Purdue has NO crunchy leaves. All I've seen are PATHETICALLY sad crisp wannabe leaves. They LOOK ready to crunch, but when I go to step on them... Nothing? The trees can do better next fall IMO.

Yeager and Sagamore the other day...

Purdue College of Engineering hosted a Staff Town Hall in the ARMS basement 10/13/26.

Dean Mark Lundstrom is an eloquent speaker, commands a crowd well, pivots gracefully, and I trust the guy to do his best within his ability.

Synopsis:

Dean Mark Lundstrom started off the event with a well-delivered speech about the state of higher education, Purdue Engineering's current status, and the uncertainty of higher education as a whole.

Nationally, as higher education faces an optics problem (no doubt because of this current administration), Purdue in general stands out from its peers. While other Big Ten universities are facing the population cliff (Millennials during the Great Recession didn't have many kids), Purdue is having more students apply to its College of Engineering. Purdue faced a 12% decrease in applications college-wide but had a 6% increase in students applying to the College of Engineering. The Dean mentioned how other Big Ten universities are facing financial struggles with the changes in research money allocation and declining student populations. He mentioned that the College of Engineering may be asked to accept more students to offload some of the financial pressure that the university is facing from dwindling applications in other colleges.

There was also a brief mention that Purdue has to figure out how to keep its standout faculty from being poached by other institutions.

At this point, there was a pivot to AI. The Dean discussed how AI can be a productivity tool. He gave a few examples, including the notorious professor who published roughly 200 papers last year. The Dean suggested that AI can make our lives more productive and discussed how we can use it to make our workflows more efficient.

This transitioned into a discussion about bureaucracy and what we (staff) can get rid of in our current jobs to make our lives easier. A significant portion of people mentioned "taking out the trash." This is in reference to the new change that was rolled out in early September, where staff and faculty are now responsible for taking out our own trash and placing it in a common receptacle to remove work from the custodial teams. Other subjects that staff members suggested getting rid of included performance reviews/goal setting/reviewing ourselves, excessive meetings, among other topics.

These suggestions were projected behind the Dean as the suggestions were being read. The Dean again suggested using AI as a tool to make our lives easier before the audience was asked to make suggestions. The audience took the comment about AI and ran with it. Ethics of AI were brought up, as well as FERPA (student data privacy) concerns. The comment section projected behind the Dean was flooded with anti-AI comments. Concerns were brought up about AI ethics, the environment, and increased workload when AI is forced to be integrated before it's useful.

The next question was brought up. The Dean asked for 1 or 2 words that describe what is making our lives harder as staff. These submissions were put into a live updated word cloud still projected behind the Dean. The most popular words were: pay, low salary, workload, understaffed, burnout, frozen tuition, professional development (which monetary funding is now no longer available to staff), undervalued, and underappreciated. These were the standout answers. My personal favorite suggestion was "menopause."

The facilitator then asked for audience questions. Over 5 comments in the chat and one comment asked live were about academic advisor salaries. It was mentioned that the advisors are paid $46K, are required to have a master's degree, have high student caseloads, as well as other administrative tasks. The question was redirected to the Director of Advising in the College of Engineering, where blame was placed on University Undergraduate Academic Advising (UUAA) for mandating the $46K salary. It was mentioned that UUAA reviews salary increases in other schools and makes recommendations based on that information. IU advisors are paid $50K.

Live and chat comments were not read past that. The meeting was ended (as gracefully as they could have).

TLDR: No money in higher education. Do more with less. No raise for you.

General Takeaways:

I don't think that Purdue is different from its Big Ten peers. If we're being asked to take out our own trash, we have money problems. If Custodial isn't able to hire more people (at $15 an hour) I wonder why, and they're removing some of Custodial's responsibilities, then it means that making us take out our trash is a logical consequence. Either Custodial pays its employees more or figures out how to do the most with the few employees it does have.

This town hall is about the same concept. We as staff were asked to think about what we can do to make our lives simpler. It means we're not getting raises, and they're not hiring more people to even out the extra administrative load we've taken on. Admin is trying to figure out how to get the 'chumps' who aren't quitting to be able to do their jobs with less. Everyone else who's jumped ship has made the right choice. They read the tea leaves, know we're not going to be paid a living wage, and have moved on to somewhere else that will pay them enough.

We are being placated. Frogs in a slow to boil pot.

Also: Faculty still get lunches provided despite staff not having any form of professional development. I get it. I'm not important. I know my place, but also, rude.

Pretty sure someone just stole my mom's home-baked cookies off my car near North Chauncey Ave at around 7:30-8:00 pm on Tuesday while I was unpacking my car after fall break. Anyone know who might have done it?

Hi, I got off the Lafayette Limo shuttle from Pmu earlier this afternoon today and I remember putting my luggage in the shuttle bus compartment before departing IND airport after getting back for my fall break trip to Purdue West Lafayette. And after arriving at the memorial union by the front gate, I checked for my luggage in all of the compartments, and it’s nowhere to be found. I’m pretty sure someone took it by mistake so if you’re reading it and happen to have it, please dm me asap. It’s a small white luggage from probably the Samsonite brand with a green and white United Airlines carry-on tag. I really need it back as it has my MacBook charger and English textbook as well as some of my clothings.

I saw this while walking on campus today. 😅 At CHAS

how'd we do gang?

Come check out Drag Race's Irene the Alien at The Rat Pak Venue in Lafayette, as well as many other great performers. You aren't going to want to miss this one!

The event also includes a costume contest, so wear your best to try to take home the prize basket!

Buy tickets here: https://www.ubme.com/event/775d8e90-5e26-4d26-80aa-e4a0f3ca7ddf?fbclid=IwdGRjcAU7sMBjbGNrBTuwuWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeba1aiAr2cTyXNzX5-ZCcbutnH-7Ho9f5skHc7Kf2hJM0ELw6fl6-hZmhgpM_aem_JA7kjiFhTxlB4_h-5NpGww

For more events like this one, follow The Fox's Den on Social Media

Lost black wallet in Rankin Track lot across from Tarkington Hall. Would really like the photos back, and it will be a hassle needing to get a new ID. Please.

I couldn’t get a picture, but I saw a longer haired black cat with white feet in the city hall parking lot. I tried to go up to it but it got freaked and ran. Anyone missing a cat?

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some advice and tips on my schedule for next semester. I've heard this combination of classes can be pretty brutal, so any survival strategies, helpful resources, or time management tips would be greatly appreciated!

My Schedule:

ME 200 (Thermodynamics I)

ME 264 (Intro to Manufacturing for Design + Lab)

ECE 2k1 & ECE 2k7 (Electrical Eng. Fundamentals I + Lab)

ECON 251 (Microeconomics)

How would you recommend balancing the workload between Thermo and ECE 2k1? Thanks in advance!

Looks like they put out a bunch of lost and found bottles on the first floor

I'm planning to organise a weekly meet up where folks can just get together and do something fun

For the first one, I was planning playing card games, walking around aimlessly and getting food at chauncey.

So tomorrow, 6pm, loeb fountain, let's meet!

https://discord.gg/ZNEgSteN

edit: the meet is on 10/13 yall

How bad would it be to take the above classes together? CS354 would be with Gustavo. I would say I’m like a high C-B average student. I’m also taking CS361 and a finance class….

Don’t want to overload myself bc I’ve heard 373 is incredibly time consuming

Hi everyone. The next summer internship applications have already started for many companies, and it's advisable to get on the first application wave and plan for what to do in case you can't secure an internship. A friend of mine, Masaru, is a tech dad of three CS grads and a longtime technical manager who reviewed entry level hires at Intel, HP, Toyota and Cincinnati Children's Hospital for their Research IT group. He also coached robotics for 10 years or so. I asked him about the freshman internship question, and one thing he said stuck with me. When he reviewed resumes, he stopped on the one with a YouTube link to a product demo, and the club president titles with no description of what changed went to the bottom of the pile. So if you didn't land an internship this time around, a summer spent building one thing you can show, with a short write up other people can follow, will do more than another line on the resume. He put his full roadmap into a College CS Toolkit, and my son found it valuable going into sophomore year. If you would like the link, comment “Link please” and I'll share it. His Substack, The Engineering Dad, also has a lot of helpful info on how students can strengthen their builder profile.

I’m an international student , i always see guys in college play poker in movies , but i never saw it in real life if anyone out there playing poker please invite me , let me live the college live like i imagined it .

Hi, I’m a fresher m18, in west lafayette, and looking for people to jam with for fun.

I play the drums, guitar, bass, and a tiny bit of keys (if required). However, I prefer the drums tho, as I’ve spent quite a while with it and am better with it - but really flexible

I’m flexible throughout genres. I listen to quite a bit of metal, indie rock, etc. and really admire jazz fusion - again, flexible to multiple genres.

DM if interested ;)

I got the housing lottery and have my selection on the 20th. I am hoping to get an apartment like 125/19 Waldron or 414 Russell and I want to know how these apartments are like? What all amenities do you get, how’s the laundry and whether they have elevators?

I've been trying to look for off-campus housing which is walkable to Purdue and not insanely expensive. Literally every single property I look at, people on this subreddit say it's management is bad and never ever sign here. I'm really confused. I've got to live somewhere bruh.

Is anyone happy with their off-campus place and I'm not talking about the ones that are like $1500-2000 a month.

Hi,

I applied to purdue MSCS as my 1st choice and MSECE as 2nd choice for spring 2027 in the west Lafayette campus.

Just few hours ago, I got admit for MSECE program but it is mentioned as professional graduate program with no funding or fee remission.

I want to pursue research in systems and architecture, so i applied it as second choice. Is it common that most of the admitted students are offered PMP initially and can be switched to thesis track later?

How good is this program compared to original MSCS track with respect to courses and research?

My background, btech in computer science from tier-1 college in india with 8.4 cgpa and 3 years of work experience.

https://corec.pyras.org

RecWell only shows how many people are there right now. This uses about 2.5 years of past counts to show the best time to go, broken down by day of the week. So you can see when the most people are playing basketball, or when the climbing wall is emptiest.

It also shows every area live, and whether that's busier or quieter than normal for this hour.