IUPUI celebrates 40th anniversary with year-long celebration

Compared to its nearly 200-year-old brother campus in Bloomington, IU-Purdue University Indianapolis could be considered a baby.

The school celebrated its 40th birthday on Jan. 28. Since its opening in 1969, IUPUI has grown to an enrollment of more than 30,000 students and experienced an overflow in student housing. Because of this growth, the school is trying to gain respect as a larger university.

To celebrate its accomplishments, the university has planned a year-long commemoration of the anniversary.

“It’s a place of a lot of change,” said Suzanne Vick, the co-chair of the 40th Anniversary Steering Committee. “The campus has grown a lot.”

Vick said the committee worked on the anniversary for about a year, putting together a budget, planning events and advertising the milestone with a special logo.

There have been specific community outreach functions and marketing events for the anniversary.

“The celebration is a way of marketing,” Vick said.

In addition to promoting IUPUI’s past success, Kevin Lonzo, one of the two 40th Anniversary interns, said celebrations will show how the campus is changing, including projects such as establishing an honors college.

“I feel that’s something major universities have to improve their status,” Lonzo said. “We’re becoming more respected.”

Lonzo said the celebration was supposed to kick off Jan. 28 with a special breakfast, but it had to be postponed because of the weather. He said other events have received good responses so far, including the Senator Richard G. Lugar Recognition Dinner on Jan. 31, which more than 400 people attended.

The events have also featured lectures by prominent guests, brought to campus through the special Speakers Fund. The fund was set up this year “to enhance efforts by schools to increase the quality and profile of their own events,” according to the anniversary’s Web site.

But the anniversary celebration is not just a way to commemorate how far IUPUI has come, but is also to build the school’s evolving image. The school’s reputation, campus officials said, could eventually stand on its own.

Lonzo also said the university is trying to move away from the largely commuter-school reputation, since it has had an increase of students living on campus.

But nursing student Lauren Parker said she believes the school is still centered around commuting.

She also said while the school has changed from a majority of graduate students to a mixture with undergraduates, she does not think IUPUI will ever be on the same level as IU-Bloomington or Purdue because of sports and what students do on campus.

“I would never go to an IUPUI basketball game,” Parker said. “It’s definitely a lot different than IU. There are no parties. Campus life is totally different.”

But even though Parker said the city school has a different vibe, she said IUPUI was the best choice for her.

“I went for the nursing school,” Parker said. “All the hospitals are around here.”

She also said she and a lot of her IUPUI friends think it will be easier to stay in one place for graduate school.

But whether the university will ever lose its commuter school stigma or not, Vick said she predicts it will become an even more prominent university in the next 40 years.

“As we go through rapid transformation, we want to celebrate how far we’ve come in a short period of time,” Vick said. “We’re still in growing and formative years.”