In May of 1998, Purdue chartered CERIAS -- the Center of Education and Research In Information Assurance and Security -- as a campus-wide, multidisciplinary center for the new (at the time) field of cybersecurity. CERIAS grew out of the COAST Laboratory in the CS department. Our original core of a half-dozen faculty spanned several of the departments and colleges at Purdue and thus warranted a university-level institute.
The Recitation Building
As part of its commitment to the new center, Purdue University renovated most of the 2nd floor of the Recitation Building on the central campus for CERIAS. The 2nd floor was originally classrooms. We moved into the redone space in early 1999. The space involved a conference room, a small library, a small kitchen and lounge, offices for 10 faculty and staff, and a half-dozen shared offices for grad students. We also had two dedicated rooms on the 4th floor -- one as a protected machine room, and one as a lab.
The space in REC has served us well since then. We were located near the CS, ECE, and CNIT departments, in a building with great character, including flooring made from birds-eye maple planks. We also had to cope with some of the idiosyncrasies of an older building, including cranky HVAC and leaky pipes. (Recitation was originally completed in 1923.) CERIAS grew into a world-renowned entity with over 150 associated faculty across campus and many hundreds of their students.
The Convergence Center
Over the last few years in particular, Purdue overall has prospered, with increasing prestige and growing enrollment. Last year, Purdue had over 50,000 students enrolled at the main campus! Having frozen tuition for a decade has undoubtedly helped to make a Purdue education even more attractive, despite the increasingly-rigorous admission ..
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