Overview
History
Founded in 1969, IUPUI is an urban campus with the dynamic flavor of a metropolitan city of 1.4 million. The campus is just west of downtown Indianapolis, within walking distance of the state capitol and other governmental offices, and the site of numerous businesses and art, sports, education, and health facilities.
IUPUI is one of eight campuses of Indiana University and includes two Purdue University schools. The campus offers more than 240 degrees provided by 20 different schools. Its 29,000 students represent 49 states and 125 countries. Approximately 20,000 of those students are undergraduates, with about an equal mix of traditional and adult students. Undergraduate students annually use more than $83 million dollars in financial assistance as they juggle jobs, families, community service, and academic pursuits. Each year some 4,000 students earn IU or PU degrees.
IUPUI includes the only medical and dental schools in the state, the nation’s largest nursing school, and the country’s oldest school of physical education. IUPUI is among the nation’s 10 largest sites for graduate professional education. With strong traditions in professional education, IUPUI is simultaneously developing new strengths in interdisciplinary inquiry, linking disciplines with professions in ways that advance research, professional service, and learning. With external support of over $200 million in 2002, IUPUI is the second-largest site for research in Indiana. With more than 2,100 full-time faculty, IUPUI is proud of its teaching record and works to improve its teaching with on-going assessment and professional development. The creation of the statewide community college system will redefine IUPUI’s undergraduate mission. One result will be that IUPUI will offer little or no remedial work. Rather, building on its prior partnerships and articulations with Ivy Tech State College and Vincennes University, IUPUI will continue to expand its strategies for ensuring smooth transitions between the two-year institutions and IUPUI. IUPUI aspires to be a model for urban universities nationally as well as internationally.
IUPUI is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Individual school and academic programs are also accredited. For example, the Kelley School of Business and the School of Engineering and Technology programs are accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), respectively.
IUPUI has over 110,000 alumni living worldwide and an expanding and active alumni relations program to serve the growing IUPUI campus. More than 77,000 alumni live in Indiana, with two-thirds of that number in the Indianapolis area. The rest are spread around the world with strong contingents in far-flung places such as Malaysia.
Indiana University–Purdue University Columbus, created in 1970 (one year after the creation of IUPUI), is located one hour south of Indianapolis in the sophisticated, yet rural, town of Columbus, Indiana. This well-known town has been called an “architectural mecca,” boasting the exciting works of numerous internationally known architects. IUPUC has 35 full-time faculty, who are highly regarded both nationally and internationally, and 125 adjunct faculty. IUPUC partners with the Purdue University College of Technology, which has 12 full-time faculty. Both full-time and adjunct faculty teach at the Columbus campus and at its regional centers in Greensburg and Seymour. The service area of IUPUC includes the counties of Bartholomew, Brown, Dearborn, Decatur, Jackson, Jennings, Johnson, Ripley, and Shelby.
Over 35 degree programs are offered at IUPUC. Nearly 1,900 students are enrolled. Approximately 50 percent are full time, and nearly 70 percent are female. IUPUC offers the advantages of affordability and small class size, along with the high quality students would expect at any IU or Purdue campus.
See the IUPUC section in this bulletin for more specific information.