Overview

Founded by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1967 as the “cultural gem of the SUNY system,” Purchase College has long been fertile ground for artists, explorers, and intellectuals.

He envisioned a campus where conservatory training in the visual and performing arts would reside alongside programs in the liberal arts and sciences, based on the principle that arts and scholarship are indispensable to each other and to an enlightened society.

Purchase College Mission

Purchase College, SUNY embraces its public mission by bringing together students in the liberal arts, sciences, and conservatory arts programs in a vibrant, creative community where in-depth knowledge grows from open-minded engagement, questioning boundaries, and inspiring possibility.

Purchase College Vision

Purchase College will be a model teaching institution where creativity, boldly applied across and within disciplines, serves as a critically needed response to the challenges of increasing complexity, by empowering future generations of artists, scholars, scientists, and activists to engage in and make their own meaningful contributions to society.