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.
Relentless drive for perfection fuels linebacker Markus Bailey
Markus Bailey was 6 years old when his world came crashing down. The eldest of two sons has nothing but fond memories of those prior early years. His parents, Demarko and Amy Bailey, were still in high school when Markus was born. He recalls a loving home anchored by hardworking parents who were putting themselves through community college while raising him and his younger brother, Isaac.
Cary A unit friends celebrate 45th annual reunion
Ask any Cary Quad resident circa 1974, “Who was the biggest jerk who walked the halls?” and you were likely to hear the same answer: Chuck Harville (P’76, DP’89). It was a mantle he didn’t mind. It can be fun to be the instigator. In those days, orientation programs were less structured, and as leader of A unit orientation, it fell to Harville to assimilate the frosh.
Telescoping prosthesis enables 10-year-old girl to bow violin
It’s atypical to see a piano as part of a grade school orchestra ensemble, but that’s exactly what Zayra Vincent encountered when she visited the Burgin Elementary School music room this spring. There, in the back of the Arlignton, Texas, classroom, a smiling 10-year-old girl plucked out notes on the keyboard with one finger.
Alumnus renovates his sophomore landscape design 20 years later
The hidden light court encased within the walls of Duncan Hall in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, was neglected and overgrown when Aura Lee Emsweller was hired as the hall’s first executive director in 1996.
The Georgian, colonial-style building opened in 1931 as a meeting place for social, patriotic, charitable, educational, and cultural events. A 1958 addition created the inner courtyard, designed to allow light to pass through the stately ballroom windows. It was in this narrow, unkempt space with a mucky, untended pond and ivy climbing the brick walls that Emsweller’s 6-year-old son, Schuyler, discovered a wonderland for the imagination.
Last apparel design and technology majors showcase collections in the final Purdue Fashion Show
The day has finally arrived. It’s five o’clock in the morning when the hair and makeup teams roll into the Cordova Recreational Sports Center and begin setting up the makeshift studio space where they will be camped for most of the day.
Designers arrive soon after, already exhausted from the previous day spent transforming the feature gym next door into a fashion runway and the previous evening running a dress rehearsal and finalizing their choreography. Not to mention the previous three months spent planning and organizing the final details of the show and the previous year spent designing and constructing their garments.
The past four years have all led to this day, when the last students majoring in apparel design and technology will showcase their capstone collections.
It’s the final Purdue Fashion Show.
Honors course explores how zines fostered communities of resistance
In the aftermath of World War II, social critics in the United States grew increasingly pessimistic about the roles of mass media, consumerism, and bureaucracy in society, viewing them as instruments of authoritarian control. These counterculture voices frame the curriculum of Underground Networks, a new course offered through the Honors College that examines radical forms of social life that emerge within yet in opposition to oppressive institutions.
Teaching students how to pick up a pencil and communicate their ideas
One of the greatest inventors of all time created a lot of ugly design drawings. Thomas Edison’s sketches may not be pretty, but they communicated his ideas, and that’s essential to collaboration and innovation.
Todd Kelley, associate professor of technology leadership and innovation, is a former secondary school teacher who researches how young students learn design and how design improves STEM education. He uses Edison’s drawings to illustrate that design sketches do not need to be artistic or attractive to serve their purpose — clearly communicating an idea.
All-Purdue crew spent two weeks on mission to Mars habitat simulation
Seven Boilermakers formed the first all-Purdue crew to complete a two-week mission at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah, from December 30 to January 14.
“The environment around the station is extremely accurate in its appearance,” says Max Fagin (MS AAE’15), an aerospace engineer at Made in Space and commander of the Boilers2Mars team. “The chemistry of the soil doesn’t mimic the chemistry of Mars, but the lack of vegetation and signs of human life create a landscape that is very Mars-like.”
