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Distinguished Teaching Awards
David Domke
Erika Goldstein
James Green
John Peterson
Priti Ramamurthy
Barry Witham
Carol Zander

Excellence in Teaching Awards
Chia-Hui Huang
Steve Wolfman

Distinguished Staff Awards
Brian Davis & James Boeckstiegel
Gary Ausman
Felicia Hecker
Sandra Kroupa
Keith Ward

Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award
Thomas Daniel

S. Sterling Munro Public Service Teaching Award
Sergio Palleroni

Outstanding Public Service Award
Anita Ramasastry

Brotman Diversity Award
Business Educational Opportunity Program
Student Outreach Ambassador Program

Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence
Dance Program
Research Apprenticeship Program

Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award
Geoff & Judy Vernon

Alumna Summa Laude Dignatus
Donald Baker

UW Recognition Award
ARCS Foundation, Seattle Chapter

President's Medalist
Roy Chan

Dance Program, Instructional Excellence

Brotman Instructional Excellence Award

The Brotman Awards were made possible by donations from Jeffrey and Susan Brotmman. Jeffrey Brotman is a UW law school graduate and a regent. Susan Brotman is on the UW Foundation Board of Directors. The Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence recognizes collaboration within and among departments, programs and groups that improves the quality of undergraduate education.

Students who enroll in a University of Washington dance class often receive much more attention than they have bargained for, says Elizabeth Cooper, director of the University’s Dance Program.

Not only are dancers given academic and physical support but strategic steps are also taken to test performers’ limits.

“Risk-taking is essential to the development of a dancer,” Cooper said. “By necessity, the faculty must build a safe, nurturing and challenging environment in which students can make discoveries.

“We push our students,” Cooper continued. “But we offer a place where no one is going to judge them unfairly and where we value each dancer enough to include him or her in the creative process.”

Creating such an atmosphere is one reason why Cooper believes the dance program was selected as one of this year’s winners of the Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence.

Since becoming an academic department within the College of Arts and Sciences in 1989, the ballet and modern dance program has grown dramatically — boasting 37 undergraduate majors this year compared to 11 in 1985. Dance performances have gained public popularity with nearly 3,500 people attending dance performances so far this year. Only about 800 people, on average, attended performances in 1984-85.

According to Cooper, the dance program provides intensely supportive instruction despite having only five full-time faculty.

“Our studios are busy from 8:30 a.m. until late into the evening, seven days a week,” Cooper said. “We need to be there for our students as much as possible so they can grow as artists, intellectuals and arts advocates. All of our instructors have been professional dancers so they understand the rigor and commitment it takes to become successful in the field.”

Undergraduate Jessica Beck said she has been “blown away” by the faculty’s commitment and style.

“There is a freedom to dance for the sake of dancing and creating art,” she wrote in an award recommendation letter.

Also headed by a musical director and a part-time technical director, the program has seven fully supported graduate students who help teach different components of dance technique and theory. The department’s courses range from dance composition and dance history, to aesthetics and anatomy.

Despite its small faculty, the program offers, for example, courses in technique and theory to approximately 900 undergraduates each quarter. New courses include, Dance 250: The Creative Context, in which students from across campus studied the 2002 repertoire of the Seattle Chamber Dance Company, bridging the dance program with the professional dance community and dance patronage.

In their report, award committee members said they were impressed by the program’s “unique, high quality, elegant and extremely efficient” method of providing a dance education, finding both the graduate and undergraduate curricula to be rigorous with “an excellent balance of academic and practical content.”

At the graduate level, dance students are invited to participate in faculty research by helping choreograph campus performances, including many that are cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists and scholars from the music and drama departments.

In recent years, the program’s faculty have been aggressive in providing students with access to technology. The program recently received a student technology fee grant that provides students with access and training to audio and video editing technology used in the creation and documentation of new compositions. In addition, faculty and students are now collaborating with the University’s Program for Educational Transformation Through Technology and the College of Education to explore “video tracing.” When applied, the new technology can enhance and fine-tune the close movement of dancers for composition analysis.

Cooper said the $17,500 award may be used to help establish a writing center, sponsor dance student association events, host visiting artists and supplement the program’s costume budget.

Most of all Cooper hopes the dance program offers students a place to explore a personal perspective on dance performance.

“Dancing isn’t just about little girls in pink tights,” she said. “It is a ubiquitous form of communication. If you are going to perform you have to be honest with yourself and an audience. You need to let yourself be vulnerable. It’s not just about learning dance steps. It’s about bringing your experience and individuality into the picture. We strive to provide an arena for students to do so.”

– Robyn Eifertsen
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