova said, “As the students said at the hearing, the value of a Purdue degree can’t be matched, and we want to make it affordable for families, too. We are awarding more scholarships and financial aid than ever before. This year we launched a new scholarship directed at middle-class families and I commit to raising more money to help students afford a Purdue education.”

Although Purdue was given an apparently flat budget in the state appropriations process, 8 percent was made up of the one-time stimulus funding. Purdue actually received a cut of 8 percent in its recurring funding for operations, or $21 million over two years at the West Lafayette campus, said James S. Almond, Purdue’s senior vice president for business services and assistant treasurer.

Almond said stimulus dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would not be used to fund recurring expenses. Instead, those funds would be dedicated to one-time expenditures, such as repair and rehabilitation costs and to credit the first-year cost of the $500 fee for newly enrolled undergraduates back to in-state resident students. Purdue also will use the stimulus funds to help with $400 million in facility repair and rehabilitation needs.

Under the new tuition and fee structure, which includes the one-year $500 credit for first-time students, resident students will pay $8,138 in the 2009-10 academic year. Tuition and fees for 2010-11 would be $8,544 for returning residents and $9,070 for returning sophomores and first-time resident students.

Nonresident students returning to the West Lafayette campus would pay $1,394 more, and nonresident first-time students would pay $1,894 more for the 2009-10 academic year. Tuition and fees in 2009-10 would be $24,618 for returning nonresident students and $25,118 for nonresident first-time students. Tuition and fees for 2010-11 would be $26,096 for returning nonresidents and $26,622 for nonresident first-time students.

Some programs, such as engineering, management, pharmacy and veterinary medicine, also have fee differentials, which are dedicated to defraying the higher costs of these programs. New this year is a $500 differential fee for College of Technology students who start this fall on the West Lafayette campus.

For 2008-09, total financial aid and student support on the West Lafayette campus was budgeted at $467 million, and three out of four Purdue students receive some form of assistance. In 2008-09, for a student with a family income below $40,000, the net cost for tuition, room and board was an average of $1,666 after all forms of aid were counted. Students who qualify for federal financial aid will have their tuition and fees offset with additional Purdue aid.

Purdue’s undergraduate resident fees this year rank ninth among all Big Ten institutions, and nonresident tuition and fees rank seventh.

Fees for Indiana students at other Purdue campuses are assessed on a per credit hour basis. Rates for resident and nonresident students, which represent a 5 percent and 6 percent increase, respectively, are:

• Purdue Calumet – $210 and $471
• Purdue North Central – $213 and $502
• Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne – $231 and $549

System-wide general fund budgets were established with recurring funds only and exclude any federal stimulus dollars. In approving Purdue’s general fund budget, which supports educational and base operating expenditures, the Executive Committee endorsed the following spending plans for fiscal year 2009-2010:

• At the West Lafayette campus: A 4.5 percent increase to $873.3 million.
• At Purdue Calumet: A 3.1 percent increase to $78.2 million.
• At Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne: A 5.2 percent increase to $100.5 million.
• At Purdue North Central: A 4 percent increase to $28.2 million.

Almond said aggressive cost-cutting measures led to a budget that will allow the university to provide competitive financial aid packages to students and continue to fund strategic plan initiatives while, at the same time, offsetting increased operational costs.

For example, staff benefits and unavoidable costs, such as fuel, utilities, insurance, plant expansion, and repair and rehabilitation, are expected to increase a total of $15.7 million on the West Lafayette campus in the upcoming fiscal year.

At West Lafayette, the budget calls for a 5.3 percent decrease in recurring operating appropriations from the 2008-2009 fiscal year budget and supply and expense budgets have been flatlined. The university also has previously announced that there would be no annual merit salary adjustments for all employees, however, funds will be allocated to cover both the employee and university share of significant increases in health-care costs.

The general fund, which supports the academic mission of the university, represents only a portion of the university’s total system-wide operating budget. The full operating budget totals more than $1.96 billion for fiscal year 2008-2009 and includes the general fund; sponsored programs; gifts; and revenue from residence halls, athletics, other auxiliary income and university-funded financial aid.

The total operating budget fiscal year 2009-2010 is not yet established and will be presented at a future trustees’ meeting.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — State Sens. Ron Alting (R-Lafayette) and Brandt Hershman (R-Wheatfield) yesterday (July 9) announced that Purdue University is a recipient of a $2,085,000 grant to help find ways to improve the nation’s transportation system.

Hershman said Purdue is only one of 10 universities across the country selected competitively by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). The monies are the third installment from USDOT and all federal dollars must be matched by non-federal contributions.

The NEXTRANS Center is the USDOT Region V Regional University Transportation Center, and covers the states of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Center was established in 2007 based on an award from USDOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) to conduct a multidisciplinary program of transportation research, education, and technology transfer through a Regional University Transportation Center headquartered at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

“These grant monies will help Purdue continue to serve as leaders in meeting the nation’s need for safe, efficient and environmentally-sound transportation systems,” Hershman said. “The university’s NEXTRANS center will apply cutting-edge technology to find infrastructure efficiencies and ultimately, help make our roads safer.”

NEXTRANS was established in 2007 – based on an award from US­DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration – in order to implement a multidisciplinary program of transporta­tion research, education and technology.

Alting said NEXTRANS has worked to improve traf­fic flow in congested intersections, calculate work zone delays, reduce emergency vehicle crashes, deter­mine which materials create the shortest braking distanc­es and improve railroad track inspections.

“Purdue has made significant strides in providing a program that shows great relevance to our nation’s transportation challenges,” Alting said. “Sharing knowledge and resources to disseminate best practices about transportation issues is an investment that could help save lives.”