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Ball State University and the Indy Eleven professional soccer team are partnering to provide Indiana youth coaches and educators a free professional development workshop.

The event, part of the Coach Beyond–Indiana initiative, will be Aug. 2 at Michael A. Carroll Stadium in Indianapolis. The one-hour session starts before the Indy Eleven’s 7 p.m. match against the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Indy Eleven CEO Greg Stremlaw thinks the workshop is vital in advancing youth sports and development.

“We are proud to support this initiative with Ball State University,” Stremlaw said. “Coaches play a critical role in young athletes’ development. It’s a privilege to help provide this resource.”

Attendees will learn about building positive, youth development-focused coaching practices. They will also receive a complimentary ticket to the game. Participants can earn Professional Growth Points (PGPs) toward licensure requirements.

Associate professor of social work at Ball State Jerry Reynolds believes the workshop will benefit many participants.

“This event is about investing in the adults who shape young people’s experiences in sport and in life,” Reynolds said. “We’re excited to team up with Indy Eleven to equip coaches.”

Reynolds also directs the university’s Coach Beyond–Indiana project.

Coach Beyond–Indiana is a statewide training initiative. Ball State leads with support from the Susan Crown Exchange and The Ohio State University’s LiFE Sports Program.

Reynolds added that the objective is to make youth sports more inclusive, positive and impactful.

All programming is free. It offers research-based guidance on athlete mental health, performance anxiety and abuse prevention.

Youth coaches and educators interested in attending the workshop and receiving a complimentary game ticket should email Dr. Reynolds at jfreynolds@bsu.edu.

Contact Multi-Media & Senior Sports Reporter Noral Parham at 317-762-7846 or via email at noralp@indyrecorder.com. Follow him on Facebook @HorsemenSportsMedia. For more Indy Eleven news, click here.

New master’s program emphasizes manufacturing expertise to meet growing demand in fast-evolving field of targeted cancer diagnostics, therapies

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Responding to the growing demand in Indiana and across the country for skilled workers in the burgeoning field of theranostics — the use of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceutical drug products for the treatment of various types of cancer — Purdue University will soon launch the nation’s first graduate degree directly focused on radiopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Underscoring that commitment, Purdue will partner with Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical manufacturing leader SpectronRx to build a dedicated radiopharmaceutical manufacturing training facility at company headquarters, in close proximity to several leading radiopharmaceutical manufacturers who have established production facilities in the Indianapolis area. This facility will be used to train students across various educational levels and disciplines, providing a facility for hands-on instruction for a broad spectrum of future training programs.

Purdue’s new Master of Science in radiopharmaceutical manufacturing will be offered, starting in the spring 2026 semester, in a hybrid format with most courses completed online. Students will be required to complete an in-person capstone course in a radiopharmaceutical manufacturing setting to complete the degree and will be able to choose one of several hands-on lab courses that are being developed for the new facility as elective opportunities.

“Purdue has a long history in the nuclear pharmacy space, having programs in existence through the College of Pharmacy since 1959,” said Eric Barker, Purdue’s vice president for health affairs and the Jeannie and Jim Chaney Dean of Pharmacy. “With this projected growth in the radiopharmaceutical industry, Purdue is well positioned — both academically and geographically — to strengthen the workforce pipeline by training future professionals and advancing the education of those already working in the field.”

Purdue has the nation’s largest nuclear pharmacy program, and currently offers six elective courses in that field, while also serving as the sole provider of continuing education activities that can be used by Board Certified Nuclear Pharmacists to maintain certification. The program is expanding to meet an increasing workforce demand in nuclear pharmacy as well as radiopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Indiana is home to 15 nuclear medicine companies in various stages of growth and development, primarily in the Indianapolis area. The rapidly growing nuclear medicine market is already a $6 billion industry in the U.S. and is projected to more than triple over the next seven years.

SpectronRx joins a growing list of central Indiana companies with which Purdue has cultivated relationships to develop academic and workforce training opportunities for students. These collaborations span sectors like biosciences, tech innovation, pharmaceuticals and engineering, aligning student preparation with employer needs and underscoring a central pillar of Purdue’s strategy for Indianapolis. Rather than a single hub, Purdue is weaving into the fabric of the city’s innovation and industry corridors, expanding from downtown all the way to SpectronRx’s headquarters on the northwest side of Indianapolis.

“The radiopharmaceutical manufacturing program sets another example of integrating with Indianapolis-based industry partners to provide unique real-world experiences and advanced training,” said David Umulis, Purdue’s senior vice provost for Indianapolis. “Whether it’s through co-ops, internships or programs in location, Purdue’s growth in Indianapolis is providing the workforce to advance Indiana’s economy and high-tech ecosystem.”

SpectronRx will be one of 10 physical locations in the capital city where Purdue has established shared spaces with industry leaders. This strategic partnership that will enable faster movement from discovery to impact in a field where Indiana has emerged as a national leader, as the state was recently recognized as the Radiopharmaceutical Capital of the World^® following approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Radiopharmaceuticals can precisely detect cancer cells and provide targeted therapy by binding to cell-specific receptors on the desired cells, while sparing adjacent healthy tissue. When performing diagnostic imaging, the radioactivity travels outside of the body and interacts with a detector that creates a visual map of radioactivity localization. When using the product to treat disease, the drug molecule will carry a form of radioactivity that will irradiate the tumor cells continuously, eventually leading to cellular death.

Despite their radioactive component, these drugs are extremely safe, said Kara Weatherman, clinical professor of pharmacy practice and director of radiopharmaceutical programs at Purdue. Weatherman explains more in this video.

“We intentionally and very purposefully try to use the smallest amount of radioactive material to get the outcomes we want,” Weatherman said.

“Because radioactive materials decay quickly, radiopharmaceuticals must be produced and delivered to the patient for administration within an extremely short time frame — usually within hours of production for diagnostic agents and only three to five days for the therapeutic agents,” she said. “That tight window has given rise to this highly regulated field and workforce demand.”

The radiopharmaceutical industry spans a wide range of highly specialized and support roles. From research and production to specialized transportation and patient delivery, the radiopharmaceutical market creates a broad pipeline of career paths within a wide variety of disciplines: pharmacy, chemistry, engineering, physics, radiation protection, health care, supply chain management and regulatory compliance.

“We’re on the critical frontier of precision, patient-centric health care. Purdue gave me the educational foundation and entrepreneurial spirit to set my successful path in the radiopharmaceutical industry,” said John Zehner, CEO of SpectronRx and a Purdue alum. “This collaborative partnership with Purdue helps support the increasing workforce needs of the industry by providing innovative training on cutting-edge technology. All of which, ultimately, lead to an overall quality of life for the patients.”

The commitment to radiopharmaceutical manufacturing supports Purdue’s One Health initiative, which advances knowledge and innovation related to animal, human and plant well-being through novel interdisciplinary initiatives and industry partnerships.

BioCrossroads — the public-private partnership to advance Indiana’s life sciences sector — said the state became the nation’s No. 1 exporter of life science products in 2024, valued at $27 billion. Pharmaceuticals alone were valued at $21 billion.

“Because of the powerful confluence of its world-class specialized talent, central location and critically important transportation infrastructure that has attracted and nurtured a leading cluster of radiopharmaceutical companies, Indiana is rightfully positioned with its new title of Radiopharmaceutical Capital of the World^®,” said Vince Wong, BioCrossroads president and CEO. “This position will only become further strengthened by Purdue University’s expansion of its nuclear medicine curriculum beyond pharmacy into manufacturing, helping ensure that Indiana continues to offer the talent needed to fuel the exciting growth in this industry sector that delivers precision therapies to cancer patients.”

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 107,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 58,000 at our main campus 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 comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

About SpectronRx

SpectronRx is a diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceutical developer and manufacturer with three distinct specialties: Radiopharmaceutical Contract Development (RCDMO), Radiopharmaceutical Contract Manufacturing (RCMO), and Isotope Production. The company performs all scales of development, from initial conjugations through scale-up and commercial distribution. It also has the capacity to run clinical trials. Additionally, SpectronRx’s deep industry knowledge, technical prowess and state-of-the-art facilities enable the company to significantly condense the timeline for bringing new medicines to market, which has the dual benefit of saving lives and driving greater profitability for clients.

With a large staff of radiochemists, radiopharmacists, scientists and engineers, dozens of qualified clean rooms, and over 200,000 sq. ft. of production space in Indiana, with additional facilities in Danbury, Connecticut, and in Europe, SpectronRx now supplies therapeutic and diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals to 29 countries. The company has been EMA and FDA inspected and can produce and procure any currently used radioisotopes, including actinium-225. For more information, visit SpectronRx.com, or follow the company on LinkedIn.

Indian Fever basketball players Caitlin Clark, right, and Aliyah Boston, center, watch during the first half of Game 4 of the NBA Finals basketball series between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Friday, June 13, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Caitlin Clark is doubly disappointed about how the NBA Finals are going right now.

One, the Indiana Pacers lost Game 4.

Two, Clark can’t be there for Game 6.

Clark and the Indiana Fever have a good reason for why they won’t be at the Pacers’ last home game of the season on Thursday, when Indiana — which will be either up 3-2 or down 3-2 to the Oklahoma City Thunder by then, depending how Game 5 on Monday goes — plays host to Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

The Fever will be at Golden State that night, playing the expansion Valkyries.

“I was hoping they’d win it in five,” Clark said.

That can’t happen now. But somehow, some way, the Fever will be paying some sort of attention to what’s going on at home Thursday night. The Pacers and Fever aren’t just neighbors. They’re basically basketball family. They have the same ownership, play their games in the same building, cross paths with the other all the time.

And they rave about one another, with players from one team almost always cheering on the other.

“I think young kids, if you watch basketball, you turn on and watch the Pacers,” Clark said. “It’s unselfish. They play for each other. They play fast. They play up-tempo. They do things the right way. Whether you’re a starter or whether you’re coming off the bench, you’re giving everything you can to your team. It’s really fun to watch.”

Much has been made of how this is a special time for basketball in basketball-mad Indianapolis, and the Pacers and Fever are both reveling in it.

The Pacers played host to the 2024 NBA All-Star Game and went to the Eastern Conference finals last season. The Fever flipped how many people think about the WNBA last season in Clark’s rookie year, with swarms flocking to their games — home and away — to see the former Iowa star play. There’s the NBA Finals going on now. The WNBA All-Star Game is coming to Indy this summer, and it’s not hard to envision Clark and the Fever making a deep playoff run of their own this year.

“She’s an incredible player, someone that I have a ton of respect for, also a good person,” Pacers guard T.J. McConnell said. “I’ve been following her career, especially when she got drafted by the Fever. We all are happy to have her in Indy. It’s been fun to watch.”

Clark and Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton are close friends, and that’s just one of the many real and deep ties between the franchises. It’s not a big deal to see Pacers players at Fever games; it always happens. It’s not a big deal to see Fever players at Pacers games; they’re always there, too.

“It’s been amazing watching the Pacers,” Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said. “They’re so much fun to watch. I think we resemble their team quite a bit in the way we move the ball and the way we’re trying to play.”

Fever coach Stephanie White played her high school and college basketball in the state of Indiana, then spent the bulk of her WNBA playing career with the Fever. Nobody needs to explain to her what the game means in the state.

“I was here the last time the Pacers were in the finals, back in 2000,” White said. “I remember being in the building and just feeling all that energy. It’s exciting. There’s no better place, the epicenter of basketball in Indiana and Indianapolis.”

She sees some parallels between how the Pacers built a contender and how the Fever are trying to become one again.

“The way that they’ve built and rebuilt with the roster, the patience that they’ve shown in the roster and in roster movement, the adversity that they faced early in the year,” White said. “They were this fast, exciting offensive team a year ago to being a solid defensive team that has won regular-season games and playoff games for them when the offense wasn’t really flowing.”

Soon, the Fever will be the only game in town again. The NBA season is nearly over. There are either two or three games left. And then, the Pacers will take their seats in the crowd to watch the Fever for the next few weeks.

Clark made it clear: The teams really do get a benefit from being around the other.

“More than anything they’re just really good people,” Clark said. “They’re good guys. So, I’ve been really fortunate to be here during this time.”

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

“Under the Neon Lights,” by Hoosier poet and YA author Arriel Vinson, is a lesson for young Black girls in showing up for community.

Hitting the shelves June 3, “Under the Neon Lights” is a fiction novel in verse and Vinson’s literary debut. The Recorder sat down with Vinson ahead of the book’s official launch to discuss her writing journey, connections to Indianapolis and the importance of skating rinks and other third spaces.

Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Tell me a little about yourself, your background as a Hoosier, and how you got into writing.

Arriel Vinson: I have always enjoyed writing. I did it as a child, but I went to undergrad at IU Bloomington for journalism. I really enjoyed writing for the newspaper, I enjoyed working for the magazine, and I was always writing Black stories. The thing about journalism, for me, was you don’t get a lot of creative agency unless you’re writing a really long feature story; you have to go with the facts. I just had a lot more fun imagining things, making them up, creating the stories that I knew existed factually, but creating a fictional world around them.

What were some of the things that inspired you growing up here in Indianapolis?

Vinson: I was very lucky to have parents who value the arts and creativity. My mom and I were always going to the library, and we read everything; we were voracious readers. My dad got me involved in Asante children’s theater … and I think just kind of being able to dabble in different art forms is what really inspired me to be creative, to write creatively, to kind of move outside of the confines of journalism. I also think it took a long time for me to understand that I want to write creatively and that I wanted to write a novel. This is my home. This is where my family is. This is where my friends are. I’m always going to rep where I’m from in my writing and I think it also informs my writing in so many ways, it requires me to slow down … It requires me to think about what’s around me and really cherish that.

Having previously worked at the Indianapolis Recorder, what was it like making the leap from journalism to poetry and then fiction?

Vinson: It was a large leap … When you’re in journalism, you know the story because you can see it already. … But with fiction and poetry you kind of have to come up with all of it and figure out where it’s even trying to take you, whereas I think journalism already has sometimes a predetermined path for the story.

Switching from journalism to poetry was probably the hardest part. I had a different grasp and understanding of language, and (in) journalism you can be lyrical. But again, that is mostly reserved for feature stories. I had to teach myself and use others’ work to teach myself what it meant to be a poet, how to create images out of thin air how to make something sound good.

“Under the Neon Lights” is about a young Black girl who falls in love in a skating rink that’s about to be shut down. Can you talk about some of the deeper themes?

Vinson: At the core of the novel, it’s about building community, and I don’t think I realized that when I started writing it. I really started taking this manuscript seriously in 2020. … It really helped me consider how we show up for each other, but it also made me think about the fact that most times showing up for others takes effort, and sometimes it’s inconvenient, but it helps with all in the end.

I really thought it was important to think about how complex our lives are when we have one goal, which is maybe to keep this rink from closing or to find ways to keep it living rather. … “Under the Neon Lights” is a book about a poor girl or a girl who lives in the hood, who is trying to figure out why she’s losing everything she loves. I wanted for people who have lost places they love to feel seen. I wanted Black girls to feel seen; I wanted people who are questioning their self-worth to feel seen.

What made “Under the Neon Lights” special?

Vinson: I grew up going to the skating rink, and … I grew up really caring about that setting. The fictional skating rink in this novel is one of the only places that Black teens or Black people can be themselves. I thought it was really important to think about third spaces; to think about the places that welcome us, one, in general, and two, as Black people, especially Black teens.

“Under the Neon Lights” is a young adult novel written in verse. Why it was important to you to write under this genre?

Vinson: A novel verse is a novel told in poems, so every poem leads you to the next one in the story. I thought it was really important because skating is so rhythmic and it’s so fun. It’s so musical. I wanted my readers to be able to feel that, and I think in prose sometimes with all the description and all of the exposition, you don’t get that feeling as quickly; you don’t get to cut down into it.

Who do you hope picks up this book and what do you hope they’ll gain from the story?

Vinson: I hope that Black girls in Indianapolis, all over the Midwest and all over the U.S. pick up this book, especially the Black girls who feel like maybe their life is falling apart because everything is falling apart around them. … I also want them to understand that they have agency in their life. You have agency in the community you’re in, you have agency in the relationship you’re in.

I want readers to come away with some hope, especially during this administration when there are so many things that are keeping us from the things we love.

The launch party for “Under the Neon Lights” will be hosted at Loudmouth Books, followed by a skate party at Skateland. What is the significance of involving community and Black-owned businesses in your success?

Vinson: I can’t say that I write for Black girls or for Black people in general if I’m not also supporting those spaces in those people and other parts of my life. I was raised that way first of all. My dad … He made sure that I was going to love my Blackness and want to share it. I think it’s so crucial that we support Black-owned businesses because they’re small businesses often, and it’s the support of us that keeps them going. … I’m about what I talk about, and it actually was never a thought that I would choose something else, choose spaces that didn’t cater to Black people.

Of course this is a Black publication and this is a Black book, but I do want to say that “Under the Neon Lights” is a universal story of loss and friendship and first love, so perhaps you’re not a Black teen girl, maybe you’re an adult, but I think we can still all relate to the things that (my protagonist) is experiencing.

Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.

Chloe McGowan is the Arts & Culture Reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. Originally from Columbus, OH, Chloe graduated with a degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a former IndyStar Pulliam Fellow, and her previous work includes freelancing for Indy Maven, Assistant Arts & Life Editor for The Lantern, and editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Chloe enjoys covering all things arts and culture — from local music, visual art, dance, theater and film, as well as minority-owned businesses. In her free time, Chloe enjoys reading, cooking and keeping her plants alive.