“Amelia,” he said, smiling, “we would like to have you at Purdue.”
AE thought a moment. “I’d like that,” she said, knowing nevertheless that she had no degrees to qualify for such an assignment. “But what do you think I could do?”
Dr. Elliott’s eyes brightened and crinkled at the corners. “We have about six thousand students. Eight hundred of them are girls. We don’t think the girls are keeping abreast of the opportunities of the day nearly as well as they might be.”
Amelia warmed to the possibilities. “And I...?” She began a question.
“You could supply the spark they need,” he answered. “Something from outside the classroom.”
For two hours they continued to discuss the idea. By the time President Elliott had been taken to Grand Central for a midnight train, the project had assumed a definite shape. For one month during the academic year Amelia would deliver lectures, act as a counselor to the girls, and advise the department of aeronautics. AE liked the challenge. Purdue at the time was the only university in the country that had its own airport.
On June 2, 1935, after the Pacific and Mexico flights, President Elliott formally appointed Amelia Earhart to the faculty of Purdue University. “Miss Earhart,” he announced, “represents better than any other young woman of this generation the spirit and courageous skill of what may be called the new pioneering. At no point in our educational system is there greater need for pioneering and constructive planning than in education for women. The university believes Amelia Earhart will help us to see and to attack successfully many unsolved problems.”
Amelia was heartened by the announcement. Not satisfied with the record flights of the spring, she now tested the high-speed capabilities of her plane. In July she set the transcontinental speed record for women, by flying from Los Angeles to Newark in seventeen hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty seconds.
In November, AE was the “flying professor” of the Lafayette, Indiana, campus. With the students, male and female, she was easy, casual. Dressed in slacks at a conference, she would swing her legs up on a desk or table and chat. She invariably preferred an atmosphere of informality.
She lived in one of the women’s dormitories at Purdue, and kept her door open for any of the girls who wanted to drop in for a visit. In the dining hall she had a different group sit at her table for every meal.