Introducing: Tim's Picks, suggestions for what to do in Greater Lafayette
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Introducing: Tim's Picks, suggestions for what to do in Greater Lafayette
Plus, what's behind Purdue's rebranding Krannert into the School of Business, aiming to be second only to engineering on campus. ID made on suspect in shooting at SIA. And heads up on sheriff's debate
Thanks to the Long Center for the Performing Arts for sponsoring today’s edition. Coming to the Long Center Nov. 18: The Wizards of Winter. Featuring former members of classic rock giants: The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Def Leppard, Rainbow, Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult and Broadway stars. This 11-member ensemble boasts soaring vocal harmonies, precision string instrumentation, powerful percussion, and stunning keyboard work, layered around a rich storyboard that evokes memories and emotions. Celebrate the Season with Wizards of Winter. Tickets: www.longpac.org
PROGRAMMING NOTE: INTRODUCING …
We’re debuting a new feature in Based in Lafayette today — one I’ve been hoping to get rolling since the start of this reporting project more than a year ago.
I’ve recruited help from Tim Brouk, a one-time/long-time arts, entertainment and all-round things-to-do reporter at the J&C, to offer five events, shows, concerts and anything else worth checking in the coming week. The assignment: Tim will report back each Thursday with his picks for Greater Lafayette. And you get a jump start on the weekend and week ahead.
Here goes with Round One …
By Tim Brouk / For Based in Lafayette
• Cécile McLorin Salvant, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, Loeb Playhouse, in Purdue’s Stewart Center — Jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant has the awards – three Grammys – and many more accolades to prove her prowess. However, the New York performer is so much more in terms of sound and artistic vision. Salvant blends blues and folk traditions to feed her passion for storytelling in her music. She is also an accomplished visual artist with breathtaking drawings, paintings and acrylic work to her credit. These visuals sometimes accompany her stage show. Sonically and visually, Salvant is an astounding young breakthrough artist. Tickets for the Purdue Convos show: $20-$26. Ticket information
• “Between Two Guitars” with Wendy Kline, Michael Kelsey and Blake Watts, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, Rat Pak Venue, 102 N. Third St., Lafayette — Local virtuosity comes in many flavors, and a trifecta will be heard when Lafayette Symphony Orchestra violinist Wendy Kline goes electric and shares the stage with Lafayette guitar god Michael Kelsey and Blake Watts, the area’s top 21st century drummer. The trio will explore their respective sounds while creating a new one together. This rare combination will need to be heard to be believed. Tickets: $15. Ticket information
• Jamie Shriner Biddle with Brian Roe and Christina Lundin, 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, The Spot Tavern, 409 S. Fourth St. — Sure, there may have been some poets who rhymed “yeast infection” with “erection” before, but it’s doubtful they did it with as much enthusiasm, passion and tunefulness as Jamie Shriner Biddle, an outrageous Chicago comedian with a powerful and impressive singing voice. Her song “In the Butt” gained some viral fame, which helped establish the young comic with her own monthly show at the Windy City’s Laugh Factory. The showcase is aptly called Naughty Thoughts. Fellow Chicago funny people Brian Roe, who has a civil engineering degree from Purdue University, and Christina Lundin will open.
• Feast of the Hunters’ Moon, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2, Fort Ouiatenon, 3129 S. River Road, West Lafayette — Fall is in full-swing as West Lafayette’s most cherished and biggest event is finally here. The Feast of the Hunters’ Moon is a re-creation of the annual autumn gathering of the French and Native Americans that took place at Fort Ouiatenon, a fur-trading outpost in the 1700s. Thousands take in the sights for the re-enactments, crafts and outfits as well as the smells of the campfires and the taste of unique food like the crowd-favorite fry bread every year. Whether you’ve been going since the festival’s 1968 start or it’s your first time, this event is a Feast for all the senses. Tickets: $10 in advance, $13 at the gate; $5 in advance, $7 at the gate for children ages 4-16. Weekend passes are $18, $13 for kids. Family passes are $30 in advance, $35 at the gate. Ticket information. Proceeds benefit the Tippecanoe County Historical Association.
• Dustin Hopkins’ Celebration of Life with Moonshine Mason & the Rot Gut Gang, Black Rock Serenaders, The Big Swing Band and Purdue Varsity Glee Club alumni, 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, Duncan Hall, 619 Ferry St., Lafayette — The community is invited to pay respects while celebrating the talents, life and legacy of late Lafayette singer Dustin Hopkins, who died July 29 at the age of 43. The best way to remember the one-of-a-kind crooner is through the decades of music he gifted Lafayette-West Lafayette as some of his groups he was featured in will perform. Like his style, Hopkins was a classic and he will never be forgotten.
SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AFTER MONDAY’S SHOOTING AT SIA
A man police say shot a Lafayette woman in the head Monday in a Subaru of Indiana Automotive parking lot before fleeing and killing himself shortly afterward has been identified as John Jones, 57, of Lafayette, Tippecanoe County Coroner Carrie Costello said Wednesday.
Costello said the autopsy confirmed that Jones died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Lafayette police say Mindy Donovan, 36, of Lafayette, was in critical condition in an Indianapolis hospital after being shot by Jones.
Donovan was shot around 4:15 p.m. Monday. Lafayette police said Jones had previously been in a relationship with Donovan. In a release Tuesday, police said the incident “appeared to be a targeted shooting.”
Craig Koven, an SIA spokesman, said Tuesday that Donovan was an SIA associate. Jones also had worked at SIA, Koven said.
WLFI reporter Joe Paul tracked down more of the connection in court records that showed Jones had been arrested two years ago for domestic battery against Donovan.
Here’s more from Paul on the case.
WHAT’S BEHIND THE REBRANDING, REWORKING OF KRANNERT INTO THE PURDUE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
The aspirations aren’t modest with Purdue’s plans to recast its Krannert School of Management into a more entrepreneurial-focused Purdue School of Business.
In a bit of promotion for the move – revealed first for the university’s President’s Council Friday night and aimed to roll out by the fall 2023 semester, Purdue Trustee Chairman Mike Berghoff summed up what success would look like in the transition.
On campus, Berghoff said, the new business school would be the second largest academic piece of Purdue, only behind the College of Engineering, which has about 31% of the undergraduate enrollment in West Lafayette, according to university figures from 2021. Krannert had 8% of the undergraduate enrollment, making it the fifth largest college or school at Purdue. To get to No. 2, the new business school would need to leapfrog past the College of Science (14%), the College of Health and Human Sciences (12%) and the Polytechnic Institute (11%).
Nationally, Berghoff put it in these terms.
“Within five years, we will be a Top 20 ranked business school,” Berghoff said. “And within seven years, we’re going to be a Top 10.”
Krannert Dean David Hummels said all of that is doable, based on enrollment trends built in the past couple of years.
Hummels said that the redesign of Krannert’s bachelor of science in industrial management with the launch of an integrated business and engineering degree – in which students graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Krannert and concentrated coursework in engineering – drew more students than expected in the fall 2021 and again in fall 2022. A new undergraduate program in business analytics wound up with 1,300 applicants for 100 slots.
Overall, undergraduate enrollment at Krannert was up by a third since 2019, with 3,100 students.
“It just hit the sweet spot with exactly what students are interested in and what the market’s interested in,” Hummels said. “That’s one of the pillars, this significant growth in degrees that combine business with STEM disciplines. … Seeing those kinds of effects, I've been talking with the trustees and with (President) Mitch (Daniels) and with (President-elect) Mung (Chiang) pretty intensively for the last six months about how we build on those successes and then launch something really big and bold for the school.”
Hummels said a new School of Business could see 4,000 undergraduate students in the next three to four years.
He said the approach would be different from the graduate degrees first offered by Krannert in 1962, which eventually led to the undergraduate industrial management degrees offered later. He said the rebranded school would focus on integration of STEM disciplines, the open-ended, experience-based problem solving approach Purdue has latched onto across campus and riffing on Purdue’s Cornerstone offerings of liberal arts coursework and reading lists built around STEM majors.
“What it’s designed to do is really give students a much improved, classical liberal arts grounding, getting stronger introductions to communications and writing and going a lot deeper into students’ preparation in terms of critical thinking,” Hummels said.
Hummels said another goal is to provide business or economics minors to one out of every five Purdue students outside the School of Business. He said the idea was to prepare Purdue graduates ready “to create industries that we don’t even know exist, yet.”
“The reason is that we have very clear data that shows when you combine a business minor with other degrees across campus, you raise students’ earning power by somewhere between 10% and 20%, depending on their degree,” Hummels said. “So, we want to equip students with that, even if they don't come through with one of our majors.”
Hummels said sketches of an expanded Krannert building remain conceptual. But he said the growth coming in a refigured School of Business is not.
“Many of the things we’re planning to do, we have piloted on a small scale, and we’re pretty sure they’re going to work,” Hummels said. “It’s just going to be a matter of getting the resources and the timing worked out.”
DEBATE TONIGHT, TIPPECANOE COUNTY SHERIFF: Sheriff Bob Goldsmith, a Democrat running for a second term, and Republican Jason Huber, executive director of Tippecanoe County Community Corrections, will debate at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29. The one-hour debate, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Greater Lafayette and carried live on WLFI-TV18, will be broadcast from the McCutcheon High School auditorium, 4951 Old U.S. 231 South. The event will be open to the public.
Thanks, again, to the Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette for sponsoring today’s edition. For tickets and schedules – including for The Wizards of Winter performance Nov. 18 – go to www.longpac.org.
Tips or story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com. Also on Twitter and Instagram.
Introducing: Tim's Picks, suggestions for what to do in Greater Lafayette
Thanks for the Tim's Picks! I've missed the "TGIF" style section ever since our local paper stopped being community based. Thanks to both of you for filling that void.
TGIF vibes -- totally here for the Tim’s Picks!