Old Masters & Rising Professionals

The Old Masters and Rising Professionals Program is a unique and well-established annual event at Purdue University. Old Masters was created in 1950 when student leaders, business representatives, and university officials together defined success as “honesty, personal integrity, and a good philosophy.” This sparked the idea to invite a group of ten successful and outstanding individuals to campus for the purpose of sharing ideas and experiences with the student body, thus comprising the first ten Old Masters and Rising Professionals. After 65 years of the Old Masters Tradition, a sister organization was created focusing on recent alumni and how their time at Purdue has helped drive their early success in their careers. These outstanding recent alumni are Rising Professionals.

The 2026 program will take place from November 9th – November 11th. During the program, Old Masters and Rising Professionals will engage with the Purdue student body by guest-speaking in classrooms, personally meeting with student organizations, eating meals with faculty dignitaries, and sharing about some of their most valuable experiences in our campus-wide panel event called Echoes of Excellence, which will take place on November 10th. All events are free and give the Old Masters and Rising Professionals an opportunity to interact with the entire student body in order to Enrich Traditions, Unite Generations, and Empower Boilermakers. We hope to see you there.