Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne Informations

Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) was a public university in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Founded in 1964, IPFW was a cooperatively-managed regional campus of two state university systems: Indiana University and Purdue University. IPFW hit its highest enrollment in 2014, with 13,459 undergraduate and postgraduate students in nine colleges and schools, including a branch of the Indiana University School of Medicine. During its last academic year (2017–2018), IPFW had a total enrollment of 10,414 students. IPFW offered more than 200 graduate and undergraduate degree programs through IU or Purdue universities. The university's 14 men's and women's athletic teams competed in Division I of the NCAA Summit League.

On July 1, 2018, the two universities parted company in Fort Wayne. The health sciences programs on the campus became Indiana University Fort Wayne, and the other programs became Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). About two weeks before the split took effect, the athletic program, which was inherited solely by PFW, changed its branding from Fort Wayne Mastodons to Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons.

In 1917, Indiana University started offering courses in downtown Fort Wayne to 142 students in 12 courses. At a separate downtown location, Purdue University permanently established the Purdue University Center in 1941 to provide a site in Fort Wayne for students to begin their undergraduate studies prior to transferring to the West Lafayette main campus to complete their degree.

Under the direction of Purdue University President Frederick Hovde, Indiana University President Herman Wells, IU trustee John Hastings, and Purdue trustee Alfred Kettler Sr., the Indiana University and Purdue University extension centers began merging in 1958 via the formation of the Indiana–Purdue Foundation. To serve the extension centers' now combined mission in Fort Wayne, the Indiana–Purdue Foundation acquired a 99-year lease on agricultural land owned by Allen County to form a campus totaling 114 acres (0.46 km2) at the then-suburban northeast edge of Fort Wayne on the eastern bank of the St. Joseph River. Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne opened on September 17, 1964, following nearly two years of construction that began on October 18, 1962. The first all-inclusive building on campus was known as the Education Building, but it has since been renamed Kettler Hall in honor of the combined university's chief advocate. Kettler's vision and passion during the 1950s made IPFW possible. IPFW awarded its first four-year degree in 1968 after awarding two-year degrees through the IU and Purdue Fort Wayne extension centers prior to the formation of the joint IPFW campus.

In the spirit of Indiana University's 1967 acquisition of the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, which helped form IUPUI two years later, the Indiana General Assembly approved a similar merger of the Fort Wayne Art Institute with IPFW in 1976. The Fort Wayne Art Institute was founded in 1897 as the Fort Wayne Art School. Until 1991, the Fort Wayne Art Institute and resulting academic unit within IPFW maintained a small campus in downtown Fort Wayne. In 1998, this academic unit was renamed the School of Fine and Performing Arts. During the late-1990s, the School of Fine and Performing Arts and its primary classroom building was renamed the School of Visual and Performing Arts and Visual and Performing Arts Building, respectively. In the mid-2000s, the Purdue University board of trustees granted the school "college" status, becoming the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

In 1988, a coalition of the then-Lincoln National Corporation under the direction of Ian Rolland, the M.E. Raker Foundation, the Olive B. Cole Foundation, and the Foellinger Foundation purchased an additional 152 acres (0.62 km2) on the west bank of the St. Joseph River, known as the former McKay Family Farm. In 2007, the State of Indiana completed the process of closing the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center. A portion of the grounds had been transferred to IPFW years earlier for construction of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. The remaining property and buildings of the 142-acre (0.57 km2) developmental center was transferred later in 2007, with the land split between IPFW (40 acres (0.16 km2)) and Ivy Tech Community College (45 acres (0.18 km2)).

IPFW was divided into two universities on July 1, 2018: Purdue University Fort Wayne, and Indiana University Fort Wayne. The division moved all departments involved in health care to Indiana University Fort Wayne, and all others into Purdue University Fort Wayne. The Philosophy and Geosciences departments, however, were closed on January 1, 2017.

IPFW's campus is 688 acres (2.78 km2), encompassing four main campus areas, including 40 buildings which cover 2,668,078 square feet (247,872.6 m2). The Main Academic Campus, bounded by East Coliseum Boulevard (Indiana State Road 930) to the south, Crescent Avenue to the east, St. Joseph River to the west, and Canterbury Green Apartment complex and golf course to the north, includes the majority of academic and administrative buildings and parking.

The Waterfield Student Housing Campus, bounded by Crescent Avenue to the west, East Coliseum Boulevard and Trier Road to the south, and Hobson Road to the East, contains all of the privately owned residence halls. The main academic campus and Waterfield campus are connected via the Crescent Avenue Pedestrian Bridge, elevated above Crescent Avenue.

The Research-Incubator Campus, bounded by St. Joe Road to the west, Stellhorn Road to the south, Dean Drive to the north, and Sirlin Drive to the east includes the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, a business incubator for entrepreneurs. This area of the campus was acquired in 2007 after the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center's closure, with the land donated between IPFW and Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana.

The former McKay Family Farm, located on the western bank of the St. Joseph River, is bounded by East Coliseum Boulevard to the south, St. Joseph River to the east, and development to the north and west. The Plex indoor soccer facility, Hefner Soccer Complex, Holiday Inn hotel, and Steel Dynamics Keith E. Busse Alumni Center are located on this portion of the campus, connected to the main academic campus via the pedestrian-only Ron Venderly Family Bridge. The Holiday Inn operates on property leased from the Indiana–Purdue Foundation, and is affiliated with IPFW's Hospitality Management Program.

For 3 years a grant through the state of Indiana provided bus service between the student housing and the campus but as of 2015 that program was cancelled. Pedestrian and bicycling traffic are also accommodated through the university's direct connection with the Fort Wayne Rivergreenway, a designated National Recreation Trail. The trail is part of the larger 70 miles (110 km) Fort Wayne Trail Network.

IPFW buildings generally feature brick in various shades of brown or tan, a nod to the brick façades of Purdue University's West Lafayette campus buildings. This contrasts with IPFW's sibling university, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, where the buildings generally feature Indiana limestone façades. The grounds at IPFW are manicured and landscaped as a multiple-hundred-acre park due in part to the generosity of Virginia Ayers, an avid long-time exerciser on campus who willed her estate to IPFW upon her death in 1986 (IPFW University Archives).

IPFW operated a satellite facility in Warsaw, Indiana (about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of the main campus) from 2003 to 2013. IPFW Warsaw Center was closed due to improved distance learning technologies and increasing reliance on e-learning.

IPFW was governed in various ways via the Purdue University Board of Trustees, the Indiana University Board of Trustees, and the IPFW Faculty Senate. Purdue served as the fiscal agent for IPFW's budget and substantially represented IPFW during budgetary negotiations with the Indiana General Assembly. The Indiana–Purdue Foundation owns most of the land that constitutes IPFW and has entered into a 99-year lease with Allen County for additional land for US $1. The IPFW Faculty Senate represented the faculty in the university's shared governance model. The desire was so strong for an expansion of IPFW during the 1980s, the Faculty Senate and Indiana–Purdue Foundation explored full independence from both Purdue and IU, not entirely unlike the University of Southern Indiana's independence from Indiana State University in 1985. Relations with Purdue later improved, as did the level of funding from the State of Indiana. IPFW was designated Indiana's Multisystem Metropolitan University by the Indiana General Assembly in May 2015.

IPFW was selective, accepting 82.1 percent of applicants for the fall 2012 semester. The university had a student-to-teacher ratio of 17:1, with 51 percent of classes holding 20 or fewer students (2.9 percent had classes with 50 or more students).

Either Purdue or IU awarded IPFW's degrees on a program-by-program basis. IPFW's colleges, schools, and divisions were not each identified specifically as IU units or as Purdue units. Through an agreement between the IU and Purdue trustees, most of IPFW's university services were administratively operated through Purdue's processes. This is in contrast to IPFW's sibling university, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), where IUPUI is a core campus of the Indiana University System, where IUPUI's university services are administratively operated through the Indiana University System, and where IUPUI's schools and academic divisions are each strongly identified by name as IU or Purdue aligned.

As of 2014, IPFW enrolled 13,214 students, consisting of 12,674 undergraduate students and 540 postgraduate students. A slight majority of IPFW students were first-generation college students, at 51 percent. IPFW consisted of 55 percent female students and 45 percent male students.

The Walter E. Helmke Library, the only public university library in northeast Indiana, was dedicated in 1977 and covers 113,000 square feet (10,500 m2). Ground was broken in 2009 for a new US $42.4 million Student Services Complex, extending the second floor Learning Commons through a 265 feet (81 m)-long glass-enclosed elevated walkway, connecting Helmke Library to Walb Student Union and Hilliard Gates Sports Center. In November 2011, the Student Services Complex and Learning Commons were opened for use. The Learning Commons includes librarian research consulting, the Writing Center, IT services computing, and areas for group and individual study.

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