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August 1999
The arts' reach: Visual, performing arts
enrollments exceed 8,000 a year
Story first printed in the 1999 Summer edition of Perspective newspaper for alumni and friends.
Each year, more than 800 students on the West Lafayette Campus have visual and performing arts as their major, minor or graduate degree course of study. Another 2,000 nonmajors take courses offered by the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.
But the reach of art education goes well beyond these numbers.
Landscape architecture students in the School of Agriculture, for example, take courses in two- and three-dimensional design as part of their course of study. Students in several schools take a 200-level visual communications design course offered by the department. Many other degree-granting programs also draw upon visual and performing arts courses.
The benefits flow both ways, says David Sigman, department head: "Our programs are heavily computer-based, and we benefit greatly from being at a university with a strong technology base."
Students majoring in textiles, for example, use computers to set up and run an electronic loom long before using the real thing.
All told, the department has more than 8,000 enrollments in more than a dozen areas of concentration.
Students who major, minor or earn graduate degrees in visual and performing arts choose from these areas of concentration:
Art and design encompasses art education, art history, fine arts, interior design, industrial design, photography and visual communications design.
Theatre includes acting, design and technology, and stage management.
Dance courses are offered in modern, ballet, jazz and ethnic dance.
In music, offerings include courses in music education, music theory and history, and literature of music.
Stories by Jay Cooperider
Photographs by David Umberger
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