 Well, good afternoon. I hope you can all hear me. And welcome to this month's virtual fireside with the Boller engineers. I'm Meng Cheng, the Johnny Everson Dean of College of Engineering and proud to be able to bring on this beautiful spring break day here in West Lafayette. Two, not just one, this time for the first time in after a whole year of doing this monthly series. We are honored with two outstanding Boller makers. And I'm going to introduce them in a minute. But first, I just want to let you know that even though last Sunday night, I didn't go quite as we plan on the basketball front. Our baseball, I was told, remain undefeated. The only one undefeated baseball team in the United States. And of course, starting this Friday, we go NCAA. By the way, for a brief period of time, Purdue and Stanford on the women basketball front, we on the men's basketball front, were the only two universities with both top five basketball team and top five engineering college. With that as the opening of my distinct honor pleasure to introduce Liz Thompson, Don Thompson, Liz's class of 1985, ECE and Don class of 1984, and currently also trustee at Purdue University. I'm going to turn the mic to Liz and Don to introduce themselves. Hi, Dean. It's such a pleasure. Liz Thompson, as you just mentioned, class of 1985 in the School of Electrical Engineering, where I met the young man who would change my life forever back on the first day on campus. So it is a pleasure to be here with you and very excited to be here with two of our Thompson scholars as well. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Don Thompson, and I am proudly, proudly called Mr. Liz Thompson, graduate of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1984, and have served as a trustee for the last, I guess, about 11 years, and very, very proud Boilermaker. And I too am extremely happy that we have the stars of the show here with us, mom. And we've got Jordan and Jasmine, who are two of the Thompson scholars, and they're the ones that really carry the day forward here for us. They're real stars. Yes. Well, we'll introduce the Thompson scholar representatives by the time we get to the half an hour point. And let me start, however, by going back to the early 1980s here on Purdue campus. Well, Liz, you alluded to that already. So how did you two meet? By the way, I'm asking this because our president, Mitch Daniels, as you know, you know, is freezing tuition. So I'm looking for a revenue source, one of which is I intend to send a bill of finders fee to all the Boilermaker couples who saw each other on campus, got married, grew a beautiful family together. And I want to just, you know, get like 10, 12 percent of their life. Well, I know there are a lot of us out there. So you may be onto something there. I'm not sure. How did you two meet? So I will take you back to August of 1980. And Don and I were at a welcome reception. We had both received what was it, honey, Amaco scholarships at the time. And so I standard oil, standard oil. We were seated at the same table. I think it was a $500 scholarship. And I looked across the table and I thought, Oh, who is this very handsome young man sitting across the table from me. But being very young, I was 16 at the time when I started Purdue. Don was only 17 at the time. It wasn't my focus. And so we had some small chitchat. We didn't really say anything much to each other. And I didn't even see him again, the entire first semester on campus. Fast forward to January 1981. We were in the double E 129 lecture hall in calculus 162. And I looked up and I said, Hold on. That's the same young man I remember from the first night on campus. I finally got up the nerve. This is where our stories diverge. I finally got the nerve to sit next to him in class come March. And the conversation went a little like this. I said, So where are you originally from? And he said, Chicago. And I said, We're in Chicago because I'm from the north side. And he said, From the north side of Chicago. And I said, Well, what street did you grow up on? And he said, Mall Street, you wouldn't know the name of it, but it's called Cleveland Avenue. And Dean, I grew up on Cleveland Avenue as well. So the same street four blocks apart. It took Purdue to bring us together. And we've been together ever since. And it's the anniversary. We celebrate March 26 10 days from now where we will celebrate our 41st anniversary together. Congratulations. That is amazing. Sorry, I have to say I see Cleveland Avenue, the foundation for education right behind you, Liz. I want to ask you a question about that. But first, let me ask Don to tell us his version of the story. You know, I think she's largely correct. However, I think it was me who saw her first. And it just took us a while to get together. But we're not going to debate this because Jasmine Zell can do enjoy and they know the truth. We've had this conversation together. But I will say it this way, mom, it has been and she is my best friend, the joy of my life. And we've basically lived our lives together. And so Purdue brought us together. And we now have a chance to still within the realms of that whole Purdue experience, get a chance to talk to some fabulous people to try to help them keep moving through life as well. Well, Liz and Don, you two are really the role models as the boiler makers couples. Thank you so much for sharing that story with us. And well, Don, you know, a lot of people ask me this question, say, you know, we know that Don Thompson's wildly successful business leader in America. Now he was an electrical engineer at Purdue. That's that's a tough major and both of you are. But how did Don Thompson later turn out to be the CEO of McDonald's? How did that happen? Well, it's a it's an interesting story. And I tell everyone, you know, the biggest thing and the best thing about Purdue is Purdue teaches you how to problem solve. And so I will say the first part of this, I probably won't fair as well with my problem solving skills. But the latter part, I think it turned out okay, I was within the defense industry, I was working for Northrop at the time, it wasn't North, Grumman was just Northrop at the time. And as a defense contractor, I was working as a power supply engineer, enjoying it tremendously. And however, there were some things that occurred relative to the industry. And as one of the leaders, I ended up doing downsizing of some of our team. And after you've done that a few times with people, it impacts you and I was looking for something different. And I got a call from someone. And during a call, he says, I never forget it. He says, how would you like to come and and look at our company? And it would be in the areas of control secretary, you'll be doing a lot of feedback loop dynamics and helping us to be able to optimize some of the system. And I'm saying wow, this is right up my alley, perfect, you know, easy background. I love to do this. So when should I come to St. Louis for the interview? And that was quiet on the other side of the phone. And he then said, he said, St. Louis, I said, Sure, St. Louis, that's where McDonald Douglas is. And he said, No, this is not McDonald Douglas. He said, this is a McDonald hamburgers. And I quickly said, Well, you've probably got the wrong guy. Thank you very much. But no, thank you. But as God would have it, a few circumstances occurred. Liz and I thought about it on it. And the next thing I know, I've spent, I had spent 25 years with McDonald's and ultimately ending up being the CEO of a fabulous company. Yes. Well, you know, those aerospace defense companies, they really need to avoid brand names that we all recognize. Can be confusing. But well, you know, McDonald of course, is one of the most visible brands in the whole world, and one of the largest companies in the world. And as you the CEO of such a large enterprise, how did your Purdue Engineering education connect into leading this humongous enterprise? Yeah, it's interesting. I think most companies are and always look at it this way. Most companies are just living organisms. From what they do and the products they serve for goods and services that they provide, there's always a stream and a series of processes that help them get from the beginning all the way to the end and a conversion to provide services to some end client or customer. And McDonald's is absolutely no different. And what Purdue really helped more than anything else with was just how you follow that chain and problem solve along that chain. And whether that was related to people based matters, whether that was an electrical engineering in my first career, or whether that was related to markets and market dynamics, product analytics, product mix shifts across the world, whether it was relative to whether or not we put $2 million into product development or 20 million in whether we open 20 restaurants in China or do we make another six restaurants in Russia, it was all part of problem solving. And that was the benefit of having a Purdue degree. Yes. Well, you know, I think that McDonald along with maybe Disney are probably the two best examples of what systems engineering at best would look like, right? It's amazing experience that you had there. I'm sure leading McDonald's. Now, when you and Liz hosted me kindly three and a half years ago in Chicago, and I learned about your current adventures, and also about the Cleveland Avenue. So I'd love to hear more about that from you and Liz. Go ahead honey, you start first. Well, Cleveland Avenue and Liz says this best, she says Cleveland Avenue and the Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education are really two different expressions of the same intention, which is we basically support entrepreneurs and people who are doing things to better the world. Whether that's on the Cleveland Avenue side, which, you know, I focus on which is our venture capital side, in terms of foods, beverages, technology based service systems that impact consumer retail. We like to say we're in the lifestyle investment side of the world. And so we look at venture capital, and where we place that venture capital, we make big bets on entrepreneurs. We make big bets on entrepreneurs of all colors and gender. So we have funds focused on again, food and beverage funds focused on technology, and funds that are focused on advancing women and people of color entrepreneurs of color, color, particularly black and Latina entrepreneurs. We look very strongly at how we can advance them and how we can advance women in the field of venture capital. So that's what we do on that side. We've got about 40 investments that we have made at this point, about a billion dollars roughly under management, and committed relative to under our management. And we've seen some really interesting things, some of those things even collaborating with Purdue University. Yes, please. Yeah. And on the other side of the house, the foundation side of the house, as well as our nonprofit, that we run the Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education Group, as Don said, they're just two different expressions of our shared vision, supporting entrepreneurs on the one hand and then supporting social innovators on the other hand. We have a focus on education, which is of course the lever that we pulled that, you know, why we landed up here now. And we decided we wanted to be able to help young people as they went to and through college as they got that strong first job out of college. And then as they became professionals in the field of education, how could we best support them in the work that they're doing? That's what we do on the cafe, as we call it for short, on the cafe side of the house. And it really is the same thing that we do on the venture capital side. When you provide entrepreneurs and social innovators with the resources that they need, you just get out of the way and let their genius take center stage. And that's what we've been able to do, mom, very blessed to be able to do it. Well, that is fantastic mission that you just summarized for us. And I also love the fact that cafe as a place for food and beverage is also the acronym for the Cleveland Avenue Foundation for Education, both sides of this same coin as in uplifting everybody's potential, especially as you mentioned, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who are women who are also minorities in that space. Very, very worthwhile. You know, as I continue to ask questions to our work to outstanding alum here, if you on the live audience side, have any questions, please, as always in this series, type that into the chat box, I think, and we'll get to that in about 10 minutes. So well, Don, you also as University trustee led a really important effort starting about a year and a half ago, almost two years coming up, I guess, of the Purdue University Board of Trustees led equity task force. And a lot of the recommendations that you and the task force put forward have now started to be implemented. You know, I'm proud to say that, for example, in the College of Engineering, we have seen a more than doubling of the number of African American and black undergraduates admitted and decided to come to Purdue Engineering last fall. We're tracking the numbers in this ongoing season of admissions, right? And part of that more than doubling is because the University continue to grow is at Roman size. But if you just look at the percentage and the yielding rate, those who we emit already, are they picking us both doubled exactly last year over the previous many years of the percentages? And part of that is because of our dedicated outreach. Part of that is our added investment from the College of Engineering to the Minority Engineering program and the EP led by Virginia and her team and Beth, the Holloway and Alina and many great colleagues. Part of that is also the scholarship, which I'll come to in a minute, and how the University and the College of Engineering double down and augment and amplify the philanthropic giving of these scholarships to attract the students to come here. So there are many other partnership with Morgan State, for example, among many other URM serving universities that we have also initiated. But let me pause here and ask you a question, Don, that with these and many other activities we are pursuing here, what do you see as the ones that excite you most or where you feel that will be the most effective in achieving the goals that your force set out for us? Well, thank you very much and thanks for thanks for the commitment and the results that we're beginning to see in the College of Engineering. As you know, and in all of these really have stepped up. We had a goal. The goal was that, you know, historically, we've hovered around 3% relative to the black students that are on the Purdue campus and it's interesting because it also hovers through, you know, faculty, staff numbers. It's an interesting kind of a number. And I think this concerted effort that we had was in three different areas. One was the area of representation. The feeling was that a more diverse university is going to yield more diverse ideas and is going to create an energy that prepares our students, faculty and staff to live a fuller life. And I will say that Mitch's support and the Board of Trustees support as we embark upon this journey to be able to enhance that representation along with the experience. It doesn't do any good. If we can recruit people to your point, doesn't do any good to accept, but not yield them to the university. And part of that yield and the retention has to do with what type of experience do you feel Purdue is a place for you? Do you feel you belong? And so we wanted to create a stronger sense of belonging on the university campus as well. And I will tell you we had over 150 people participate as part of the task force. Very diverse group, student leaders from all backgrounds, colors and genders. We had a large percentage of black students and faculty and staff. We had the deans. We had leaders again that represented the faculty side of life. And what was very special is collectively we came up with what became the equity task force recommendations to the board. I am most excited about the fact that what we are starting to do is put our money where our mouth is of the five strategic areas that will focus on us to do university over the next five years or so. One of those five is the equity task force recommendation. And it is receiving a higher than pro rata share of the funds that we are raising and the university will contribute. So we're already focusing on recruitment. We're focusing on getting out to high schools and showing what Purdue experience can really be like and the opportunities there. We're already starting to focus on the experience on campus. We're doing things that we haven't done before involving students in areas we hadn't involved in before. Talking to faculty and doing cluster hires. So there's so many different things we've put together. It has been saluted by those who have seen it as one of the most comprehensive plans to address what we felt was a challenge. And so I'm very excited about where it will go. There's a lot of work ahead as you know. But our initial efforts are yielding fruit and I think they'll continue to. So I'm quite quite satisfied. I'm not content but I'm satisfied with our progress thus far. Yes we have miles to go. But yes we are moving the needle. And a heads-off salute to you and your leadership. Because I know it was a Herculean effort to put together such a wide range of inputs into actionable steps that we are actually taking. And not just talking about it but walking the walk there. And I remember. I can tell you if I can just hop in. Several months there were binders, equity task force binders all over the Thompson household. There were calls on Sunday nights. There were calls on Wednesday afternoons. He lived this work for several months. And I can tell you every piece of his energy went into the task force and getting the best thinking from all of the members of that task force. I was so proud of his leadership on that. But it was it was a lot of work. And I think he poured every ounce of his desire to see things advance. As well as his energy to make it happen. Yes well we at Purdue are so blessed to have Don's leadership. And we're not to let you down. We're gonna keep working on this very important topics. And what I also want to highlight is that we are the founding site of NASPE. The National Society of Black Engineers. Yes we are. Later this month we're hosting a reception at the annual NASPE conference. This year is in Los Angeles. We are funding a large cohort of students and staff and faculty to go there and participate. Probably wearing Purdue's logo as the founding site of NASPE. And we've seen so many outstanding leaders. You know one day you know they will be the future lids and Don as well. You know I remember Aaron Bank who is an IE student and well quarterback on our Purdue football team. And also just an outstanding leader as the first I think first African American student government president. And I asked Aaron back then you know how do you manage your time. Do you ever get to even take a nap right. It's just 24-7 amazing talent amazing people. And Aaron told me he benefits so much from the MEP's academic bootcamp. So I'll come back to that in a minute but I see Virginia our leader of the MEP program. Just ask Liz a question. What inspired you Liz to launch Cleveland Avenue and work that you do in the greater Chicago community. Hi Virginia thank you for that question. For those of you that may be watching and don't know Virginia. Virginia runs the minority engineering program. The successor to the great Marion Blalock who started the minority engineering program at Purdue. And what is now the model for programs like it all across the nation. Virginia what inspired us to launch our foundation was the fact that we had been the beneficiaries of so much help from people along the way. So many people whose shoulders we stand on. So many people who reached out to help us and pull us along the way that we felt like we we owed the debt. We are just the um holders of the blessings that God has given us and it's up to us to pass it along. And so we started the foundation to be able to do that to be able to help the young people that you see on this screen right now and others like them to be able to help the professionals that are doing the work now. That were teachers and educators when we were young that helped light the pathway for us. There were so many people along our journey that helped us to reach this point that we felt like we owed in return to be able to do that for others. So that's why we did it. And as I said earlier the work that we focus on is on college attainment. Making sure our young people can get to and through college. Making sure that they're able to get that significant first job out of college. And then once education professionals have demonstrated the incredible impact they have on the community to be able to recognize them and in the case of one of our initiatives the 1954 project we are able to award them with one million dollars each. Transformational size funding in recognition of the incredible impact they have in our community and on the education landscape across the nation. So we couldn't be more proud than to be able to do this work. So thank you so much Virginia for the question. Thank you. I'm sorry mom. That articulation is so wonderful. Yes Tom please. You know it is a it is a blessing to Liz's point but you know the other part of this blessing is Liz because she has focused so so strongly on education as an enabler. And you know I can do what I do and the rest of our team does on the Cleveland Avenue venture capital side and investment side. And we we've had some phenomenal impact no doubt. But I will it it pairs in comparison to the conversations that we have had with others that have been able to move their lives forward from an education perspective or people that we've been able to help who have organizations that can impact so many people. And you all you'll hear a little bit I'm sure from Jasmine, Kendall, Zell and George but you just if you have more time and you really heard these young leaders and what they plan on doing with their life and what they've done already it inspires all of us. We can't do enough and so Virginia we need to offer you our collective thanks as well because you have been there for our students our black students our brown students students of color you have been there in a strong way and we truly appreciate it and you know we love so much so very much. We also have a wonderful question from a Barrett Caldwell who is the acting head of our School of Industrial Engineering and Barrett among the current faculty members I think was the most the senior faculty member among the African-American faculty colleagues here in the college and as the interim head for our School of Industrial Engineering he's doing a fabulous job and such a pleasure to work with Barrett and he asked this question you can see if you are on screen as well you know very excited to understand the Cleveland Avenue Cafe combination and I think Barrett's question is how about a similar combination in Indianapolis maybe a centered around Indiana Avenue the Madame Walker Theater area that we've all been to quite a few times in that neighborhood as a hub of black technology innovation. I think it's a I think it's a great point and I have Liz because she's actually had some interaction with someone that was quite familiar with Madame C. J. Walker and I want to just real quickly though say Barrett thank you thank you thank you most people don't know Barrett is one of the three leaders of faculty it was him it was Venetria Patton and it was Dr. John Gates who basically took the task of integrating with teams all of the equity task force points into more salient plans and so they did a phenomenal job and this was in addition to their day job so Barrett thank you for that in relative to the integration and what can happen in other places in city I'll let Liz talk to a part of that and I can speak to the cast does fun as a model as well. That sounds great one thing I will say is that Don and I have been so intentional around the combination of these two things as Barrett has pointed out so many times and I'm just going to say it you know we focus so much on the for profit side of things and making sure that business and industry are held up as they should be as the economic drivers for our nation and at the same time so much of the social supports that are required in order to serve as the foundation for our nation those things that help support people in their lives outside the hours of eight to eight no more nine to five outside the hours of eight to eight those things are held up by the social fabric of our nation and that's where nonprofit work comes in and so for us the intentionality behind that Barrett I would say the lesson that we've taken away is that not only can you do both and you must do both and in order to be certain that the entire community is served and so in our case we take the education perspective and making sure that not only are entrepreneurs supported through education we're about to launch something called the entrepreneurial development and leadership institute which helps our entrepreneurs get the kind of supports they need depending on what stage they're in early stage support how do i even get this started if this is something that i think i want to do all the way to this is a successful business i i want to scale it i want to grow it i want to have multiple entities how do i do that our edli is going to be poised to help our entrepreneurs do that and at the same time the cafe is poised to help our social innovators that are running non-profit organizations that want to grow and scale sound familiar that want to broaden their reach of what they're able to do we do it at the same time it is not easy it takes every ounce of energy we have to do it and yet we know that in order to support the entire community both are required so barrett i would say just never lose sight of the fact that it is a both and it's not an either or and barrett i think i'm just one more question okay going over to you and and that is uh don and lids you know in the college of engineering's effort in access and success right don i'm just uh copying and pasting your favorite phrase access and success in our diversity effort right and also in my work as an EVP for the university system witnessing a lot of the strategic initiative initiatives movement and as don said this is one of the five highlighted there is a centerpiece i think and that is the philanthropic support from alum such as both of you and turning now the topic to the thompson scholarship program and the individual students some of them you see here on screen now as thompson scholars we started this conversation i think even pre-covid and then covid happened and then so on but now i'm so glad that it is a reality thanks to the generosity and the vision from lids and don so my question is what triggered your thinking in creating this program and uh what inspired your action to provide this uh philanthropic gift donation to your alma mater to create the thompson scholarship program and what do you want to see as a successful execution and from there please feel free to introduce some of the thompson scholars and uh interview their thoughts please honey you want me to take that one yeah you started that okay so when don and i were students but even before we became students at Purdue we were participants in the minority introduction to engineering program called might uh back in 1979 78 somewhere back there um and the our participation in that program was so incredibly rewarding it introduced us to engineering but it also introduced us to the possibility of what college was and what a degree in engineering might look like but the reality of of getting that degree also had a financial component to it that made it very difficult for us throughout the time we were there in my case i was an out of state student which meant that my tuition was triple that of dons being an in-state student and not but for the support of his grandmother who raised him uh she wrote me a six hundred dollar check and that enabled me to complete my senior year and graduate from Purdue but for that six hundred dollar check i would not have been able to graduate we didn't want other students to have to face that same situation at least not to the best of our ability and that's why we came up with the thompson scholars as a way to support as many students as we could with a substantial scholarship that would lessen the burden of writing that check every semester for their families and enable them to pursue their dreams of being an engineering student part of the inspiration for this is a program at washington university called the urban scholars and i was so impressed we were so impressed by the work that they did the holistic support that they provide for students that we wanted to have something similar at our alma mater and hence the thompson scholars so honey i'll turn it over to you you know i um my grandmother and liz mentioned raised me she uh she grew to be a hundred and four years old um remarkable remarkable woman incredible and when she was able to help liz because we were dating at the time is not like we had a whole lot more than six hundred dollars she worked at airway which is today's target in the in the housewares department um but her heart said that's where we should be and her faith said this is what you should do and liz and i are of a similar heart and definitely of the same faith and she lives already mentioned god blessed us to be able to be caretakers for a moment uh of some level of of support that that could help out some others and one of the things that i think is so special about this is that what we have found is that in establishing uh the thompson scholars with the help of virginia and among yourself and mitch and others as we establish this we have benefited a heck of a lot more than i think any of our students and i don't even know if they know it or not um you all are amazing uh we we we smile and we tear up every time you are talking so i'm going to let you all introduce yourselves um but i want you to tell people i want people on this line to understand just who you are for a moment what you're doing now and what you plan on doing because i think um you all are the ones that carry all of this forward and what makes us feel really good is that we know you all will do it and uh and that's very special so i'll ask maybe if if we start with jasmine and kindle jordan i see a diary joined us and then zeal i'm just looking across my screen you all so it jasmine hello i am jasmine walker i'm a senior studying civil engineering with a concentration architectural minors in building information modeling and sustainable engineering currently right now i'm a member of the national society black engineers i produce i'm also civil engineering ambassador i'm part of the produced and engineering foundation i am a pledgee for the civil engineering honor society i'm also in the woman engineering program um what else i'm forgetting anything i'm in a sorority i'm in the ashray branch at fordew for the american society of heating and refrigerating engineers um i'm also working for bechtel right now as a student intern in the engineering program that they have um i'm also a greater for a class and yeah sometimes sometimes i have free time but i do enjoy what i do and i am also in the combined uh graduate undergraduate course at produce so i'll be getting my masters uh in spring of 2023 and i yeah i am love being a thompson scholars and this is one of the best things that ever happened to me we are not playing y'all for those of y'all watching we are not playing do you see what we're talking about we ain't playing here okay jasmine okay kendall hi everyone can hear me um well right okay so hi everyone my name is kendall davis and i'm a junior major in bio and engineering and i'm also on the pre-med track um so i'm actually not involved in so i'm currently the the treasurer of nesby so i definitely appreciate the um the financial support that we've got to attend conference uh we have uh let's see 46 students fully funded going to the nesby conference so i really believe that i think the largest number that i've attended from Purdue university um so that's amazing in itself and i really appreciate that i i'm also in the um well i've participated in the algebra by seventh grade program as a tutor so it's ab7g and that's through the minor engineering program i love that um i am in the um sorry my mind is begging me but i i am in the i do one moment i am in the so last year i was a r.a so a resident assistant so that's when i had actually received the the scholarship which is amazing again i got to meet so many students so many faces um talked to so many different people and finally uh i am um going to be doing research this summer uh it'll be a joint program between the biomedical engineering school and the school um indiana university um medical school um and doing research uh okay as a joint project and so this is really exciting the scholarship has helped me tremendously um every time i see you all your faces and talking with you i get motivated to do even more um and it just gives me encouragement to keep going and keep persevering and pushing through the the coursework that we have thank you kid thank you mr jordan with the appetite that does not quit what's going on hey everybody i'm not gonna apologize for the background noise i'm in my hotel right now so hopefully you guys can hear me okay so i'm Jordan Lyles i'm a sophomore in biomedical engineering and i'm also doing the pre-med track like kindle um the things i'm involved in on campus are the minority engineering program lesby the biomedical engineering society and then b-min which is the black male exos network and this summer i was very um grateful to get an opportunity to be an intern for baxter i'm rnd internship this summer and i also got the iu methodist um shannomé experienced um through prudu through the biomedical engineering oh i see kindle smiling because she like told me all about it so appreciate that and i'm supposed to have a great fire from this scholarship um prudu was obviously my first choice because i did mine all the programs like that and having this course should really help me go here because i was going to go to a different school because i'm out of state so i was really thankful for the opportunity that i'm given i'm going to continue to make you guys proud so thank you very much we're already proud jordan already proud all right uh darry what's going on i know you're changing the world somewhere man what's going on yes so hi my name is a darry lewis i graduated from prudu in the summer of 2021 so currently working full time in chicago at kimmy horn so that's kind of what i'm up to now while i was at prudu i was a member of nesb i was also a abg ab 7g tutor as well so i definitely got a lot of value in that i also was on the engineers of the boarders team while i was at prudu just want to say i'm very thankful for the scholarship definitely helped me get to where i am today and definitely is very motivating to help me keep persevering and achieve every goal that i ever ever dreamed of we're so proud of you darry so proud of you congratulations and we got to see you in chicago yes all right zeal there's a smile hello um um i am a junior in aerospace engineering here at prudu obviously um i am part of purr the prudu electrical racing team uh made it to be the manufacturing lead for this year so that's really nice i'm also part of um the lspace nests our writing program so i've been learning a lot more about writing proposals and how to get into that whole research and development part of the industry i'm also a volunteer a lot for the vps charities happening and this summer i have gotten the opportunity to do research at jpl so that's very exciting um yeah and i'm very thankful for all of you guys and it's really nice to see you guys all again that's great thank you zeal and all of you uh we appreciate you all and uh also hope to see you all soon i'll be sending something out i'll be on campus pretty soon i don't know if i can get miss thompson to join me this time i'll be in for a board meeting but to come see them i will it'll be be time for a dinner again so so mung i mean you know when we talk about what was the motivation i i think there's no question about it seeing these young people all of their efforts the reach that they have for every one of them there are a hundred more of them yet to come and how much they are motivating to those young people it it's just no question that this is what we've been called to do absolutely uh you know this is uh just amazing experience to be able to listen to what they are doing uh in fact i hope we have 10 minutes to go to listen to a bit of their stories as well uh and uh you know some of you mentioned you know hope to make us proud well we already are made so proud because of you here and you remind us why we're doing what we're doing every single day here as a public land grant institution to uplift everybody's lives and uh well Don and Liz uh the the mic is yours so feel free to uh interview some of these amazing Thompson scholars absolutely i'm gonna i'll start and uh let me start with Jordan Jordan for the people that are watching i'm sure many of them are engineering alums uh but just take us through a little bit of what your experience has been like as an engineering student how hard are the classes these days and what is it that you hope to do when you graduate and how do you think Purdue is going to play a role in that okay well first of all it's been a lot harder this year for sure being everything in person again but honestly i think really the biggest thing that i've taken away from learning at Purdue is just is being like very collaborative like with people that you work with because i'm a very stubborn person i would say so i've learned over time to become more willing to like help like do homework like with more people and like ask for help a lot so i really think i'm glad i'm learning to be more collaborative like with my fellow classmates and my professors and then also like from learning for Purdue i think like problem solving because everything is i think very difficult but i feel like it really helped me prepare it like it prepares me very well for the real world because things aren't just like like black and white it's a lot like intricacies i really think just having the challenging classes in the rigor has really helped me just prepare and then for like my future plan so like i said earlier i'm playing on going to medical school after well i'm kind of on the fence right now so hopefully this summer i can really decide between my interest in it by like r&d route or the medical school route so i'm really focused on just going to medical school right now and that's obviously like a big goal in itself and then yeah and then i just say like how pretty prepare me for that i'd say like how hard and challenging it is and always just putting like the time to do work i really think it's going to prepare me well for med school because that's obviously a feat in itself so yeah that's awesome thank you jordan dunne i'll toss it to you okay i'm uh my question is actually um i'll ask this one of uh of jasmine and a zeal and either of you can respond or both the real part of you all just came through an interesting time in cobit uh none of the alumni that are on the screen have any idea jordan just alluded to it as to what that meant and what the impact was and what you had to do and so would you all just give a perspective of what the challenges were and how you all move through that and where you found opportunities to excel because obviously you all continue to do it so be interested in your perspective i think it'd be beneficial to the alumni yeah i can go first um i think it's kind of kind of lolling into a routine where you don't have a lot of human interaction i think that was kind of a big like switch into cobit that we had to get used to you know going from always having classes in person to senior interact with professors on a professional and personal level just being in that interaction uh face-to-face not having that and not being able to interact through classmates as much and not knowing exactly what the class expectations are because you know you're not in class as much and everything like that so transitioning to that was difficult but it made it a lot easier to find you know people because it's like okay we're all in this together you know we're trying to get through these classes together we're all going through this together let me lean on you and i'll lean on only on me as well and we helped each other through it i know that my professors were more lenient so i got to talk to them more um it is a lot different coming back in person now you know seeing everybody with the mask or without the mask but it's fun and it was just like an obstacle that we all got through and i really grew from that because you learn what you can do and what you can't uh will hey yeah i'd agree with jasmine um engineering is a very collaborative kind of field so when we were all at home and everyone had to kind of fend for themselves for the first few months it was really hard especially being a freshman i had only been in college for about a semester so it's still getting the hang of college life and then all of a sudden everything was flipped upside down and like the professors needed help with like zoom links and everything so like jasmine said we were all really leaning on each other and helping each other out which was really nice thank you zill you know when mung when you asked don the question about what it was that he learned at purdue that he was then able to leverage and problem solving is always at the top of the list but then very close behind that for me is what all the students have talked about the notion of being able to leverage whatever resources are available to you uh in order to get whatever it is you need to get done learning how to work with people jordan said learning how to collaborate more this is what i walked away from purdue with understanding how to really maximize all of the resources that were at my fingertips i just didn't know how to leverage them and i learned that at purdue i want to ask kindle a question kindle you know for all of the women alums that are watching do you feel as though i know many of the classes that i was in i was the only woman in a lot of my higher level engineering classes certainly the only black woman in those classes many times the only black person in some of those classes talk to us a little bit about what your experience has been as a woman in engineering and whether or not you feel like um you know you still feel sometimes uh a little bit on the outskirts or do you feel completely integrated uh different maybe then my experience of two years ago yes so i do think the experience might be similar um so i wouldn't say i'm on the outskirts but it definitely is a different experience getting in the in the group or in the know of what's happening um a lot of times when i go into group i already have to come triple prepared double prepared um of the material that's being presented just so people don't look at me and say oh she might not even know this she doesn't know the answer to this she's not used to that so when i do say it's a surprise to them to them but it um it looks it allows them to see me differently i guess um and it bothers a certain amount of respect because i do more than them coming into it um and so a lot of times i do i do think you have to over prepare everyone uh you have to over compensate and that's not always it's a little hard sometimes to manage like the timage um with all and to realize that coming in as a freshman i was like oh i can't just walk in and people just know i'm smart i have to actually prove myself i actually have to to come with the materials and be that it person um and so i think a lot of time here if i do i try to be that it person where people come to me for advice people come to me for help for study tips um i think i have been able to accomplish that especially with the activities that i'm in with like nesb mvp it taught me how to garter those those resources like you say you said and use them to my advantage and to maximize my time and effort um so just summarizing it it's different um but no i'm not completely on the outside i love it thank you kindle don't you you all have uh you know all of you are among earlier you asked me about the equity task force and i said there were three aspects i mentioned two one being get representation get more diversity on campus get more bodies that are black and brown on the campus we want to be able to do that um have more women that are on the campus we want to be able to continue to do that and when we do that the second part was the experience that you all have on campus all of you are amazing because you've taken much more advantage of those things on campus than either Liz or i had done the last part was we felt those two things would equal success so adari i'ma come to you and i would say what is it like now you graduate it you walk into that job and it is like okay it's a new day and to kindle's point you know it's now time to prove yourself all over again you're a Purdue boiler maker what difference did that make when you walked in that door and what difference does it make today yeah so definitely starting something new as always it's going to be stressful you know you're going to be nervous about it you know like you're like oh i don't know if i can handle it but then you know you got to think back all the work that uh you know i've put in over all the years of just grinding and studying you know it all comes to fruition now so you really do have to trust yourself in coming in as a boiler maker it really does make a difference people you know they they expect a certain level of respect to certain level a certain caliber of work that's that you're going to produce and then they know that you can handle it and then it is very much true so definitely come in here it's been a it's been a change but uh it's been very welcoming people have been very kind to me and you know i've been really enjoying myself so far man well i know that you will have tremendous impact i know you're you're making all of us proud and i'm sure you know having a little money in the bad thing either well it makes it do tend to make a little bit more than other other people that are graduating so that's like hey keep studying i love it love it dean if i may say for the people that are watching us you know this is just a small sample of the students that are at Purdue doing amazing things and we hope to be able to have more of you join us in order to provide similar opportunities for the countless students that we are not able to help so please join us uh in in providing those opportunities please join us not only with the thompson scholars but in whatever way you choose uh because there are so many more jasmin's and zills or darry's kindles and jordan's out there and i think we deserve we they deserve our help so thank you for your consideration on that well i'm glad that let's you highlighted that indeed uh inspired by outstanding students like the thompson scholars that you all just met here uh in the live audience uh and uh inspired a lot by what the board of trustees and the president and mitch danu's decided to highlight the importance of diversity inclusion here we have been on the receiving end of many additional philanthropic gifts and donations uh want to particularly highlight bill urig and his wife anastasia bonus and bill is an aie alum they gave an outstanding gift last year it's a five-year commitment that really also helped move the needle so i know we're coming up uh to the last a couple minutes here and i want to again thank all of you for participating and great to see again the thompson scholars it's always a pleasure to get to talk to liz and don and just can tell you how important your work and your support means to all of us as we strive towards more success in diversity and uh give the last minute back to our outstanding alum liz and don thompson dean thank you so much for having us here today we simply just want to say to everyone watching um you know what we've been able to do uh is just lifted by the fact that we're able to do it for these amazing young people uh we are just stewards of the resources and we want to be able to do more of this we thank you dean uh mung for your support virginia we wouldn't be able to do this without you and last but not least mary and belaylock who started this all for us who introduced us to purdue who introduced us to the minority engineering program we appreciate you mary and we love you uh and because of you we are able to do what it is we do today so thank you all so very much and i'll turn it over to don to close this out my comments will be very brief uh to all of our scholars uh handle your business you know what you're supposed to do that's right i like those smiles handle your business you all are you all are even more talented intellectually confident and capable uh than anybody else uh and you need to just know that internally and uh we're proud of you just keep rolling proud all of the alumni that are on i'd ask you just get engaged um get get engaged if you're not engaged get re-engaged you obviously are engaged you're on here now but get re-engaged and the reason i say it is because um you all didn't have the benefit of hearing it but many of the students that you see right here may not have been back at purdue but for what a few dollars and and we're going to miss out on the brilliance that they are and and look now i mean these are future leaders and so i'd ask all of our alumni get engaged it may not be in money it may be in a visit it may be in a call uh you you have no idea how much your support can mean just some words of confidence um these young people in front of us are going to be doing that for the next generation that comes right behind us the next group uh and and i know that they're already doing uh they're already doing more unfortunately i'm gonna say it the way it is they're doing more than many of us have done and they're still in school and so i challenge all of us let's step on up um and be boilers and so thank you all for attending mom thank you for your leadership we appreciate it liz already thank virginia but i'll do it again and i look forward to seeing you all very soon boil her up boil her up thanks everyone thank you thank you thank you okay take care take care thank you