Office of the Chancellor

Embarking on an Exciting Spring Semester

January 8, 2024
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

Happy New Year!

I am delighted to welcome all of you to an exciting new semester and a promising new year here at Purdue Fort Wayne. I hope 2024 is off to a great start for you.

I trust that each of you had a relaxing winter break and that you had opportunities to spend time with family and friends.

For many of our students, this spring semester is the home stretch toward earning their Purdue degrees, and we look forward to celebrating these achievements at commencement in May. For others, this semester will bring them one step closer to graduation. On behalf of our entire faculty and staff, I want you to know that we are committed to helping you be successful in attaining your academic and career goals. We’re here to guide and support you in every way.

This semester and year are already shaping up to be a busy and productive one for Purdue Fort Wayne, and I’m pleased to report that we are making significant progress on several important university initiatives.

During the coming weeks and months, we will begin to coalesce and activate the priorities that surfaced during our campus-wide strategic planning session in October. Action planning teams and working groups are being assembled, and their efforts will get underway soon. We will have more to report on this in the weeks ahead.

We have also made advances in our plans to increase capacity for student housing, including finalizing plans to build a new apartment complex with more than 500 new beds on the North Campus and securing other strategic housing options. We’re also moving closer toward breaking ground and beginning construction on our new music technology building this year. Additionally, we will continue our work to create new academic programs in the health sciences, expand and fine-tune counseling resources for the entire university community, and continue renovation and buildout of the Doermer School of Business Building.

Finally, we are excited to welcome a new food service management partner to campus. Fresh Ideas, a respected leader in the food service industry, has been hard at work the past few weeks to be ready for the spring semester and to begin the transformation of our food service operations and offerings.

There is much to be excited about as this new year gets underway here at Purdue Fort Wayne, and there’s nothing we can’t accomplish if we work strategically and collaboratively.

I look forward to seeing you around campus as our semester gets under way!

Sincerely,

Ron Elsenbaumer
Chancellor