Old Masters To Celebrate 75th Anniversary

A beloved and longstanding campus tradition is preparing to celebrate its 75th anniversary in a special way this year.

Old Masters connects distinguished Purdue alumni with the student body and campus community through guest presentations in classrooms, personal meetings with student organizations and faculty dignitaries and a campus-wide panel event. This year, Old Masters will celebrate its diamond anniversary alongside Rising Professionals, a similar event featuring young alumni, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The 2025 Old Masters program will take place November 9-12, with the feature panel event, Echoes of Excellence, scheduled for November 11.

The Old Masters program dates to 1950, when student leaders, business representatives and university officials together defined success as “honesty, personal integrity, and good philosophy,” sparking the idea to invite a group of 10 successful individuals to campus to share ideas and experiences with the student body. This group became the first Old Masters. Over the past 75 years, more than 600 Old Masters have helped grow and enrich this Purdue tradition. 

Rising Professionals connects Purdue students with distinguished alumni. The goals of Rising Professionals include an emphasis on the Purdue experience as a foundation of success and the development of future leaders through engagement with visiting alumni. 

This year’s lineup features a dynamic portfolio of accomplished Purdue alumni.

“With Old Masters, we’re looking at people who have optimized their post-graduate experience to be successful,” says Jack Martin, a graduate student who serves as one of the Old Masters Central Committee’s directing co-chairs. “With Rising Professionals, we’re looking for people who optimized their Purdue experience and how that set them up for success. It’s exciting that we’ll have them here together and students will get to experience the different aspects of both of those.”

The Central Committee, consisting of 12 Purdue students, works alongside Margie Jones, advisor and senior director of student involvement for Student Activities and Organizations, to plan and execute the event. Co-chair positions on the Central Committee oversee six areas of planning – directing, host, evening, day, publicity and programs. The structure of the committee ensures that its members contribute their diverse experiences and share the intense workload required to plan a large-scale event.

“A lot of us have leadership experience outside of this that we’ve brought together,” Martin says. “It’s interesting to see a lot of different leaders who have different experiences come together to create a program that’s very unique.”

The structure of Old Masters catalyzes tight bonds among student hosts, committee members and alumni who serve as Old Masters. Reagan Fahey (BS Biology ’25) joined Old Masters as a first-year student, served as president of Old Masters and Rising Professionals and developed valuable relationships with alumni during her time in the program.

“I fell in love with the community that you get to build here,” Fahey says. “I love getting to know people and every week, it feels like you get to see a new face or talk to someone new. I met some of my best friends and got to create such valuable relationships with alumni who have become mentors to me, even if they aren’t in my field.”

This year’s Central Committee is particularly excited for the new mentorship opportunities that may be created between Rising Professionals and Old Masters alumni. Old Masters have often accumulated decades of professional experience, while Rising Professionals tend to be younger professionals. Allie Wolf, one of the directing co-chairs and a rising sophomore studying biomedical health services, notes that she observed valuable connections between Old Masters of varying experience during her time as a hostess and hopes this year’s program will further catalyze these interactions.

“We had a couple of older alumni who graduated in the 1960s and 70s and we had a couple that graduated during the early 2000s,” Wolf explains. “You might see someone who’s been in the healthcare industry for 30 years connect with someone who just founded their own pharmaceutical company or is performing research in the medical field. Watching that kind of relationship grow was really special. One of the things we’re excited about with the combining of the two programs is getting to potentially watch someone who’s in their early 30s connect with an industry leader they might not have otherwise gotten to connect with.”

A host program is central to the Old Masters experience. Hosts and hostesses, affectionately known as “ho-ho’s,” are chosen by the Central Committee and escort each Old Master to their various commitments on campus. One of the beloved traditions in Old Masters occurs when members of the Central Committee find selected hosts and hostesses to inform them of their selection to the program in person.

While this year’s anniversary is cause for special planning and celebration, maintaining the same quality of experience for hosts and hostesses remains of utmost importance to the Central Committee.

“The whole program is centered around the hosts and ensuring they have a great experience,” Martin says. “We have to make sure they’re getting the same experience no matter what’s going on. It is a special year and they may get more insight than hosts in the past just because of the opportunities we have with the anniversary – but we want to make sure they’re getting the best experience, no matter what that looks like.”

The Purdue community will engage through a series of classroom talks, meetings with student organizations and other connections with students, faculty and staff. The featured panel event is open to all members of the Purdue community. All events are free.