Welcome to Purchase College.
Our influence as an intellectual and artistic center is nationally, and internationally known. This past year our admissions office had over 8,000 student applications for 1,049 openings.
Founded in 1967 as part of the State University of New York system, Purchase College combines professional conservatory programs in the performing and visual arts with rigorous studies in liberal arts and sciences. Purchase has an enrollment of nearly 4,100 students drawn from 47 states and 67 countries.
Purchase’s excellent reputation is due to its distinctive academic programs, its faculty and more than 11,000 alumni who are major contributors to education, science, business, the arts and entertainment. Graduates include Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Award winners, research scientists, CEOs of international corporations and MacArthur Genius Award winners. Among the arts alumni: actress Edie Falco received her third Emmy Award this year; artist Fred Wilson represented the United States at the 50th Venice Biennale Exhibition; filmmaker A. Dean Bell won awards at the 2003 Sundance Festival and the Deauville Film Festival; Doug Varone choreographed the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Les Troyens and Stravinsky’s Le Sacred Printemps, and director Chris Wedge was nominated for his second Academy Award. Actors Stanley Tucci, Edie Falco, Steve Weber, John Treacy Egan, Jodi Long and Parker Posey were on Broadway last season along with Tony Award winning lighting designer Brian MacDevitt and Kenneth Posner. They were joined by production supervisor Gene O’Donnovan, scenic designer David Gallo, dancers Dennis Lue and Krisha Marcano, and musicians William De Vos and Susan Panny.
Purchase’s liberal arts alumni include prominent journalists, academics and teachers. Adam Nagourney, political reporter for The New York Times, and Michael Powell, NY Bureau Chief for The Washington Post, are among the many outstanding graduates, as are Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies, Carnegie Scholar Lawrence Malone, MacArthur Fellow Dr. Carl Safina, cancer researcher Dr. Jill Bargonetti and Dr. John Ambroseo, CEO of Coherent, Inc.
Among the current faculty are Guggenheim, Fulbright and other national award winners. Sociologist and Fulbright scholar Steve Dubin is studying media in Africa, and Professor David Grill received an Emmy for his work as lighting director for the recent Winter Olympics.
Purchase’s School of the Arts and the Schools of Humanities and Natural and Social Sciences and the School of Liberal Studies and Continuing Education are all increasingly focused on integrating the arts and the liberal arts as distinctive features of the campus. New interdisciplinary programs have been launched, including Journalism, Creative Writing, New Media, Cinema Studies and Dramatic Writing, to name a few. Freshman writing students research art at the Neuberger Museum of Art with the help of artists and docents. Music, theater and dance students attend world-class masters classes and gain internships in the performing and visual arts through both the Museum and The Performing Arts Center. Smaller classes and personal interaction with professors make this an exciting forum for learning. Students receive a solid education with opportunities to choose from a wide array of subjects to meet their needs and objectives whether they are day, evening, part-time or weekend students. Their academic career at Purchase culminates in a senior project that can take the form of scholarly work, an exhibition, research or a performance. Many students go on to graduate school. In fact a recent National Science Survey on doctorates in science and engineering reveals that Purchase College ranks second, to the University of California at Berkeley, in the nation in production of Ph.D.s as a percentage of all graduates.
The special focus of the faculty is bringing their research and professional expertise into the classroom and curriculum. The professional artists, designers, directors and musicians of international caliber at Purchase are deeply committed not only to their own professional achievements but also, and especially, to teaching. Biologists, political scientists, philosophers, and literature theorists and critics see the classroom and the students as the center of their studies. This commitment is also reflected in a rigorous general education program, which includes a writing program focused on cultural thinking, research and peer involvement in the writing process and a yearlong interdisciplinary program in Western culture and society. Purchase has also been cited for having one of the nation’s Exemplary First Year Programs.
Students entering the nationally and internationally renowned professional conservatory programs in the arts, including Dance, Music, Theatre Arts and Film and a School of Art+Design, engage in a highly competitive admissions process that includes auditions or portfolio reviews. The Conservatory programs operate in an intensely challenging creative atmosphere, where students learn professional skills, with personal support from a faculty of working artists who are noted in their fields.
The School of Liberal Studies and Continuing Education offers students an opportunity to complete a bachelor’s degree within a tight time frame and flexible schedule. The School has extensive non-credit recreational and training classes for the general public, businesses, teachers, graduate students and children. The Regional Partnership of Schools and Colleges joins 28 school districts and colleges in a forum for the exchange of ideas and provides ongoing courses for educators. Over 900 area teachers participated in institutes, conferences courses and individual workshops.
To complement and enrich the academic programs, Purchase provides an equally distinctive living, cultural and recreational environment. Dormitories and apartment complexes are being provided for a growing on campus population. Alumni Village, a $20 million student-housing complex, is opening in phases and will eventually house 400 students in 13 garden-style apartment buildings. Renovations of existing apartments are underway.
Key to the success of the residential experience are the Residential Learning Communities, both for freshmen and advanced students, which are led by faculty-in-residence and provide students with an integrated, closely supervised introduction to college life. A new program in American Culture has been added this year. Multicultural and Creativity Communities will be added next year, along with Freshman Interest Groups that link classes together to promote student learning. Students socialize and take classes together, attend cultural events in New York City with faculty members and study with mentors and peers. The program is typical of a new emphasis at Purchase to achieve distinctiveness and high selectivity in the liberal arts and in the performing and visual arts. The College also offers three sites—in Spain, France and Italy—for study abroad.
From its founding, Purchase has opened the resources of its 500-acre campus to the public. The Performing Arts Center, a five-theater complex considered one of the finest of its kind on the East coast, presents more than 100 professional and numerous student performances annually. In addition, 500 other public events take place at The Center each season. The Neuberger Museum of Art, the eighth largest university museum in the country, presents 10 temporary exhibitions each year in addition to displays from the permanent collection. It also offers over 40 special public events annually. Both provide College members and the wider community with a rich concentration of the arts and contribute directly to the academic programs.
In the years ahead Purchase College will continue to provide innovative programs to meet the needs of an ever-changing society.