By the early 1980's academic funding - and funding for arts in general was suffering under Reaganomics and I believe Ruthanna left the school because she became tired of fighting for funds. Her legacy is the large studios built to specifications provided by George Balanchine. Everything from the the special floors to the barres, the 20 foot ceilings, ( at least ) the floor to ceiling windows that provided streams of natural light on those rainy Seattle winter mornings . Ms Boris was extremely proud to provide such wonderful dance space for her students. She was not a name dropper , she just matter of factly revealed one day that there are no accidents- and that she built the studios precisely from Balanchine's plans. She had a very high opinion of him in general but again that was all she revealed. Never a name dropper. But Blanchine's plans - that was impressive.
She could be caustic, but she could also be very funny. She was a true intellect, knowledgable on a wide range of subjects. She was very respectful of the courses her students were taking. Relatively few dance majors ; theater, liberal arts, hard sciences, Medical students, - she made it clear that all learning was valuable.
JS