WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue Athletics is proud of its John R. Wooden Leadership Institute, established in 2009 to accelerate the leadership development of Boilermaker student-athletes.
The department also is a significant contributor to the Krach Leadership Center, which will be dedicated Saturday morning prior to the football team's Homecoming game against Iowa.
Athletics is contributing $12 million over six years through Big Ten Network revenue.
The Krach Leadership Center will serve a key resource to help students succeed inside and outside the classroom, so they can earn their degrees on time and develop leadership skills that will serve them through their lives.
"The Gallup-Purdue Index shows how critical the student experience is beyond the classroom and through the campus activities in which students engage," Purdue President Mitch Daniels said. "A student excellence and leadership center demonstrates Purdue's commitment to that entire experience. Students will be able to find resources and support to develop and enhance their leadership skills, which will contribute to their success in the classroom, as well."
The Gallup-Purdue Index is a survey of college graduates to learn how their college experiences affected their careers and lives.
This summer, Purdue's Board of Trustees approved naming the 81,500-gross-square-foot facility in honor of Keith Krach for his business, philanthropic and university leadership. He is the board's former chairman and a Purdue alumnus. In addition to various academic and athletic contributions to Purdue, Krach and his wife, Metta, gave $10 million toward the building's construction.
The Krach Leadership Center will house student resources including academic help, leadership development programs and student organization meeting space. Its location, along Third Street, also is in the heart of the campus' student success corridor, where students live and study. The area includes residence halls to the west, as well as the Cordova Recreational Sports Center, dining courts, Black Cultural Center, fraternity and sorority houses, and the new Third Street Suites located between Wiley and Windsor residence halls.
"So much of what we teach in intercollegiate athletics centers on leadership that it is a natural tie-in for us to be a major contributor to this project," athletics director Morgan Burke said. "We are proud of our 90 percent job placement rate, and much of that can be attributed to the leadership, team-building and problem-solving skills our young men and women learn by competing at a high level. They also succeed in the classroom, having performed equal to or better than the student body for 34 consecutive semesters while maintaining better than a 3.0 cumulative grade-point average for 11 consecutive semesters."
In celebration of our partnership with the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and to recognize the leadership provided by our student-athletes.Krach Center Intercollegiate Athletics Leadership Wall |
Accompanying the display on the Intercollegiate Athletics Leadership Wall will be the words:
In celebration of our partnership with
the Department of Intercollegiate
Athletics and to recognize the leadership
provided by our student-athletes.
The building's first floor is designed to be a public space between work and home for faculty, staff and students to meet and interact. On the second floor is Fraternity, Sorority, Cooperative Life; Purdue Student Government; and a variety of student organizations. The third floor houses offices and meeting space for the Business Office for Student Organizations, Civic Engagement and Leadership Development, Horizons, and Student Activities and Organizations.
The fourth floor houses the office of Student Success, which operates a variety of programming to help support student retention and on-time graduation.
These programs include:
* Boiler Gold Rush, the fall orientation program for first-year and transfer students.
* Learning Communities, a program in which groups of 20-30 students take two or three courses together and often live in the same residence hall.
* Purdue Promise, the program that supports low-income, first-generation college students through required courses, learning communities, peer mentoring and individual support from professional staff.
* Supplemental Instruction, an academic assistance program that offers students regularly scheduled peer-led study sessions.