An insider’s look at a university collection so valuable, the professor who built it once stole it back.
The earliest herbarium—a collection of plant samples preserved for scientific study—dates to 16th-century Italy, when the Bologna physician and botanist Luca Ghini (1490–1556) sought to make plant material available to his students in winter when the plants were dead or dormant.
The specimens were flattened between two pieces of paper to remove moisture. Once dried, they were mounted on paper sheets with notations on the plant’s name, where the plant was gathered, and any distinctive features. The pages were bound into volumes to enable transport from one location to another, thus making plant material from faraway places available indefinitely.
The Stewarts at Westwood
Robert Bruce Stewart (HDR M’68), known as R.B., joined the Purdue University staff as controller in 1925. At that time, Purdue enrolled 3,000 students, the physical plant was worth $3 million, and the endowment totaled $340,000.
Stewart, who went on to become the university’s first vice president and treasurer, is credited by many with influencing the character and growth of Purdue University. He spent 36 years building the university both fiscally and physically.
Geochemist Marissa Tremblay ’12 analyzes Antarctic rocks to unravel Earth’s climate chronology and predict the planet’s future environment
A geologic field excursion to Death Valley during spring break her first year at Barnard set Marissa Tremblay ’12 on course to becoming a scientist. She entered college intending to pursue a law degree, but stepping foot on that vast, desolate desert landscape marked with sand dunes ignited a curiosity to uncover the stories in stones.
50 Years of Wolf Park
Founded by Purdue ethologist Erich Klinghammer in 1972, Wolf Park began as an experiment to study wolf behavior. The pioneering research conducted there over the past 50 years contributed to a better understanding of the apex predator and facilitated its reintroduction into the wild.
Twenty Years After 9/11 Longhorn Reflects on the Unexpected Detour—and the Subsequent Broadway Show—that Altered His Life’s Trajectory
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Kevin Tuerff and his then-partner, also named Kevin, were on an Air France flight bound for New York City. The couple had just wrapped up a European vacation and they were eager to get home. A sudden drop in elevation over the Atlantic Ocean was the first sign that something was amiss. Then came an announcement from the cockpit.
Alumna is building a national cookie business that sparks conversations around intimate partner violence.
As one of eight children in a close-knit family, Junita Flowers (B.I.S. ’96) spent the best times of her childhood in St. Paul baking in the kitchen alongside her mother. As she grew up, Flowers envisioned the type of marriage her parents had—loving, supportive, and steadfast. Instead, she spent years in a toxic relationship.
Sima Sistani '01 didn't take a straight line to eventually founding Houseparty
When she was growing up, Sima Sistani’s parents limited her TV time. One of the shows Sistani ’01 relished as a child was the sitcom Perfect Strangers, about a happy-go-lucky immigrant with an unbridled enthusiasm for all things American.
“We did the ‘dance of joy’ a lot,” Sistani says, referring to the silly kicking and chanting routine performed by the show’s lead characters. “I always loved to watch TV and movies, read books, or play games. The storytelling aspect really appealed to me. Because my parents wouldn’t let me watch more than thirty minutes of TV a week, I wanted it so badly. At the same time, Hollywood never felt like a space that was available to me as a first-generation Iranian-American growing up in Alabama who had no connections or ties to that world.”
How Matt Bliss turned a family tradition into Modern Christmas Trees
As a child, Matt Bliss ’98 relished celebrating the holidays at his grandparents’ Broomfield, Colorado, home where the Christmas tree was anything but ordinary. Bliss’s grandfather, Lawrence Stoecker, designed his own tree, an artful cascade of concentric rings that hung from the ceiling.
He crafted the first model from cardboard in 1966 before experimenting with a second version made from Masonite and eventually settling on Plexiglas as the favored material. For five-year-old Bliss, his grandfather’s acrylic tree was a thing of wonder and a hallmark of the Mid-century Modern design aesthetic Bliss would grow to love.
Alumnae share their roads to success at KAR
Robin Leslie (T’84) doesn’t think of herself as a trailblazer. But when she enrolled in computer information technology at Purdue, the department was in its infancy. She was one of few women in the major — and one of few students of color.
“It was a new field,” Leslie says. “Not very many people looked like me. I just focused on my work and what I needed to learn. I knew I wanted to work in information technology (IT) for the rest of my life.”
Freehafer Hall, once lauded as example of early open office plan, demolished
Construction crews quietly demolished Freehafer Hall of Administrative Services over the course of several weeks this winter as part of the State Street redevelopment project slated to plot a new roadway through the site. Although it was razed with little fanfare, when it opened its doors in 1970, the administrative services building (as it was then known) was heralded on the cover of Administrative Management magazine as the “Offices of the Year.”
Innovative Boilermakers whose work impacts the daily lives of millions
From his fourth-floor home office perched on so-called Billionaires Row, Keith Krach (IE’79) can see the entirety of the San Francisco Bay and the famous Golden Gate Bridge that spans the strait connecting the bay to the Pacific Ocean. It’s an impressive vista and a far cry from his hometown of Rocky River, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb.
