User:Flickts~enwiki/Purdue University

=Purdue in Perspective= Purdue is a university for the people. It grew out of the demand of the American people that higher education be the birthright of the many rather than the privilege of the few.

The University is the Indiana link in the chain of 68 land-grant colleges and universities that owe their origin to the Morril Act signed by President Lincoln on July 2, 1862. By this act, the federal government offered to turn over public lands to any state that would use the proceeds fom the sale of the land to establish and maintain a college to teach the agricultural and mechanic arts.

Purdue has gained fame in the fields of agriculture and engineering and has built solid reputations in consumer and family sciences, education, health sciences, liberal arts, management, nursing, pharmacy, technology, veterinary medicine, and a range of sciences.

During its 135 years, the University has grown from 39 students and six instructors to an enrollment of approximately 68,000 on five campuses and 11 School of Technology locations with faculty of more than 3,100. More than 38,700 students are enrolled on the West Lafeyette campus.

Purdue has been coeducational since its second year of operation. Today almost 41% of Purdue's students on the West Lafayette campus are women. Most undergraduates are from Indiana, but the University also enrolls students from every state and many other nations.

The mission of the University is not limited to undergraduate and graduate instruction. Each year nearly 1.4 million Hoosiers attend 51,600 Purdue Lifelong Learning meetings and programs. Through the Cooperative Extension Service and the Office of Agricultural Research Programs, Purdue touches the lives of thousands of citizens of the state. In 2005-2006, the University expended over $395 million for research. Sponsored project awards totaled more than $240 million in 2005-06.

Purdue rests its reputation on its almost 384,000 alumni throughout the world. Some of these alumni have become well-known - astronauts, Nobel Prize winners, U.S. or state senators or representatives, U.S. secretaries of agriculture, literary figures, journalists, and college and corporation presidents. Purdue graduates are people who hold society together - teachers, business leaders, engineers, managers, agriculturalists, scientists, technologists, pharmacists, and veterinarians.