English Bulldog Puppies for Sale in Indianapolis, IN

More Indianapolis residents will have access to job training next year.

In September, United Way of Central Indiana awarded a total of $900,000 to five local community organizations to help get Hoosiers training and into jobs. The initiative, now in its second year, aims to make job training more accessible to Indianapolis residents.

“We want those residents and neighbors to be credentialed,” said Bernadette Monk, economic mobility director at United Way of Central Indiana. “We want them to get employed and be employed fairly quickly.”

The organization renewed grants with Dress for Success Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Urban League and gave new funding to the Indiana Plan, Fathers and Families Center and Public Advocates in Community re-Entry, also known as PACE.

Here’s more about the program and how to get involved.

What’s the program?

Last year, United Way started its Workforce Pathways Accelerator program with grants to Dress for Success Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Urban League.

Dress for Success, which provides professional clothes and employment resources to Indianapolis women, started its medical administrative assistant training program in January. The organization chose this pathway because it was relatively quick — just 12 weeks — and had lots of job openings.

“Many times, the programming that’s available just will not work for a single mom,” said Julie Petr, executive director for Dress for Success Indianapolis. “So the need was very, very high.”

As of October, about 40 women have gone through the training program. And in their second year, Dress for Success is thinking about switching it up and offering different classes in the health care field, though they’re still deciding on what those might be.

How will this benefit the community?

Corey Parchman, vice president of programs and partnerships at Fathers and Families Center, said United Way’s new funding comes at a time when job training is more important than ever.

“Our men are the canary in the coal mine, when it comes to the job market,” said Parchman. “When things slow down, they’re the first ones to feel it.”

Men enter Fathers and Families Center through the Strong Fathers program, a three-week class that teaches parenting and life skills. Participants also earn their forklift certificate.

After completing the class, fathers are eligible for all the other classes and services offered at the center, including free clothing and rent support.

Fathers and Families hopes to use the $200,000 from United Way to fund its construction training program, which helps fathers get certified in construction and connects them to union jobs after.

“We want to upskill our man as much as possible while they’re here,” said Parchman.

Each organization is offering a providing type of training. Here’s what each nonprofit is offering, the requirements to enroll and how to get in touch with them.

Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations.

Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire by email claire.rafford@mirrorindy.org, on most social media @clairerafford or on Signal 317-759-0429.

Indiana University Indianapolis and the NCAA are partnering to expand the campus’s annual First-Generation Celebration to three events from Nov. 4 to 6. In past years, IU Indianapolis hosted an event in conjunction with national First-Generation College Celebration Day, observed on Nov. 8.

The First-Generation Committee, made up of volunteer staff members, was looking to create more ways to recognize the achievements of first-generation students when the NCAA reached out.

“A lot of student-athletes are first-generation college students, and the NCAA recognizes how important it is to celebrate and support those students,” said Eric Williams, chair of the First-Generation Committee and senior executive director of educational success programs in the Division of Undergraduate Education.

The First-Generation Student Celebration will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 4 on the first floor of Taylor Hall and in Taylor Courtyard, where the NCAA Fan Jam mobile event truck will be set up. Fan Jam is a traveling exhibition that is building excitement for the men’s basketball Final Four, which Indianapolis will host in 2026. The celebration will also include food, music, a photo booth, games, and opportunities to learn about and connect with campus resources.

“The celebration is about having fun, recognizing students and their achievements, and making sure that they feel welcome,” Williams said. “We look at it as a campus celebration, so all members of the campus community are encouraged to stop by and enjoy the event.”

The second event of the series is an opportunity for students to hear personal stories from peers, professors and campus leaders. “First-Generation Voices of IU Indy: A Celebration of Students, Staff and Faculty” will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 5 in the Campus Center Theater. The panel discussion will feature five students, Kelley School of Business professor Demetra Andrews and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Eric Weldy.

“We have a large number of faculty and staff who are also first-gen students,” Williams said. “That’s really important because students may feel like they are by themselves. We want them to know that they are not alone; there are many others who share similar experiences.”

The slate of events will wrap up with “Game Changers: First-Gen Journeys in Sports and Leadership” from noon to 1 p.m. Nov. 6 in Campus Center 450A.

Participants will share personal stories and professional insights, and connect with students. Scheduled speakers include JoAn Scott, NCAA vice president of men’s basketball, Kelley Bates-McNulty, stakeholder engagement manager with Indiana Sports Corp, and Robert Faulkens, IHSAA assistant commissioner.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University, driven by gains in research excellence and industry engagement, maintained its hold as Indiana’s top-ranked research university, while coming in at No. 32 among U.S. research institutions in the 2026 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

At No. 127 globally just four years ago, Purdue is now ranked 85th globally and is the only university in Indiana in the top 100 globally, based on Times Higher Education rankings released Thursday (Oct. 9). The state’s other two major research institutions, the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University, globally were ranked 194th and 198th, respectively.

“Research excellence and impact are core to our academic mission, and our many close collaborations with industry partners benefit our students enormously,” said Purdue Provost Patrick Wolfe. “With record numbers of undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students applying to Purdue this past year, I’m confident we’ll continue to gain ground amongst the nation’s leading research universities.”

The World University Rankings are produced annually by Times Higher Education and have been compiled since 2004. The 2026 edition ranked 2,191 institutions worldwide using 18 indicators that measure an institution’s performance across areas such as teaching, research environment, research quality, international outlook and industry engagement.

Purdue continued to score highly in research excellence (publications among the top 10% most cited) and influence (the importance of other papers citing a Purdue researcher’s work). At the same time, the metric gauging doctoral degree-to-faculty and student-to-faculty ratios improved, and the industry metric also rose, aided by the income and patents categories.

This global recognition from Times Higher Education is the latest among several impressive accolades that Purdue has garnered the past year:

“Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings is one measure of the quality and impact of academic research,” said Dan DeLaurentis, Purdue’s executive vice president for research. “Purdue’s performance in this 2026 edition once again is more evidence of our faculty’s world-leading and influential work and their commitment to create innovative and meaningful real-life applications.”

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.