Jan is Head of the Dance Department. Her courses include technique, choreography, repertory, career management, and dance administration. She has wide experience as a producer and administrator, as well as an artist, and has set her choreography on a variety of groups ranging from the Washington Ballet to students at the Western Australia Academy for the Performing Arts in Perth. Her work has earned support from agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Dr. Van Dyke holds an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Educational Foundations from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Publications include "University Dance: Some Questions" in Focus on Dance XII: Dance in Higher Education (published by the National Dance Association), and a 1992 book, Modern Dance in a Postmodern World, about the interaction of public policy and dance. She was recently honored by DANCE TEACHER magazine with the 2008 Dance Teacher Award for Higher Education.
In addition, she is director of the Jan Van Dyke Dance Group and produces the NC Dance Festival, an annual showcase of regional work which is produced in Wilmington, Greensboro, Boone, Charlotte, and Raleigh. She formerly directed a studio and company in Washington, D.C. for eight years, touring nationally with her company and as a solo artist. A1993 Fulbright Scholar, she spent one semester teaching dance in Portugal and was awarded a NC Arts Council Choreography Fellowship the same year. In 2001, she was honored by the North Carolina Dance Alliance for Contributions to the Development of Dance in this state.