Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system, which also includes Purdue University in Indianapolis as an ongoing extension of the West Lafayette campus. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture; the first classes were held on September 16, 1874.
Purdue University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Purdue enrolls the largest student body of any individual university campus in Indiana, as well as the ninth-largest foreign student population of any university in the United States. The university is home to the world's oldest computer science degree-granting department and the first university-owned airport in the United States.
Purdue is the founding member of the Big Ten Conference and sponsors 18 intercollegiate sports teams. It has been affiliated with 13 Nobel laureates, 1 Turing Award laureate, 1 Bharat Ratna recipient, 27 astronauts, 2 World Food Prize laureates, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 18 Olympic medalists, 3 National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients, 2 National Medal of Science recipients, 3 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, 7 members of Congress, 3 U.S. governors, and 2 heads of state.
History
In 1865, the Indiana General Assembly voted to take advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 and began plans to establish an institution with a focus on agriculture and engineering with the preliminary name of the Indiana Agricultural College. Communities throughout the state offered facilities and funding in bids for the location of the new college. Popular proposals included designating Indiana University or what is now Butler University as Indiana's land-grant, as well as the addition of an agriculture department at what is now Indiana State University. By 1869, Tippecanoe County's offer included $150,000 from Lafayette business leader and philanthropist John Purdue; $50,000 from the county; and of land from John Purdue and local residents.On May 6, 1869, the General Assembly established the institution in Tippecanoe County as Purdue University, in the name of the principal benefactor. Classes began at Purdue on September 16, 1874, with six instructors and 39 students. Professor John S. Hougham was Purdue's first faculty member and served as acting president between the administrations of presidents Shortridge and White. A campus of five buildings was completed by the end of 1874. In 1875, Sarah D. Allen Oren Haynes, the State Librarian of Indiana, was appointed professor of botany.
Purdue issued its first degree, a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, in 1875. The first female student was admitted that autumn.
Emerson E. White, the university's president from 1876 to 1883, followed a strict interpretation of the Morrill Act. Rather than emulate the classical universities, White believed Purdue should be an "industrial college" and devote its resources toward providing a broad, liberal education with an emphasis on science, technology, and agriculture.
Part of White's plan to distinguish Purdue from classical universities included a controversial attempt to ban fraternities, which was ultimately overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court. White resigned in protest. The next president, James H. Smart, is remembered for his call in 1894 to rebuild the original Heavilon Hall "one brick higher" after it had been destroyed by a fire.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the university was organized into schools of agriculture, engineering, and pharmacy; former U.S. President Benjamin Harrison served on the board of trustees. Purdue's engineering laboratories included testing facilities for a locomotive, and for a Corliss steam engine—one of the most efficient engines of the time. Programs in education and home economics were soon established, as well as a short-lived school of medicine. By 1925, Purdue had the largest undergraduate engineering enrollment in the country, a status it would keep for half a century.
President Edward C. Elliott oversaw a campus building program between the world wars. Inventor, alumnus, and trustee David E. Ross coordinated several fundraisers, donated lands to the university, and was instrumental in establishing the Purdue Research Foundation. Ross's gifts and fundraisers supported such projects as Ross–Ade Stadium, the Memorial Union, a civil engineering surveying camp, and Purdue University Airport. Purdue Airport was the country's first university-owned airport and the site of the country's first college-credit flight training courses.
Amelia Earhart joined the Purdue faculty in 1935 as a consultant for these flight courses and as a counselor on women's careers. In 1936, the Purdue Research Foundation provided the funds for the Lockheed Electra 10-E Earhart flew on her attempted round-the-world flight.
Every school and department at the university was involved in some type of military research or training during World War II. During a project on radar receivers, Purdue physicists discovered properties of germanium that led to the making of the first transistor. The Army and the Navy conducted training programs at Purdue and more than 17,500 students, staff, and alumni served in the armed forces. Purdue set up about a hundred centers throughout Indiana to train skilled workers for defense industries. As veterans returned to the university under the G.I. Bill, first-year classes were taught at some of these sites to alleviate the demand for campus space. Four of these sites are now degree-granting regional campuses of the Purdue University system. On-campus housing became racially desegregated in 1947.
After the war, a decade-long construction program emphasized science and research. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the university established programs in veterinary medicine, industrial management, and nursing, as well as the first computer science department in the United States. Undergraduate humanities courses were strengthened, graduate-level study in these areas were slowly established. Purdue awarded its first Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1960.
The official seal of Purdue was officially inaugurated during the university's centennial in 1969. Consisting of elements from emblems that had been used unofficially since the 1890s, the current seal depicts a griffin, symbolizing strength, and a three-part shield, representing education, research, and service.
In 1975, Purdue University joined ARPANET, an early packet-switching network that would ultimately become the foundation for the modern internet.
In recent years, Purdue's leaders have continued to support high-tech research and international programs. In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan visited the West Lafayette campus to give a speech about the influence of technological progress on job creation.
In the 1990s, the university added more opportunities to study abroad and expanded its course offerings in world languages and cultures. The first buildings of the Discovery Park interdisciplinary research center were dedicated in 2004.
On April 27, 2017, Purdue University announced plans to acquire for-profit college Kaplan University and convert it to a public university in the state of Indiana, subject to multiple levels of approval. That school now operates as Purdue University Global, and aims to serve adult learners.
On July 1, 2024, Purdue launched Purdue University in Indianapolis, an extension of the West Lafayette campus, after the formal split of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. It conveys Purdue West Lafayette degrees and has the same academic rigor as the flagship campus. Purdue currently has a footprint in downtown Indianapolis that includes space in the existing engineering and technology buildings, and has established partnerships with companies for facilities and shared spaces throughout the metro area.
Integration
Purdue had black graduates by the 1890s, and in 1905 a Black man ran for its track team. But some time in the 1910s the teams became segregated, and remained so until a student protest in 1947. Black students were not allowed to live in the residence halls until the 1940s. Black males were able to live in cooperatives, but Black females were not allowed to live anywhere in West Lafayette. In 1946, the women's dormitories were integrated by an order of the governor of Indiana.Helen Williams became the first Black faculty member in 1968.
Trump era
In 2025, in response to state-level executive orders aligning with directives issued by President Donald Trump, the university terminated its Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, saying that staff who had been a part of that office would have the chance to interview for current vacancies in other areas. The university also terminated the Recruitment and Diversity Office for the Polytechnic Institute, despite diversity only being a small part of the office's function. Terminated staff members believed that it was because of the name alone that the office was terminated, as other recruitment offices for different parts of the university that did not have "diversity" in the name had remained untouched.In June of that year, the Indiana General Assembly passed a state budget bill mandating that Indiana's public universities phase out programs that produce fewer than a certain number of graduates over a three-year period. As a result, Purdue eliminated or merged a number of master's and Ph.D. programs in areas such as microbiology, mathematics, and literature.