Department of Dance
Appendix 1: Department Mission, Philosophy, Goals
DEPARTMENTAL MISSION
Within the context of UNCG’s comprehensive liberal arts curriculum,
the Department of Dance offers bachelors and masters degrees that provide
professional preparation for a variety of careers in dance. The Department's
primary goal is to teach students the imaginative, critical, and technical
skills essential to the creative process and to scholarly inquiry, and
to provide them with the knowledge of dance necessary for professional
engagement in the field. The Department prepares students for further
study and for the task of creating successful and productive lives as
artists, educators, scholars at the state, regional, and national level.
DEPARTMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
It is our strong conviction that Dance thrives through the integrated
efforts of many different kinds of professionals with diverse strengths
and perspectives. To enter and remain successful within this field, students
need to learn to play such distinct roles as crew member, stage manager,
teacher, performer, choreographer, informed audience member, researcher,
scholar, and critic. We celebrate the fact that each student possesses
unique capacities and inclinations, and through our focused instruction
and guidance, both inside and outside of the classroom, we provide each
student with the means to create a lifetime of successful involvement
with dance.
We facilitate students' journeys through degree programs and extra-curricular activities that have as their center the lived experience of dancing, by which we mean dancing with full engagement, awareness, and presence – an experience that is meaningful and powerful. We recognize somatic knowledge as a vital, communicable form of knowing, not just for dancers but for all people.
We strive to give students an appetite to achieve both excellence and balance. Students need to expand their interests and possibilities, and cultivate a vision of what might be achieved through a life in dance. At the same time, it is important to remember that there are components of a productive life besides dance. Students need other life experiences to develop their voices as artists, scholars, and teachers; they need to make connections between dance, the other arts, and life so that they may develop a view of the world that includes political, social, and moral perspectives. With these ideas in mind, we help students to identify domains outside of dance and beyond the immediacy of the Department in which their strengths, passions, and values, may flourish and benefit not only themselves but also others.
DEPARTMENTAL GOALS
1. To maintain a high standard of teaching within a curriculum that integrates
teaching, scholarship, and artistry, and affirms the centrality of body
knowledge and the experiential basis for learning;
2. To maintain a student-centered program that facilitates diverse outcomes;
3. To sustain a community that values individual and cultural differences;
4. To offer nationally recognized graduate programs;
5. To encourage faculty development in teaching, scholarly/artistic work,
and leadership within the profession;
6. To engage in outreach to the community through public performances
and other educational and artistic activities when possible and when it
supports our mission.