Encyclopedia o f Chicago
Entries : Purdue University Calumet
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Purdue University Calumet

Purdue University Calumet

Purdue University Calumet began as an extension to Purdue University, which opened in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 1874 on land granted to the state from the federal government; it was named for local businessman and benefactor John Purdue. In the late 1940s, this extension campus in Hammond, Indiana—the industry-heavy corridor 3 miles east of the Illinois border and 25 miles southeast of Chicago—began offering courses to students working toward a degree from Purdue's West Lafayette campus. Purdue Calumet has since become an autonomous degree-granting university, a commuter school whose five campuses served more than 9,000 students in the 2001 academic year, over half of them on a part-time basis and nearly 40 percent over the age of 25.