Starting in 1894, the Tank Scrap has to be one of the strangest and most violent of the long list of Purdue traditions. It all started when the Class of 1897 decided to paint the tank, which sparked the current sophomore class to react. Although the altercation was not intended to be violent, it became […]
Human resources professionals deal with the core of any strong business — human capital. Without a strategy to motivate and retain employees, even the most in-demand company can fail. For a multi-billion-dollar corporation like PepsiCo with a workforce that spans economic backgrounds, education levels, and geographic regions, human resources officers play a significant role in […]
As a kid in the ‘80s, Melvin Lenzy mowed lawns for five bucks apiece to afford his first pair of Nike’s Air Jordans, the iconic basketball shoes that changed the sports apparel industry forever. Many years later, while a student at Purdue, he worked at the Tippecanoe Mall’s Finish Line store, selling such products right […]
He sliced into a discarded champagne bottle with a tile saw for the first time in September 2009, and Adam Fetsch (HHS’05) admits, “I had no idea what I was doing.” He learned, though, and now his Rewined Candles in Charleston, South Carolina, transforms more than 40,000 bottles a month into wine-scented candles sold in […]
On any given night, hundreds of thousands of Americans — perhaps even a million or more — go to sleep without a home. Whether they’re on the street, in an emergency shelter, in transitional housing or sleeping on a relative’s couch, they don’t have a place to call their own. Sadly, that reality isn’t going […]
In 1904, Purdue seniors began a tradition of wearing — and later elaborately decorating — yellow corduroy pants, a practice that lasted for more than 60 years. According to information from Purdue Libraries Archives and Special Collections, in fall 1904 some Purdue seniors noticed a bolt of yellow corduroy fabric displayed in the window of […]
Sometimes you don’t know what you really want until you don’t have it anymore. When Jennifer Rumsey (ME’96), a native of Columbus, Indiana, graduated from Purdue, she was pretty sure she was done with Midwestern life. Rumsey went to Boston, where she earned a master’s degree at MIT and then went to work for Nuvera […]
A sophomore aeronautical engineering student captures Purdue from a scientific perspective When Trevor Mahlmann sees a dot pass through the sky, he doesn’t wish upon a star — because it’s not happenstance that he is looking up. He knows the dot is not a shooting star or other object soaring through space. He is standing […]
My eight-month mission in simulated space exploration It was around 1:00 a.m., and we were huddled in a circle just outside our rooms. The cold nights were nothing new. We’ve been awakened by the ruckus of strong winds flapping our habitat’s vinyl covering against its metal frame. The winds of this storm were the strongest we […]
When Mardi Johnson Moore (M’82) was a teenager, she started coming to Purdue to visit her older sister, Virginia Johnson Pillman (HHS’76). It was then that her sister introduced her to Original Frozen Custard in Lafayette. At the time, it was just a tasty treat, not an epiphany. But it’s funny how things work out […]
