From TheBestLinks.com
Purdue University, referring to the main campus, is a public land-grant university located in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. It is particularly noted for its schools of engineering and agriculture, and as of recently, for its school of business. Equally renowned and lesser publicized are Purdue's strength in liberal and fine arts. The state of Indiana's school of veterinary medicine is at Purdue. Purdue has six other campuses in other parts of Indiana, of which three campuses are also affiliated with Indiana University. Purdue's School of Technology also has seven satellite locations throughout Indiana.
Purdue's athletic teams are called the Boilermakers. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A, and in the Big Ten Conference. The team name purports to have come from a former practice of illegally employing industrial workers for its football team. Another story of the name's origin is that it was a derogatory name conferred by another Indiana school, Wabash College, in order to insult the engineering students for being 'rude mechanicals.'
Classes at Purdue began in 1874 but it was not founded by philanthropist John Purdue, as is commonly believed. The state of Indiana sought a location to establish its land-grant university, and John Purdue offered $150,000 and 100 acres (400,000 m²) of land near the city of Lafayette. The university was named for him because of his generous donation. Legend has it that the Purdue gift carried the stipulation that all permanent university buildings must be brick or the entire 100 acres (400,000 m²) reverts to John Purdue's heirs. This legend cannot be substantiated.
While Purdue is not an especially wealthy institution, and its campus is far
from fancy, many visitors have been impressed by its high standard of
maintenance -- and Purdue alumni shocked at the run-down condition
of many famous institutions with much larger endowments. Perhaps
this is because, for over a hundred years nearly every President of
Purdue has been a former engineering professor. This engineering
background has perhaps made them unusually sensitive to the long-term
costs of balancing the budget by deferring maintenance!
Its alumni have a strong relationship with NASA and the space program. Purdue has produced 22 astronauts, including the first and last humans to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan respectively. Two alumni, "Gus" Grissom and Roger Chaffee, were killed on the launchpad in the tragic accident that befell Apollo 1. Other alumni have flown space shuttles and boarded the Russian Mir space module.
Famous alumni
Alumni astronauts
Famous professors
External links and references
- Mail should be sent to: Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA
- Phone: 765-494-4600
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