Purdue University Northwest
branch campus of Purdue University in Indiana
Purdue University Northwest (PNW) is a public university with two campuses in Northwest Indiana; its main campus is in Hammond with a branch campus in Westville. It is part of the Purdue University system and offers more than 70 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to approximately 6,200 students with more than 64,000 alumni.
History
Purdue Northwest was established in 2016 when two Purdue system universities — Purdue University Calumet and Purdue University North Central — merged. During World War II, each campus offered technical courses as part of the national defense training program with the federal government. The campuses remained open when the war ended in 1945, offering for-credit college courses. Both campuses became degree-offering institutions in 1946.
Racist remarks controversy
At Purdue Northwest's December 2022 commencement, then-chancellor Thomas Keon used made-up words to mock Asian languages, which drew backlash for the racist display and Keon subsequently issued a public apology. The school's Faculty Senate Executive Committee promptly came to a unanimous decision and delivered a letter to Keon demanding his resignation, noting that his statements insulted the Asian American community and caused national outrage.
Congresswoman Grace Meng from New York released a statement condemning the "racist, insensitive, and offensive imitation" made by the chancellor. The Purdue Northwest chapter of the American Association of University Professors also released a statement that criticized Keon's all-white senior leadership team and said the "time has come for Chancellor Keon to resign."
Subsequently, University of Minnesota professor Rich Lee and other Asian American professors started a petition calling for Keon's resignation and received over 1,100 signatures from faculty, staff, and students across the country.
“Purdue University Northwest” enters the record as branch campus of Purdue University in Indiana. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Purdue, University and Northwest can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20709782. Authority coordinates are 41.582, -87.471. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 1945, 1946 and 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Purdue University Northwest” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.