While devising a heroine for a murder mystery set in 1660s London, Susanna Calkins (MA’95, PhD LA’01) didn’t want her to be from the upper classes. Lucy Campion begins as a chambermaid for a magistrate and, despite a lack of education, uses her common sense to solve a murder. “I envisioned Lucy as a hardworking […]
Neon Cactus closes just shy of Bruce Barker’s 25th year at Rusty Bucket Piano man Bruce Barker (HHS’94) never touched a piano until his second semester, freshman year. Assigned to Terry Courts residence hall, Barker walked past the lobby piano countless times. In February 1988, he decided to sit down at the bench with his […]
Virtual consulting experience generates safe campus solutions COVID-19 has altered the academic landscape in a multitude of ways, not least of which are the manners in which college campuses operate. Purdue is no exception. As plans took shape to determine how to orchestrate a safe return to campus in August, it was clear that students, […]
With Tokyo Olympics postponed, Steele Johnson grateful for more time Skateboarding isn’t necessarily a standard part of an Olympic diver’s exercise routine, but when Purdue’s Burke Aquatic Center closed down in the spring due to COVID-19, silver medalist Steele Johnson (LA’19) got creative with his workout. His normal training schedule involves five or six hours […]
Animal sciences alumnus drafted in WWII, six credits shy of graduation Born and raised on a farm north of Knightstown, Indiana, Russell “Doc” Hardin (A’65) began milking cows at age 9. During the Depression, he recalls, the only income for the family came from milking their 20 head of cattle. Hardin remembers the country veterinarian […]
It was the most divine music he’d ever heard — not the shaman’s “bone-chilling” icaros, or healing songs, but the harmony dancing in its wake deep in the Peruvian jungle, the vibrations still eddying about the hut long after the old man had laid down his cigarette and his bundle of leaves. “Within seconds I […]
Kenneth Tan (ChE’14) may be the youngest global category manager at Halliburton, but his true passion is music. “I have been interested in music since I was 7 years old,” Tan reflects. “I used to watch my uncle Nelson practice violin at my grandmother’s house in Malaysia and one day told my mom that I […]
For a handful of temporary barracks buildings on the West Lafayette campus, “temporary” turned out to mean almost 57 years. They were the last cluster of temporary structures on campus, standing near Stadium and Northwestern Avenues, and it took from February to June 2004 to dismantle them. When they went up in summer 1947 with […]
It started simply. Larry Juday (M’68) of Vancouver, Washington, had retired and pondered getting a dog. With several cats in the house, his wife, Susan Immer, suggested he “get his dog fix at the shelter.” This was in 2006, and hundreds of kittens plus their community have benefited as result of that conversation. Juday and […]
In the 1950s and ’60s, the Associated Women Students — an activity group encompassing all of Purdue’s women students — held an annual event known as Dean for a Day, during which students would switch places with the dean of women and her assistant deans. The deans would attend classes, and the students would fulfill […]
