About Us

The Rueff School is named for Patti and Rusty Rueff, who are its principal benefactors. Their gift of $5 million in 2004 was the largest gift ever received by the College of Liberal Arts at that time. The Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance is primarily housed in Yue-Kong Pao Hall on Purdue's West Lafayette campus, with auxiliary facilities in Forestry Products Building, Elliott Hall of Music, and Stewart Center. The school is composed of four departments: Art and Design, Music, Theatre and Dance, and Film and Video. The Rueff School also includes Purdue Galleries. 

The Rueff School includes over 850 undergraduate students and roughly 60 graduate students. With many courses in the University Core, several thousand students across campus annually enroll in the arts. We offer the Bachelor of Arts (BA), the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), the Master of Arts (MA), and the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in various disciplines, and a Ph.D. in Art Education. 

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 design and the visual and performing arts;

(2) Learning, through dissemination and preservation of knowledge about design and the visual and performing arts;

(3) Engagement, through exchange of knowledge about design and visual and performing arts.