Purdue's Celebrating 150 Years!

This school year is an exciting time to be at Purdue – it is the sesquicentennial celebration of the university! 150 years of giant leaps at Purdue that have spanned across the state, world, and even to the moon.

The events will focus on space exploration, artificial intelligence, health and longevity, and sustainable economy and planet. This is a time to commemorate all that Purdue has accomplished in the past, highlight what Purdue is currently working on, and look forward to where Purdue will head next. Check out https://takegiantleaps.com/ for more information on the sesquicentennial celebration.

The Women in Engineering Program (WIEP) at Purdue is also celebrating 50 years. WIEP was the first program at a university intentionally created to encourage and support women in the engineering field. Their mission is to “enrich the profession of engineering through the full participation of women” by ‘encouraging girls and young women to study engineering, provide information about careers and companies, and create an environment conducive to the successful completion of students’ studies” while maintaining “strong relationships with alumnae, friends, corporations, and foundations who generously support our program.”

This summer will also be the 50th anniversary of Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the moon. NASA will be celebrating the entirety of the Apollo Program October 2018 to December 2022. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-releases-logo-to-mark-apollos-50th-anniversary. Purdue will join in various celebrations as we had multiple astronauts’ engineers and scientist that were influential in turning this dream into a reality. As NASA looks towards the future with hopes of landing more astronauts on the moon and possibly Mars, Purdue engineers will continue to have an impact on these successes and furthering our understanding of the universe.

Finally, this year is the 25th anniversary of Boiler Gold Rush (BGR), the new student orientation program at Purdue! Often referred to “the greatest week in College,” and originally called Corn Camp, BGR is a time that new students get a chance to meet other First-Year Engineering students, become acquainted to campus and Purdue’s traditions, values, and resources. It is nationally recognized for its excellence and has supported thousands of engineers off to a strong start their freshman year.

All around, this is a big year of celebration and festivities! We are excited to commemorate all that Purdue has accomplished in the past 150 years and to see how the students and faculty shape the next 150 years. We hope that you will also be a part of that!!! It’s an awesome time to be a Boilermaker.

Boiler up!