Purdue, Pur Don't!

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do wonder if there is a plot afoot. Earlier I had pondered why Indiana was getting so much attention on prime time television. Fly over country is not exactly the poster child for the typical liberal, Hollywood agenda. You know the state that had Mitch Daniels and his balanced budget for Governor.

Well, a recent episode of THE MIDDLE has given me goosebumps. You know how in families people tease each other with sometimes real below the belt remarks. However, if someone outside the family made the same remarks, then they become fighting words. Well, as a girl, that is the way it was about going to Purdue versus going to say Indiana University or Butler University. I grew up hearing comments like “farmers sent their hogs to market and their daughters to Purdue or was it they sent their cows to market and their daughters to Purdue.” It was OK to be teased like that at the Indiana State Fair, but I wasn't going to stand for it outside of Indiana.

Back in January of 2013 Mitch Daniels became the President of Purdue University. He has spent this past year trying to define Purdue's future. Back in 2011 or 2012, I answered a very lengthy online survey about the direction the university should take. I would like to think that maybe I had a hand in helping pick a person like Mitch Daniels to be the new head of Purdue. There is nothing wrong with having a balanced budget.

I have even read Mitch Daniels' “2014 state of the university” address. President Daniels has some very practical and doable ideas about how to save the university and the students some money. It isn't going to be pretty, but I can see it working. In fact Mitch Daniels sounds like someone who had been reared by parents who lived through the Great Depression. Some of the cost cutting ideas for the university smack of real thrift----bulk purchasing, getting rid of surplus vehicles, and buying “used” furniture instead of new.

In fact I believe it is this thriftiness that has caught the attention of Hollywood. President Daniels even acknowledges in his January speech that “Purdue caught the attention of many in and beyond Indiana last spring when we broke a 36 year string of tuition increases, announcing instead a two year freeze.” He was even so bold to say in his speech that he is recommending an extension of the freeze to 3 years.

Mitch Daniels' Depression Era thinking of tightening our belts and doing without is radical. In his speech he declares“henceforth we would seek to adjust our spending to the budgets of students' families rather than require that they adjust their budgets to ours.” This is scary stuff to government employees, politicians, bureaucrats, etc. who have never thought to cancel rate hikes, decrease taxes, or reduce fees.

So why did I get goosebumps watching the February 5^th episode of THE MIDDLE when Axl is critiquing Sue's stack of college brochures. Axl in his offhanded way dismisses Sue's selection of Purdue as one of her choices by saying “Purdue, Pur Don't!” Axl on the show is portrayed as the embodiment of “cool.” It implies that Purdue is not “cool” and no one should even consider going there.

President Daniels needs to take notice of this slight by Axyl. There is a thin line between what viewers perceive as real and what they perceive as fiction. To some Axl's opinion might have validity..