Welcome to an Exciting New Year!

August 26, 2019

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:

Welcome to the beginning of another exciting year at Purdue University Fort Wayne!

If you’re new to campus this fall as a freshman, transfer, graduate, or international student—or if you’re joining us as a new member of the faculty or staff—welcome to Purdue Fort Wayne. We are delighted to have you join our wonderful university community, and we are committed to helping you settle in and be successful.

We are honored and delighted to welcome 43 new faculty members this fall, including 22 tenured or tenure-track faculty members and 21 clinical, continuing, or visiting lecturers. This includes two new department chairs and several faculty members taking on new or expanded roles. Our new colleagues arrive with outstanding credentials from both academia and industry, having earned experience and degrees from respected institutions around the country. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to our newest faculty members as they relocate their careers and families to Fort Wayne.

I also wish to extend a warm welcome back to all of our returning students, as well as our dedicated faculty and staff. We’re so glad you’re here.

I hope to see all of you at noon today for Fall Convocation at Rhinehart Music Center. I look forward to greeting you in person, and I will be sharing a number of priorities and strategies we will be pursuing this year. We will also have a little fun. It’s a great opportunity for faculty, students, and staff to meet each other for the first time or to get reacquainted. We will start promptly at noon, and a reception will follow.

We are delighted that our recruitment strategies continue to be so successful. Our dedicated team of administrators, staff, and faculty have been working tirelessly over the summer to ensure that the campus is fully prepared to welcome an amazing group of students. Once again, our on-campus student housing and off-campus student housing are full. We are ready!

We’re pleased to offer a slate of new amenities this fall. You’ll find inviting hammocks and brightly colored Adirondack chairs peppered around campus. A new Einstein’s Bagel is slated to open September 9 on the ground floor of Kettler Hall—our newest source of caffeine and carbs. And everywhere you look you’ll find new landscaping, renovated spaces, and upgraded parking lots.

A hallmark of the coming months will be the completion of our new Strategic Plan. Our campus community worked tirelessly last year to create a vibrant and exciting new plan for the university’s future. This year, we will set priorities, finalize the overall plan and the unit plans, and begin implementation. Mark your calendars now and RSVP for an all-campus meeting on Friday, September 13.

We finalized the purchase of the Park 3000 building over the summer, supported by a combined donation of $2.8 million from the Doermer Family Foundation, the Purdue Fort Wayne Foundation, and two anonymous donors. Just a few weeks ago, we announced that the building, which is the focal point of our new South Campus, has been renamed the Richard T. Doermer School of Business Building. The building is undergoing renovations and will reopen next summer as the new home for the Doermer School of Business, Career Services, and other offices.

I’m sure your fall calendar is starting to fill up pretty quickly. We have an incredible number of campus events to help balance out our students’ academic pursuits. Of course, Welcome Week started last week and continues through this week. I encourage you to check out the schedule and take every opportunity to get to know each other and discover all that our campus community offers.

As the semester unfolds, we will begin the 25th season of the Omnibus Lecture Series that brings nationally and internationally known speakers to campus. The schedule will be announced in the coming weeks for the new season of free lectures. And our College of Visual and Performing Arts has a jam-packed lineup of concerts, plays, and exhibits—many of them free—that will help round out your experience and provide a healthy dose of arts, entertainment, and culture. Check out the university’s Events Calendar for the full slate of events.

I hope you will also find time to cheer on our Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons. This fall, we’ve added men’s indoor and outdoor track for a total of 16 NCAA Division I women’s and men’s sports. Earlier this month, we announced the exciting news that Purdue Fort Wayne will join the prestigious Horizon League athletics conference next summer. This will be a huge boost for our student-athletes, our campus community, our alumni, and fans.

There is a lot going on, and I want to assure you that we will make every effort to keep you informed and to seek your input. Two important sources of news and official information are distributed to your email inboxes each week. Students receive Mastodon Mail every Wednesday, and faculty and staff receive Inside Purdue Fort Wayne every Tuesday and Thursday. These newsletters are a frequent and reliable source for the latest news, events, and activities at Purdue Fort Wayne, as well as your source for information related to university closings and delays due to inclement weather. News and information also are available in real time via the university’s official Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds. We encourage you to follow and friend us now so you don’t miss out.

Most importantly, emergency information is pushed to you immediately via our RAVE emergency notification network. Please log in to goPFW to register for text message alerts that are delivered directly to your registered mobile devices in the event of a campus emergency. I encourage each of you to register your emergency contact information and your preferred devices today. This will ensure timely delivery of critical messages regarding your safety and security on campus.

Welcome to Purdue University Fort Wayne. I wish each of you a successful and fulfilling year, and I look forward to seeing you around campus very soon.

Sincerely,

Ron Elsenbaumer

Chancellor