WEST LAFAYETTE – The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (April 9) approved the creation of a Bachelor of Arts degree in music, ratified two faculty positions and the promotion and tenure of faculty, and issued a resolution of appreciation for friends of the university.
The B.A. in music will be part of the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance in the College of Liberal Arts on the West Lafayette campus. The degree – designed to accommodate interest in a second major – will consist of 42 to 46 credits, boasting a strong academic and practical focus with concentrations in music technology and general music studies, which align with Purdue’s strengths in engineering, science, technology and the liberal arts.
Interest in music is growing at Purdue. Over 2,000 students enroll in music classes and ensembles each semester. From 2013 to 2018, the band and orchestra program saw a 65 percent increase in participation. In 2018, 71 percent of students in the program (812 of 1,336) were enrolled in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. Of those, 482 came from engineering. Additionally, Purdue has a large number of students in bands and musical organizations who have expressed interest in a music credential to complement their first major.
The anticipated start date for the music degree is fall 2022, contingent upon final approval from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
In other action, the board ratified the appointment of Satish Ukkusuri as the Reilly Professor in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering and Danzhou Yang as a Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology.
Ukkusuri joined the Purdue faculty in 2009 as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in 2014. He is an internationally renowned expert in the areas of data-driven mobility solutions, disaster management, the resilience of interdependent networks, connected and autonomous traffic systems, and smart logistics. His research bridges social science, engineering and computing methods to develop novel tools for making complex decisions that save lives. He has published more than 320 peer-reviewed publications and has mentored more than 40 graduate students and postdoctoral associates. His recognitions include University Faculty Scholar (2017-present), Fulbright Fellow (2015-16), and a selectee of the National Academy of Science Arab American Frontiers of Science, Engineering and Medicine conference (2017). He is a member of multiple professional organizations, serves on the editorial boards of several journals, and has served as chair of numerous national and international committees.
Yang joined the Purdue faculty in 2016 as the Martha and Fred Borch Endowed Chair in Cancer Therapeutics. She is an internationally recognized leader in DNA molecular targets for cancer therapeutics, particularly DNA secondary structures known as G-quadruplexes. Yang uses NMR spectroscopy to study high-resolution molecular structures, and is regarded as an outstanding collaborator and educator. Her accomplishments in graduate education were recognized in 2017 with her appointment as associate dean for graduate programs in the College of Pharmacy. She has published 89 peer-reviewed papers in top-rated journals, and submitted seven patent applications and 22 Protein Data Bank structures. Yang has lectured extensively on her research, and her laboratory program has been funded continuously by peer-reviewed NIH grants since 2000. Her service to the scientific community is also noteworthy, with membership on numerous editorial boards and leadership in scientific organizations, including the American Association for Cancer Research.
The board also ratified the promotion and/or tenure of 203 faculty across the West Lafayette, Northwest, Fort Wayne and IUPUI campuses.
Additionally, trustees approved a resolution of appreciation for those who recently have contributed $1 million or more to the university. Appreciation goes to the estate of Gregory Rein, for student support in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and for one anonymous gift, for university student and program support.
