Indiana University President Pam Whitten and Purdue University President Mung Chiang celebrate after signing an agreement that allows the schools to operate independently in Indianapolis.
IBJ photo | Mickey Shuey
Starting Monday, IUPUI will be history as Indiana University and Purdue University officially launch separate campuses in Indiana’s capital city.
IUPUI — otherwise known as Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis — will formally break into Indiana University Indianapolis, a standalone campus in the IU system, and Purdue University in Indianapolis, which will be considered an extension of Purdue’s main campus in West Lafayette.
The schools announced their plans to divorce nearly two years ago, and have hosted events this week to confirm that all is going as planned for Monday’s realignment in downtown Indianapolis.
Both universities will debut separate programs this fall for their Indianapolis operations. Prospective students can apply to IU Indianapolis or to study at Purdue in Indianapolis.
Both universities want to capitalize on Indianapolis’ urban landscape and ecosystem of opportunities for students. IU and Purdue officials say the split will make both bigger players in the regional and national economies.
The universities tackled the transition differently. IU took its share of IUPUI’s programs and established the Indianapolis campus. Inaugural chancellor Latha Ramchand told IBJ on Wednesday the campus will focus in part on research, commercialization and student opportunity in the life sciences and biotech sectors. University officials want to establish the Indianapolis school as a top U.S. urban research university.
“The time is ripe for us to go in slightly different ways,” Ramchand told reporters Wednesday. “All of which is geared towards helping support this region, support our city, our state, as we move forward in terms of economic growth, development and prosperity.”
(IBJ previewed IU’s plans for its Indianapolis campus in a story you can see here.)
Purdue did not establish a new satellite campus. Instead, its Indianapolis programs will exist as extensions of the West Lafayette campus. Purdue’s plan is driven in large part by a desire to draw more students interested in engineering and business to the university, including through new degree programs such as motorsports engineering and executive education.
(IBJ covered Purdue’s plans for its Indianapolis extension in a story you can find here.)
At a celebration Thursday afternoon on Monument Circle, Purdue President Mung Chiang celebrated the university’s new chapter with Gov. Eric Holcomb, Sen. Mike Braun, Sen. Todd Young and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.
“Today is about making sure that the future tech-driven prosperity will be here in Indianapolis and central Indiana with economic growth and brain gain,” Chiang said on the steps of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Thursday.
IUPUI was founded in 1969 as mostly a commuter undergraduate school for students in Indianapolis. IU and Purdue had actually been teaching classes in Indianapolis independently for decades. But in 1968, then-Mayor Richard Lugar declared that Indianapolis needed a “great state university.”
At the time, Indiana was distinctive in being home to several top-tier research universities, such as IU, Purdue and the University of Notre Dame. But they were all located outside of large cities, including Indiana’s capital.
In the decades that followed, IU and Purdue expanded their reach in acreage and enrollment. Today, the campus hosts a sweeping array of undergraduate, graduate and professional programs, including medicine, dentistry, nursing, law, art, public health, engineering, computer science and liberal arts.
This story is by Cate Charron.
