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Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts is the home of the Divisions of Art
and Design, Dance, Music,
and Theatre.
The Department
of Visual and Performing Arts was formed on September 1, 1966 and is currently
composed of four divisions: Art and Design, Dance, Music, and Theatre. It
serves other departments and schools through elective course offerings as
well as granting Liberal Arts based undergraduate degrees. On the graduate
level, the department grants Master of Arts, Master of Fine Arts, and Ph.D.
degrees. The Department has the distinction of being a double faceted program,
and it serves a wide-ranging group of students while also serving Purdue
University and the Lafayette community as the primary cultural resource
for the community.
The department at this time has approximately 600 undergraduate majors and
60 graduate students. Beyond the undergraduate majors and graduate students,
several thousand students enroll in practical, theoretical or historical
art courses within the department.
The faculty of the department is composed of nationally recognized individuals
who continue to practice their arts and do research while still interacting
with students in the classrooms. The publications, art shows and performance-related
activities bring wide-spread attention to Purdue University and the presence
of the arts on our campus. These academic and artistic activities also serve
the University by being a prime recruiting tool for improving graduate training
programs. These teacher/scholar/arts in many instances also serve the community
through leadership and participation in community organizations dedicated
to the arts.
Currently, the Art and Design Division
offers undergraduate concentrations, majors, and minors in seven areas:
Art Education, Art History, Fine Arts, Industrial Design, Interior Design,
Photography and Visual Communications Design. The masters of Art degree
is offered currently in all areas except Art History and Interior Design,
and the Ph.D. program in Art Education offered in conjunction with the
School of Education. These degree programs offer students who wish to
concentrate in the visual arts at the undergraduate and graduate levels
an extensive range of focused investigations into the making, studying
and teaching of the visual arts in their various dimensions. Art and Design
consistently educates approximately 500 undergraduate majors and 35 full-time
graduate students in these programs.
The Dance Division offers courses in modern, ballet, jazz and ethnic dance; the choreography of dance movement; dance performance; and dance appreciation. Students may chose a minor in dance or select courses to fulfill a School of Liberal Arts curriculum requirement. Many students look to dance as a meaningful elective in their education, or take dance to enhance their performing skills if they are involved in related programs. Through their studies, students in the Dance Division gain an appreciation for dance as an art form, of its history, and cultural influences. Each semester culminates with their Purdue Repertory Dance Company Concert, one of the finest productions of dance in the area.
The Music Division is committed to providing high quality instruction to a range of Purdue students, broadly distributed across most schools of the University. Course offerings may be grouped in three categories: 1) A course required for the Elementary Education degree which introduces prospective teachers to the skills, resources, methods and repertory for instructing classroom music. 2) A sequence of courses designed to lead progressively through the principles and parameters of Music Theory. The goal of expanding individual skills is complemented by enhanced awareness and understanding of the Western musical tradition. 3) A group of courses focused on the literature of music. The first, introduction survey (appreciation), additionally emphasizes the listening experience itself.
There are three readily identifiable components of the Theatre Division: the undergraduate program, the graduate program and the production program. The latter also serves as a laboratory for the whole division. Each program has distinct goals, although the objectives of all the programs are inter-related. The undergraduate program supports the broad-based liberal arts education of the bachelor of art degree candidates. The graduate program offers specialized academic training. Productions serve as a major cultural resource for the University as a whole and for the Lafayette-West Lafayette community.
The department's main office is located in Pao Hall, 552 West Wood Street, West Lafayette, Indiana.
You can reach us by phone at (765) 494-3056, by fax at (765) 496-1198,
and by e-mail at
the_arts@sla.purdue.edu.
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