Initial Vision

On June 16, 1975, Dr. Edward Bloustein, president of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, appointed John Bettenbender to serve as acting dean to plan and develop the School of Creative and Performing Arts. Also selected at that time were ten distinguished faculty members in the arts who would then serve as the Advisory Committee during the school's planning and development stage.

The vision of a school focusing on the arts grew to fruition when, on July 1, 1976, the Master of Fine Arts programs in theater arts, visual arts, and music were transferred to the School of Creative and Performing Arts under Acting Dean Bettenbender, and the school was declared a separate degree-granting unit of the university.

The school's growth was immediate. In 1977, John Bettenbender was appointed dean of the school, and the first undergraduate program in visual arts was inaugurated. Soon, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and Bachelor of Music degrees were added.

The establishment of a center for fine and performing arts had been a dream of former Rutgers University President Mason Welch Gross prior to his death in 1977. The institution was officially dedicated in his honor as the Mason Gross School of the Arts on January 18, 1979, in a formal program attended by city and state dignitaries, Brendan Byrne, governor of the state at that time, and special guest speaker Joan Mondale.

Swift Growth

As part of the university's reorganization in 1981, all departments offering fine arts at Douglass, Livingston, and Rutgers colleges were consolidated into the Mason Gross School of the Arts. Since the initial class was admitted in 1977, registration was increased more than fivefold in the school.

As part of the fine arts school's growth, Mason Gross School of the Arts has expanded to ten buildings on the Douglass College campus in addition to the Livingston Theater, visual arts studios at the Kilmer campus, and the Downtown Arts Building in the center of New Brunswick. On June 4, 1984, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Music Library was dedicated, which houses approximately 15,000 recordings and 30,000 monographs and scores. It serves our students and faculty as a reference and research library at all levels.

The Mason Gross School of the Arts has received major private support for the Nicholas Music Center, Levin Theater, and Walters Hall. Private donations have funded the Kreeger Residency in the Department of Music and the Levin Scholars in the Department of Theater Arts. A major physical move consolidated in the New Brunswick Cultural Center on Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick as the partnership and city arts organizations continued to flourish.

Supplemental program under the auspices of the school in the 1980s included the Office of Hispanic Arts, the University Concert Series, the University Chamber Series; and also the Levin Theater Company (formerly Rutgers Theater Company), a professional theater in residence each summer at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, which had its successes move to Off-Broadway and Broadway production. Each May, the school sponsored the New Jersey State Teen Arts Festival, hosting over 10,000 junior high and high school students over a three-day period.

Fostering Creativity

Since its founding in 1975, Mason Gross School of the Arts has sought to foster creativity and professionalism in its students through the rigor of its arts curricula and the quality of its faculty. The faculty is composed of arts professionals who are recognized nationally and internationally. The school's enrollment of over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students across four departments, combined with a faculty of 140, assures students the opportunity to work closely with accomplished artists within their field.

The small size of the school and low student-to-faculty ratio provides students with an intimate and supportive educational environment. Departments in dance, music, theater arts and visual arts offer discrete communities of faculty and students who interact and support one another's work, while also encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration across fields.

At the same time that the school provides the advantages of intimacy and intensity of focus within an arts curriculum, its position within a major public research university offers students all of the resources and advantages of a larger institution: a highly diverse population with many different perspectives and pursuits; extensive library and research collections; a vast array of co-curricular activities that include lectures and symposia by distinguished scholars; opportunities for interdisciplinary study with liberal arts programs; and those quality of life activities that complement artistic/intellectual pursuits, such as popular entertainment events and recreational programs at state-of-the-art facilities.

Add to this the university's location within one of the world's major cultural hubs, putting New York City and its many venerable arts venues within easy reach, and you have an arts conservatory that offers the best of all worlds.