Mung Chiang talks Purdue enrollment, local water, campus priorities

Mung Chiang, heading into first full academic year as president, talks enrollment, big investments in campus facilities and where he stands on a plan to take local water for LEAP District development

• Thanks to Food Finders Food Bank for its ongoing support of Based in Lafayette, including today’s edition. The 11th annual Beers Across the Wabash, 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26 on the John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge, will benefit Food Finders and its efforts to fend off hunger in and around Greater Lafayette. For details about the brewers, music and games and to reserve tickets for Beers Across the Wabash, click the link below.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE

---

MUNG CHIANG TALKS PURDUE ENROLLMENT, LOCAL WATER, CAMPUS PRIORITIES

Outside the windows of the president’s offices at Hovde Hall Wednesday morning, clusters of freshmen trailed Boiler Gold Rush leaders on tours of campus and new students lined up to snap photos jumping the tracks of Rush Crossing, a tradition to mark the start a college career in West Lafayette.

Inside, Purdue President Mung Chiang was joking about sore muscles and possibly a dropped box or two after spending part of the day before helping freshmen move into their dorm rooms.

“Happy new year,” Chiang said. “Why not celebrate multiple new years? Calendar year. Fiscal year. And academic year.”

Squeezed between BGR obligations and a late-morning meeting with James Bullard – the inaugural dean of the Daniels School of Business, fresh from 15 years as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis – Chiang covered some new academic year ground with local media Wednesday.

Here were a few of the takeaways, including a look at record enrollment; big spending on capital projects; Purdue’s effort to bring commercial flights to West Lafayette; and where he stands and what Purdue’s role could be on a controversial state plan to pump Tippecanoe County water to feed the massive LEAP District development near Lebanon.