Office of the Chancellor

Welcome to Purdue Fort Wayne

August 20, 2018

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:

Welcome to the future! Today, we begin our first academic year as Purdue University Fort Wayne.

If you’re new to campus this fall as a freshman or transfer 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 be successful. We were especially pleased to welcome 1,900 students to New Student Orientation on Friday, our largest orientation event ever.

We are honored to welcome 17 new faculty members this fall, including two tenure-track faculty members, three continuing lecturers, and one clinical instructor. 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 heartfelt greeting to all of our returning students, as well as our dedicated faculty and staff. The university you have known is changing, for sure, but we have an opportunity to work together to ensure a future that is bright with promise.

I hope to see all of you at noon today for Fall Convocation at Rhinehart Music Center. In addition to having the opportunity to welcome you in person, I will be sharing a number of priorities and strategies we will be pursuing this year. 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 and other goodies will follow.

To say that we have had an extremely busy summer leading up to this moment would be an understatement. As everyone no doubt is fully aware, the university’s name has officially changed to Purdue University Fort Wayne. Our dedicated team of administrators, staff, and faculty have been working tirelessly to ensure that the campus is running at full steam, that all systems are go, and that we are ready to tackle the fall semester with confidence, enthusiasm, and strength. Enrollment is up. Student housing is full. We are ready!

Over the summer, we announced and embraced a new identity and a new brand. The essence of our new brand is “Empowering Every Student, Every Day.” You’ll see this expressed far and wide as “Education with Purpose,” and we pledge to meet and exceed the high bar we have set for ourselves.

We hope you will take great pride in our university—your university—as you encounter new signage, campus banners, billboards, and advertising. We are flooding the campus this week with free T-shirts, caps, decals, pins, mugs, and just about anything else a logo will stick to. Look for branded merchandise at all Welcome Week events and activities, and, of course, our campus bookstore in Walb Student Union is fully stocked with all kinds of additional items. We hope you will brandish the Purdue Fort Wayne identity with pride and that you will encourage others to do so.

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 to be the focal point for this week. It’s so big it wouldn’t fit in a single week. I encourage you to check out the schedule and take every opportunity to get to know each other and all that our campus community offers.

As the semester unfolds, we will begin the new season of the Omnibus Lecture Series that brings nationally and internationally known speakers to campus. The schedule will be announced tomorrow for the new season of free lectures. I hope you will also find time to cheer on our Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons. Our student-athletes are suiting up in their brand-new Purdue Fort Wayne uniforms to compete in 14 NCAA Division I women’s and men’s sports. 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.

As we begin this new academic year, 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 will now receive Mastodons Mail (formerly True Blue) every Wednesday, and faculty and staff will now 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.

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.

This is an exciting time to be at 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