PNW Pridecast: PNW Leadership Highlights The Year Ahead
Hello again, colleagues of Purdue University Northwest!
Welcome back to another installment of the PNW Pridecast, the official internal news podcast for PNW faculty and staff. Once again, my name is Kale Wilk, and I serve as Communications Specialist in PNW Marketing and Communications. We’re ready to dive into another round of important developments at the university.
The Year Ahead
Chancellor Keon and Provost Holford welcomed faculty and staff to the new academic year by presenting the 2022 Year Ahead address, which detailed several significant pieces of news in regard to enrollment, campus planning, academics, and student feedback.
Chancellor Keon kicked off the address by emphasizing what PNW is today as a metropolitan university — which is a very different university than either of our legacy institutions. He noted the new doctoral degrees, national rankings for several of our programs, expansion of Athletics, and vibrant student life. Enrollment data shows 91% of PNW’s undergraduates are full-time, 81% of them are age 25 or under, 56% are women, and about 56% are first-generation. Also, 25% of the university’s undergraduates self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.
“Part of this changing landscape you see here is who we are today,” said Keon. “I want to emphasize this in particular because I still get messages out in the community, sadly to say the public still does not know who we are today. Most of what you are going to hear about from them is some picture of the two original institutions and what they looked like maybe 20 years ago. We tried to capture some pictures to indicate this is who we are today and we are a very different university.”
Chancellor Keon also announced two separate task forces charged with strategic objectives. A task force on PNW structure, formed at the suggestion of Faculty Senate, will develop a contingency plan in the event the university’s enrollment would reach 4,000 students, and a task force dedicated to the Westville campus will engage the community and emphasize the unique identity of the space.
Provost Holford began his segment by highlighting the three priorities for Academic Affairs: increased retention, continued focus on quality measures, and changes to the administrative structural landscape.
Using results from the annually distributed Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement, which 800 first-time in college (FTIC) students took, Provost Holford shared that 70% indicated PNW was their first choice to attend for college. Majorities also showed they have expectations to have significant one-on-one time with faculty, have additional interaction with other students and faculty outside of class, and to have on-campus events and opportunities for discussion about diversity and inclusion.
“Remember most of these FTICs are coming to the university and they’ve have had fits and starts in their education,” Holford said. “They’re so excited to be back here. We have the most positive energy around the campus that we’ve had in many years. I hope that spills over in our interactions with our students. We want to create a very inclusive environment for our students that engages them in meaningful ways and makes them proud to be part of our institution.”
New doctoral degrees are in the approval process that would join PNW’s successful Doctor of Nursing Practice. The Doctorate of Technology degree is anticipated to be approved by the Higher Learning Commission in October 2022 and to begin taking on students as early as spring 2023. The Doctorate of Psychology was submitted over the summer to the Purdue Graduate School for review, which is anticipated to be completed during September 2022 and move to the next steps for final approval.
“I think that these programs not only represent the changing nature of our institution, but they are also a reflection of our metropolitan-serving nature where we’ve identified real needs in the community around us and the Chicagoland area and are taking steps actively to address those needs. Applied programs address real functional needs in the community.”
Provost Holford announced that three academic dean searches would launch during the fall. These include new deans for the Colleges of Business and Nursing, and a single dean to lead the Colleges of Engineering and Sciences and Technology as a future merged entity.
To watch the Year Ahead address again, visit pnw.edu/year-ahead.
Local computer drive retirement
A recent announcement from Information Services informed the campus community of the scheduled retirement for several local computer hard drives we typically use, mainly our ‘H’ drives.
A two-part transition will phase out use of the H Drive by first making it “read-only” starting Dec. 23, which would mean any files still present could be accessed, but you wouldn’t be able to edit them. Later on July 1, 2023, the drive would be completely retired and no files there would be accessible anymore.
The push is for faculty and staff to migrate their local files to cloud storage, of which there are several options supported by Information Services, including Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. There are also limited-use cases for Box.
Tim Winders, vice chancellor for Information Services, says there are several reasons for the university performing this transition. It puts your files in another secure location, one which has the capability of backup retrieval; the files are more easily distributable with your colleagues for sharing or collaboration; and it’s more accessible because of multiple secure points of access besides a computer, such as a smartphone.
When it comes to choosing a cloud storage platform, Winders does not recommend any one over the other – he wants faculty and staff members to choose the option most comfortable for them.
“Accessing data on the shared drives is not convenient while you are off campus,” said Winders. “It’s not convenient to access from mobile devices. While there are ways we have worked around this, it’s just not convenient. Most people know how to use these (cloud) technologies already, so it’s time for PNW to move into the current state of technology and not just allow but encourage support and push people in the direction of using that technology in the best way possible.
“We are the pioneers within the Purdue system, so the other campuses are looking at this and are very interested. They really want to follow PNW’s lead on this, so if there are any lessons learned or there are any issues that come up, any difficulties, they want to learn from this. They are very interested in doing the same thing.”
To learn more, visit pnw.edu/cloud-storage. If you would also like individual assistance to learn more about cloud storage or transitioning your files, you can contact the Customer Service Center by emailing csc@pnw.edu.
The Point arrives at PNW
In another recent announcement, the space in SUL that hosts New Student Orientation is now re-branded as The Point. While the office will still host orientation, Preview PNW events, and campus tours, it’s intended to be a one-stop shop meant to provide peer-to-peer assistance for students in connecting them with information and services across the university.
Raven Chant, coordinator for New Student Orientation and Enrollment Events, expands on that:
“There are a ton of really great resources we have for students, but we see the lack of getting new students to those resources,” Chant said. “It’s truly like ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’ It’s just little things we don’t realize because we’ve been at PNW so long that we forget what it’s like to be a new student.”
Faculty and staff were able to volunteer recently during Welcome Week to be “Ask Me” resources who could direct students returning to campus to locations they needed to go. Chant says faculty and staff should watch emails for more opportunities to connect with the office and help students.
Faculty and staff are welcome to email thepoint@pnw.edu for collaboration opportunities, such as departments’ informational and open house events, to offer opportunities for new students to be exposed to academic resources and explore their interests. The office can also be visited in Room 101 of the Student Union and Library Building. A future location on the Westville campus will be determined. For more information, visit pnw.edu/the-point.
Faculty recognitions
There are a few recent faculty recognitions we’d additionally like to mention.
Over the summer, Chenn Zhou, NIPSCO Distinguished Professor of Engineering Simulation and the director of the Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation, was honored as the Association for Iron & Steel Technology’s Distinguished Member and Fellow during the AISTech conference and exposition in Pittsburgh. Zhou was one of two honored this year and chosen from a pool of more than 18,500 people.
Zhou and other CIVS researchers presented eight technical papers, demonstrated CIVS projects, and received two additional presentation honors at the conference, including first place in the graduate student poster contest and third place for the Hunt-Kelly Outstanding Paper Award.
Meden Isaac-Lam, associate professor of Chemistry, received a Fulbright award to promote and exchange interdisciplinary chemistry research in three different Southeast Asian countries during the summer of 2023.
Isaac-Lam’s research at PNW centers on drug therapeutics and neurodegenerative disease. Her proposed research abroad is linked to two patents she developed at PNW involving therapeutics to treat triple negative breast cancer. The research abroad will also involve her interdisciplinary work using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to understand biochemical mechanisms in the brains of American veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Between May and August 2023, Isaac-Lam will visit host institutions in Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Finally, Magesh Chandramouli, professor of Computer Graphics Technology, received a National Science Foundation Partnership for Innovation Grant in partnership with AbbVie, a biopharmaceutical company.
Through the partnership, Chandramouli hopes to develop a virtual reality and augmented reality training framework to address the lack of trained workforce in Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient manufacturing, a critical factor to ensure uninterrupted drug manufacturing and supply.
Calendar event
We would also like to highlight an upcoming campus and community event in the annual Fall Sports Festival. On October 1 you can join Pride Athletics at Dowling Park for a day with multiple teams in action along with food, games, and other family-friendly activities. The event is open to the public, and tickets can be purchased at pnwathletics.com to catch men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, and ice hockey, as well as alumni games for baseball and softball.
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That’s all we have time for in this installment, so thank you very much for listening to the second episode of the PNW Pridecast.
Once again, please visit pnw.edu/pridecast to find out how you can submit your own faculty and staff news and connect with resources tailored for you. If you have information you’d like to share for a future Pridecast episode, please use our Qualtrics form on the website or email us at pnwpridecast@pnw.edu.
I’m Kale Wilk, signing off, and we look forward to sharing more news with you in the next episode.