Welcome to an Exciting New Year at Purdue Fort Wayne

August 23, 2021

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

Welcome to the beginning of a new academic year at Purdue Fort Wayne! We’re delighted to have you here on campus—and most importantly—in the classroom.

If you’re new to the university 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. You’re now part of a thriving university community, and we are committed to helping you get settled in and off to a great start.

To our returning students, faculty, and staff, welcome back. It’s wonderful to see you on campus again.

We are especially honored to welcome our newest faculty members to Purdue Fort Wayne. This includes 13 tenure-track faculty, seven clinical faculty, three lecturers, and 20 new or returning visiting faculty. Our new colleagues possess outstanding credentials, having earned experience and degrees from respected institutions around the country. I hope everyone will make an extra effort to help them feel connected and included.

We’re also pleased to welcome three new leaders who joined the university over the summer. Glen Nakata arrived on campus this month as vice chancellor for financial and administrative affairs. Glen’s background includes leadership positions at the University of Southern California and the University of North Texas. We also welcome two respected faculty leaders who are well known on campus and who are leading our newest colleges. Janet Badia is the founding dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and Ron Friedman is the founding dean of the College of Science.

We begin our fall semester amid the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Central to our safety measures is that we are requiring everyone—vaccinated or unvaccinated—to wear face masks inside all university buildings. This is a temporary measure that will be reevaluated on Friday, September 3. In addition to getting vaccinated, which we strongly advise, this simple precaution is the single most important thing we can all do to protect ourselves and others and to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19. Our PFW Ready website provides the latest information and resources related to the university’s response to COVID-19.

With restrictions lifted on indoor gatherings, we have been planning a robust offering of events and activities including the Omnibus Speaker Series, theatre and music performances, and intercollegiate athletics events. We especially look forward to once again welcoming fans in person to cheer on our Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons. Some competition is already underway, and schedules for men’s and women’s basketball are currently being finalized.

We also hope you will be able to attend a state of the university presentation on Wednesday, September 15, at noon in Auer Performance Hall. You’ll hear updates from members of our leadership team on how the university has excelled during the challenges presented by COVID-19, what we’ve learned, and what the top priorities are for the foreseeable future. More information and reminders will be forthcoming.

As you’ll quickly come to realize, we place a high value on communicating with our university community, sharing important campus news and information via several communications platforms. Inside PFW, our faculty and staff newsletter, is delivered to email inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Don Life, our student newsletter, is delivered to all student email inboxes, including Indiana University Fort Wayne student inboxes, every Wednesday morning. 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 that you don’t miss out.

Additionally, life-threatening 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.

There’s a sense of great anticipation as we begin this new year. I want to take this opportunity to wish each of you a very productive and fulfilling fall semester. Please know that we’re here to encourage and support you in every way possible.

Sincerely,

Ron Elsenbaumer

Chancellor