 Hi, I'm Kate Young and you're listening to This is Purdue, the official podcast for Purdue University. As a Purdue alum and Indiana native, I know firsthand about the family of students and professors who are in it together, persistently pursuing and relentlessly rethinking. Who are the next game changers, difference makers, ceiling breakers, innovators? Who are these boiler makers? Join me as we feature students, faculty and alumni taking small steps toward their giant leaps and inspiring others to do the same. We have the honor, really, of looking at all of the incoming students every year and saying, we get to set the tone. We get to share with them what's here. We have this cool opportunity to help folks get their start in a new place, in a new county, a new city, a new state, sometimes a new country. That is one of the biggest honors of a lifetime to be able to do this for these students. Picture this, it's August. It's another hot and humid week in Indiana, but it's not just any week. You are moving into Purdue for the first time you're on your own. You're ready to meet new people and counter new things and grow and learn in ways you've never experienced before. And how do you kick off this chapter in your life? Three words, Boiler Gold Rush. The BGR that Boilermakers know and love now actually started as corn camp back in the 90s. Craig Johnson, director of orientation programs at Purdue, tells us about BGR's early days. It really started as a small little residence hall program in Cary Quad back in the early 90s. It was an idea of the hall coordinator there at that time. And the purpose then is still the purpose now. It was really an opportunity to try and connect new students together before they moved into their residence hall. And while that was a summer program then, and it was called corn camp. And of course, corn was an acronym corn stood for collegians orientating residential newcomers just a very excellent acronym of all the Purdue acronyms that one's got to be up there. So they brought folks in they acclimated them to Cary and have them connect with other students. And after a couple of years they really saw the impact of that and said why don't we do this at scale and that was really the birth of Boiler Gold Rush, which just happened a couple years later. And really since then we've continued to evolve it and it's grown and it's premised the goal of it continues to be the same just welcoming and connecting new students before the start of classes. We all know Purdue is large. It's a 10 university with tens of thousands of people and coming from high school, it can be really intimidating to navigate a campus the size of Purdue. Craig and I discussed the importance of an orientation program like BGR for new students. Yeah, and why do you think that that's so important for new students, some of them are leaving home for their first time ever, you know, they're nervous, maybe they come from out of state they don't know anyone in Indiana. What is the impact of BGR when it comes to those aspects in a lot of cases it provides that sense of security and community if students aren't meeting other students if they don't know how to navigate campus. They're more likely to have a negative experience or not have as much confidence before they start or go into the school year and so having an opportunity like this where they are paired with students that live generally speaking close to them that they can connect with for a whole week before they even need to start to navigate and they can walk around and start to get a feel for what may seem like a really overwhelming place but after a few days on campus starts to become really small and homey. It's an important start for them so they can hopefully relieve some nerves and cure any anxieties before the start of term. I visited IU I visited Purdue before I chose Purdue and even though Purdue is so huge. Once you navigate that campus it is a lot less intimidating and more compact you know and then students are able to see that especially during BGR I'm sure. And I will preface this by saying I would love to think that these correlate exactly that we're the reason for all of this but there are millions and millions of other factors that add into a student's ability to retain and stay at the institution but generally speaking folks that participate in BGR their first term GPAs are higher than their non-participant peers. They generally graduate at a higher percentage as well at the university and again it's a baseline we can't test a person's four year experience to just BGR but the numbers don't lie either and so I think it's helpful to remember that it's really important to have a foundation whenever you transition somewhere else whether you're an 18 year old that's coming in for the first time or an international student or a transfer student that's coming to campus for the first time. Or if you're an adult that's transitioning to a new city or a new job or something having some sort of solid foundation is really the key to success and building community right away and so generally speaking students do succeed at a higher rate. We think that's a little bit because of the work that we do and the people that we were able to connect them with. This fall Purdue is welcoming its largest ever incoming class and Craig and his team prepared for the largest BGR week in history. We just looked at the numbers and so this year with the size of the class we have over 8500 currently registered for BGR. Our previous high was about 7200 so we are really experiencing the masses here it's grown incrementally every year since I began here and it has you know over the course of many many years. And so in order to support that many students we have to hire a lot of students and so we have about 600 volunteer team leaders these are the folks that they could be entering their second year. There are some that do this all four years of so they're thrilled or four time TLS and they are the ones leading new student groups around campus. We also have what we call mid level team supervisors these are folks who have been team leaders before but want to get a little bit more mentorship student development and so they're with us longer and are there to help mentor and support the team leaders throughout the week. And then we have our top group called the student orientation committee that's a group of nine who are traditionally third year orientation leaders. They are the ones that are hired in September right after BGR and are with us for a full year full 12 months to help prep those team supervisors to help train and recruit them and the team leaders and then help us with all sorts of details and logistics for the program as well. As you can imagine planning a week long event of this size takes a village. Of course there's Craig and his team at Purdue but BGR would not be able to function without all of the 700 plus student volunteers. There's a student orientation committee who oversees the training and development team, the recruitment and retention team and the orientation team. And then there's the team supervisors. Their job is to mentor the team leaders. And of course those team leaders you may still remember yours are a very special part of the BGR experience. Our team leaders are lowest tier of staff. Their job is to orient the new students they spend the week with them they're their first face they see on campus and they really play the most critical parts in our structure. That was Jamie Lawton schlager. She's this year's student orientation committee chair. I had the pleasure of meeting Jamie and she is such an impressive and involved young woman. Jamie explains how she got involved in BGR. Being an orientation leader gave me my sense of belonging at Purdue. When I first showed up to boiler gold rush as a new student in 2018. I remember feeling really lost. There were so many people around me a lot of people that knew one another and I just didn't know a lot of individuals on campus. So I found it really hard to make friends right away but I remember seeing the team leaders having such a fun time like knowing everyone across campus. I remember seeing the team supervisors dancing in the aisles for the main sessions at boiler gold rush. And so when I was feeling really down and out my spring semester I decided to apply. And being a team leader like helps me make friends that helps me find my sense of belonging here. A sense of belonging and being immersed in this Purdue community was an overall theme I kept hearing throughout BGR again and again and again. Here's Craig. The biggest thing for us is that that small little group that our team leaders facilitate. We sort our students based on where they live generally speaking on campus. And so our hope is that they're meeting and connecting with people that either live in their floor or live on their residence hall or at least live in the general neighborhood that's nearby them. And then to we do some silly stuff throughout the week that's really all around building sense of community. So we have an event that's called the common bond dance. So our student staff selects a song every year and then the rest of our student staff submit dance moves and we put it all together and that is loud and present and obnoxious throughout the week. But in some ways it builds community just because of people kind of acting foolish and being vulnerable and kind of enjoying this time together. And so I would say the teams the common bond dance but then there are also things that we're giving them either experiences or physical items or that sort of things these symbols of the Purdue community to keep building that sense of belonging and to make them feel welcomed as they're coming to campus many of which for the first time. If you participated in BGR you likely remember a few events or activities that stuck out to you and Craig and his team have continued to evolve including adding fountain fest to BGR is growing list of events. What are some student favorite traditions would you say or is there like a staple every year that the students are like I can't wait for this event on this day. I would say that for our student leaders because I don't think our new students know and I think some of them are quite surprised when we talk about the common bond dance for example. I think our student leaders get really into it but as an 18 year old coming in and everybody's unified dancing to this song it could be a little bit overwhelming and shocking and a little confusing to them at times. And so I think that's a good one that our students really enjoy participating in and then our mid level students really enjoy contributing to that and kind of seeing their moves come alive as well. I think the fountain participation is always a good one when people are able to go through the fountains for the first time I think that's a really good one. We've made that event into what we call fountain fest which happened a couple of years ago and is back this year as well so that's a really exciting event that happens and really it's fun to see when students walk into a space for the first time so whether they're walking into Macarena or whether they're walking into Ross aid stadium or they're walking into Elliott Hall of Music or even a classroom some of the lecture halls you know like seal 5224 whether all 200 for them to go and I think that's when you start to see the realization like oh dang this is what I'm part of this is what I'm stepping into that's a really fun thing to visualize and a fun thing to recognize the kind of the wave of emotions even that new students are experiencing as they navigate campus and all the sites and sounds for the first time. So what better way to hear about students BGR experiences than during BGR. We went behind the scenes during the week to grab some interviews. Here's Charles Wang. We caught him as he was crossing the tracks a tradition that signifies the beginning of a lifelong relationship with Purdue incoming freshmen ceremoniously cross the tracks each fall during BGR and then after graduation students cross the tracks to the north symbolizing the entry into a world of unlimited opportunity made possible by a Purdue education. What brought you to Purdue. I saw online and it's like it seemed like a fantastic community. It seemed like a really fun place and I want to do a major in food science and it was really good in that in that area. So that's why I decided to come. And what is the BGR experience been like for you. Oh yeah as of now it's been really fun just exploring campus like meeting new friends meeting new people and like again learning a lot of traditions and knowing where everything is. We met freshman Jack Kaufman after asking a few BGR groups if anyone wanted to participate in an interview on this is Purdue. His group immediately yelled Jack and clapped and shared clearly nominating him as their spokesperson. Tell us what your BGR experience has been like so far so far the BGR experience has been great I'm part of P WAP go P WAP. I'm very excited to get into the rest of the week start meeting new people learn the campus get into it. Have you met any new friends in your BGR group. Oh my gosh I have met way more people I think my snap contact list has probably doubled in the past two days. What are you most excited about for the school year. Probably the rigorous academics I mean came from a pretty tough high school but I'm looking forward also to meeting a tons of new people. I mean 10,000 people my high school class was 200 graduates and here we are with 10,000 I mean that's just unbelievable to me I can't comprehend that. Jack also shared his group's beacon the flag of Spain. One of our team's favorite parts of spending the day at BGR that week was checking out all of the beacons. If you attended BGR you'll likely remember your beacon right away when you think back. I know several of my colleagues reminisced on theirs. Craig explains the tradition behind beacons. This is one of my favorite parts of BGR is to see the creativity shine from our student staff. I think it started a little bit before my time when the idea of beacons came it was definitely in full force when I started here at Purdue. The idea of beacons really in its most simple form is to have a very clear indicator of where my team leader is if I'm a new student and I'm navigating all of these things for the first time. At least I can recognize this thing, whether it's a fork or a blown up picture of President Daniels or something else that's around I at least know that okay that's where my team leader is or I know that I'm generally in the right place if I get lost in the traffic and that sort of thing. But our students really get into it and so there are lots of different varieties I've seen cartoon characters and memes and the heads of famous people either Purdue specific or not Purdue specific replicas of bell towers and of the engineering fountain all these other things. I think my favorite was from a team leader a couple of years ago spent his whole summer building a replica boiler maker special that he could fold into his car and attached to his bike. So he would drive around on this boiler maker special he even had PVC pipe that he made and this is the ingenuity of our students. He made sure that he understood which pitch the boiler maker special was so I'm making things up here was like okay so that's a that's an a flat. That's an F sharp that's a sea or whatever, and he tuned the PVC pipe in a whistle form so that when he blew through his PVC pipe which he just carried around on his backpack or put on his fold up train. He could blow the boiler maker special and it would it sound as close to what a PVC version of the boiler maker special horn was you'd blow that throughout the week so that's probably the most extreme people get. But some do it simple fork or a yardstick or something like that just to so that so so it's really creative and it's really fun to watch our students come back and to see a lineup of 600 individual different beacons come through to show the students around that day I saw a clear umbrella morphed into a jellyfish with colorful streamers as tentacles, which was actually a really smart move because it not only provided shade. The leaders group members could spot it from a mile away. Other beacons featured characters from iconic TV shows like the office and a few of our men's basketball coach Matt painter. And of course dozens of others featured Purdue University President Mitch Daniels. My personal favorite, a remake of Taylor Swift's 1989 album with President Daniels face on it instead of Taylor's. If you're a T Swift fan I'm sure you can imagine. In a lot of ways there's something so energizing about being on campus on a beautiful day right before school starts, and especially being on campus and witnessing 8000 new students experience Purdue, some for the very first time. But how does Craig and his team work to keep the energy high. And why is this week long experience at a school the size of Purdue so unique. So today's boiler gold rush is like putting on a festival for 8,018 year olds. It's a little bit crazy. Yeah, so there are so many different events we have sessions at different stages we have events happening throughout the week. We have meet and greets and all sorts of faculty and celebrities and you know that's a Purdue celebrities at least and coming through and connecting and so. And for us is not only to orient them to the place that they're going to live in the community, they're going to be a part of, but also let them have some fun. They're 18 there, or their transfer students are coming in at 1920 21 maybe we want them to come in and enjoy their experience at BGR. And so why not have a little fun with it so that's why we have music playing all the time we have folks that are up. We have a wake alert enthusiastic at seven o'clock in the morning for breakfast every day. It is a pretty cool thing and we're with the size and scale and the amount that we do. There are not many orientation programs across the country that have similar experience to this. I can really count them on a hand or two that do this at the size and scale so we're very fortunate to have the support that we do at the university. We're fortunate to have the culture that BGR has been through you know having it be here for almost 30 years now is part of the Purdue tradition it's part of the Purdue history. And now, 10s and 10s and 10s of thousands of students, hundreds of thousands of students have gone through BGR and it's it's truly part of the Purdue tradition here on this campus. To elaborate a little bit on that you know we're a big 10 school produce huge. How has this continued to evolve throughout the years and build into you know what it is and why is it so rare to have that on a campus like the size of Purdue. Just with size obviously Purdue has experienced some really positive and exponential growth over the last few years in particular. And so, just from a logistic standpoint, the mechanism of BGR is significantly different even then it was five years ago and definitely the five years before you know it even five years ago we're talking about 2000 fewer students. And so what are all the things that that comes with what we have to think about how many days of moving we have to think about how many team leaders we need to hire to support these students we have to think about. And really it while huge has a limit for how many seats are in the auditorium so what are some other ways that we can engage in other spaces around campus. And so it's evolved the number of days has evolved the number of moving days has evolved the number of staff the type of sessions. We also have to recognize where the students are at to and so these students coming in as 18 year olds now are very different than the 18 year olds five years ago or 10 years ago let alone 30, you know some of the technology additions or just what their experiences are like in the high school or previous institution settings are different. What it's like to be a Purdue student is different buildings change and roads change and all of these things and so we need to do everything we can to keep evolving and keep acclimating and still keeps the spirit of BGR and that welcoming space alive for these students. I'm really glad you touched on that that's so true and all the social media and kids are probably posting all over social media about their experience at BGR. Do you get feedback from students or how do you guys continue to iterate and think of new ideas to keep it fresh every year. It starts with our students are new students we have really good responses in our survey we assess them ahead of time before the program and after the program so we get a lot of good feedback there. And then with our students staff to we're often asking them for ideas you know let's reflect on this event did it land and oftentimes we know in the middle of that event if it's landing or not. So sometimes when you asked earlier about what's next for 2022 ask us during BGR mid event and we'll say either yay or nay this is a thing that we'll keep doing in the future and so get a lot of firsthand experience with our full time staff members and then students all the way through whether it's our leadership or with our new students and as I've said before things change from the university to so President Daniels may have something that he's interested in promoting or other new initiatives may come up on campus that kind of take when then we want to promote that and encourage students to participate in that during BGR so definitely changes every year we're getting feedback from all corners of our students and our staff and administrators at Purdue to plan for the next year. As you can all imagine BGR look different heading into the fall 2020 semester than it looked this year but it still happened and thousands of students were still able to participate and keep this Purdue tradition alive. Obviously last year everyone was excited to be back on campus thanks to President Daniels and the protect Purdue initiative. But BGR look different people were in masks there are a lot of safety measures. How do you feel coming into this year and how will it be different for these students to experience this year versus last year in the pandemic. I think generally speaking we know so much more about how we can navigate this than we did a year ago at this time. We still were in a lot of ways preparing and wishing and hoping you know we'd seen a lot of peers navigate their own challenges with starting up and I just commend everybody that was able to work with us to get BGR up to speed because last year. We still had over 6000 participants of BGR in person on campus we just really didn't have anybody in an indoor space you know it was it was really bizarre we had you live streamed all of the sessions and so people were watching on their phones on YouTube or on our website. So we did what we could with what we knew and what we had this year we're doing the same thing and it's just going to feel a lot more robust we are inside venues we are able to know and respond to the policies and procedures that are in effect for the summer and the fall really in some ways it's us celebrating the fact that we can do this again I think it's helpful for us to always remember what happened in 2020 and all the things that we weren't able to do. And so to have a BGR that is at this size with this group of students who have their own challenges in high school and at their previous institutions come to now here and be able to see and celebrate the work that Purdue did over the course of the last year. I'm very excited about it our staff has been excited to plan and prep for actual events not just digital or remote events. It's just really reinvigorating and of course we're following all the protect Purdue protocols and guidelines. And yet, because we know because of the leadership at this institution we're able to know what we can and cannot do. We're just really excited to bring everybody back and experience this campus, many for the first time. As Craig mentioned, Elliott Hall of Music was off limits when it came to gathering indoors during BGR in 2020. But this year BGR participants were able to check out this iconic building on campus as part of the protect Purdue session. This particular session was dedicated to educating new students about the protect Purdue guidelines and also safety on campus overall parents and remote students were also able to watch the whole session on a live stream. I had the honor of moderating this session in Elliott, and I was pleasantly surprised with how many incoming freshmen knew about This is Purdue. Who out here listens to podcasts? Okay, who here knows about This is Purdue, the official university podcast? Anyone? All right. Has anyone listened to an episode that they'd like to share for a t-shirt? This session included panelists LT Pelto and Christie Ruby, COVID nursing managers for one to one health and the Protect Purdue Health Center, Chief John Cox with the Purdue University Police Department, and Chief Kevin Ply with the Purdue University Fire Department. To wrap up the session, Chief Cox and Chief Ply both had wonderful advice to share with these incoming students. What's your biggest piece of advice for all of these students going into their fall semester? Well, I would say enjoy it. Enjoy your time here. Work hard, study hard. I think the hardest thing that I've seen incoming freshmen try to learn to do is try to come up with that, what I'll call work life balance. You're going to have to set schedules and maybe you didn't have to do that in high school because it came easy to you, but this isn't high school anymore. And so study hard, take a break when you can. Enjoy. Enjoy West Lafayette and the surrounding community has to offer. I think that you'll find that this is a very safe place and a place that you can enjoy a lot of fun activities. So enjoy. And like Chief Cox said, enjoy your time here at Purdue University. It's a great time. You're going to be learning both in the classroom and, you know, as a person, you know, like he said, this isn't high school anymore. This is as you're transitioning in life. So make sure that you enjoy this time, but make good decisions. After moderating that session, the marketing and communications team hosted a VIP experience for a few BGR groups that included their very own This Is Purdue t-shirt and some professional group photos by the engineering fountain to always remember their BGR groups. That's where we met Zoe Pike. Zoe's energy and excitement was radiating off of her. She shares what brought her to Purdue. My family went here. So I've been a Boilermaker since birth, but I wanted to go into animal sciences and it's one of the best. So that's where I chose to ultimately come here. What's been your favorite BGR experience so far? Probably Ross said just seeing like just us in there. That was pretty cool because I've only been there for football games when I was little. So just having the whole place to ourselves. That was really nice. And you said your parents went here. You've been a Boilermaker since birth. What is this Purdue community like mean to you? It means a lot. I mean, I'm really connected to my family here just because they've had so many of the same experiences. It was a lot different when they came here. But I just feel like, I don't know, I feel like I get to do the same things they did. And it's fun to talk to them about it because they've kind of had the same go around. It was so special to see firsthand what an impact BGR has on these incoming students. I had so much fun getting to know Craig and his team better. And it was an absolute honor to be a part of this year's BGR with the official University podcast. Craig tells us what it means to him to execute this BGR experience for thousands of students at Purdue University, a place so rich in history and tradition. It means a lot. I love working with the people that I work with, particularly for anybody who's watching or listening. Nothing is better than working with a good team. If you're working and most of us have to work to provide a living for ourselves, if you can connect and be with people that you enjoy working with and in respect, that makes a world of difference. So I've been very, very lucky to work for some great people and have a team of really great people. And that's why I'm here. Beyond that, the tradition, the legacy, that stuff gets me really excited. I did not attend Purdue University as an undergrad, but growing up in the Midwest, you know, all about it. It was a big 10 school, you know, watching Robbie Hummel on ESPN. Like, these are things that, you know, I grew up watching as a fan and that sort of thing. Little that I know that I would end up here. And so I think that what keeps me and what keeps our team around and energized is the support from our leadership, the quality of people that we work with, not only in our office, but all across campus. And you can do some really cool things with and lean into the Purdue history and tradition. And that's always exciting to welcome people to that for the first time. Robbie Hummel, those were the days. Those were my days at Purdue. Nice. You touched on, you didn't go to Purdue. But now, why are you proud to be a boiler maker? I have really fallen in love with this place. So I've been working here for six years. My predecessor is here for 10. And so it's a place that, you know, in higher ed and probably with many other jobs, you go into a job and you have a timeline. Oh, I'm going to be here for two years. And I'm going to go to the next thing. And I'm going to go to the next thing or whatever. Well, here I am six years later sitting here talking to you. I love this place. So for me, the people have made the world of a difference for me. And coming from the Midwest, it's a very Midwest place, you know, there's a lot of nice people, a lot of excellent traditions. And what's funny is that our professional staff that's here, none of us went to Purdue. And so it's funny that we've all kind of landed here and really leaned into the tradition and the opportunity to welcome. We're in such a cool position to have the honor really of looking at all of the incoming students every year and saying, we get to set the tone, you know, we get to share with them what's here, we get to share with them in person and virtually in whatever mode. Do we do that perfectly every year? No, nobody's perfect at their job. We continue to evolve and react and change. And yet the root of it doesn't change. We have this cool opportunity to help folks get their start in a new place, in a new county, a new city, a new state, sometimes a new country. And that is one of the biggest honors of a lifetime to be able to do this for these students. Be sure to check out the photos and videos featuring all things BGR on purduenews.exposure.co. You can also keep up with BGR by following them on social media at all aboard Purdue. Thanks for listening to This is Purdue. For more information on this episode, visit our website at purdue.edu slash podcast. There you can head over to your favorite podcast app to subscribe and leave us a review. And as always, boiler up.