It is official: the Purdue Polytechnic Institute has set an enrollment record at West Lafayette, including 912 new beginners and a total enrollment of 4,757 (including 163 Ph.D. students), all while outpacing the University’s record increases. As I have mentioned in recent blogs, we have a lot to be excited about: growing popularity, with enrollment to prove it; tremendous progress in achieving our transformation goals; a large influx of top-quality faculty; record research awards; and, potentially, a new building.
Why so much success? There are, of course, numerous factors that made our achievements possible. Fundamentally, though, I wonder if the new tagline developed by our Marketing and Communications team sums it up best. You can see it on our website, on the banner in the Knoy Hall lobby, and on the newest printed marketing materials:
Hands-on education. Real-world success.
Our foundational core — the root of what we have done since day one — is hands-on applied learning. It continues to be the most important of our 10 elements of transformation. Faculty bring our classrooms and labs to life by employing hands-on learning activities that are tethered to industries and communities.
Likewise, our use-inspired research aligns closely with real-time, real-world challenges, and the efforts of our faculty have paid off. Sponsored research funding during this past year increased 60 percent compared to the prior year, and more than 40 percent of the total number of awards were from industry partners.
In other words, our hands-on applied learning environment, which is strengthened by our expanded corporate partnerships via senior capstone projects, internships, research, and other activities, helps further prepare our students to enjoy “real-world success.”
Thanks go to all of you — to our entire team of faculty and staff — who design, deliver, improve, and support the Polytechnic’s hands-on education.
