Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts

In the fall of 2009 the Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts was given the official designation as a school within the College of Liberal Arts.  Today, the Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts is composed of five departments: Art and Design, Dance, Music, Theatre, and Purdue Galleries. 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 school has the distinction of having a dual mission, and it serves a wide-ranging group of students, while also serving Purdue University and the Greater Lafayette area as the primary cultural resource for the community.

The school at this time has approximately 800 undergraduate majors and 60 graduate students. Beyond the undergraduate majors and graduate students, several thousand students enroll in practical, theoretical or historical courses within the school.

The faculty is composed of nationally recognized individuals who continue to practice their arts and do research while still serving as dedicated classroom teachers. The publications, art exhibitions and performance-related activities bring wide-spread attention to Purdue University and contribute to the presence of arts activities on campus. These academic and artistic endeavors also serve the University by being a prime recruiting tool for improving graduate training programs. These teacher/scholar/artists in many instances also serve the community through leadership and participation in organizations dedicated to the arts and by improving the graduate training program.  The school is named after Patti and Rusty Rueff who are its principal benefactors.  Their 2004 gift of $5 million was the largest gift ever received by the College of Liberal Arts. The Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts is housed in Yue-Kong PAO Hall on the West Lafayette campus.

Mission Statement

The school’s mission is to serve the citizens of Indiana, the United States, and the world through (1) Discovery, that expands the realm of knowledge of the visual and performing arts; (2) Learning, through dissemination and preservation of knowledge about the visual and performing arts; and (3) Engagement, through exchange of knowledge about visual and performing arts.