Biography

I have an M.F.A. in Dance teaching and administration from the University of California, Irvine, 1993, and I have a B.A. in English literature with a theater and dance emphasis from Wittenberg University, Springfield OH, 1986. I am a professor of dance at ELAC since 1996. I have also been an Instructor Special Assignment (I.S.A.) as a P.O.C.R. (Peer Online Course Review) Lead. I was the coordinator of learning outcomes assessment at ELAC for nearly a decade, and I worked with the learning assessment office as a Campus SLO Facilitator beginning in 2013. I spent an emergency period of time as ELAC's Distance Education Coordinator for Fall 2024 until the end of Winter Intersession 2025. I have also worked as an adjunct instructor of Dance Techniques at other LA area colleges, including UC Irvine, Pierce College, Valley College, West LA College, and Mt. San Antonio College since 1996. Since college faculty experiences such as the marketing and management of special programs, and the recruitment, advising, and mentoring of diverse student and faculty/staff populations are related to the diverse skills utilized in many professional experiences, I feel lucky to have spent so many years practicing these skills.

A Few Fun Things About Me

Before my employment at East Los Angeles College, my most interesting job was as a Production Coordinator for Princess Cruises, working on the production team to create new live full-length production shows for the fleet of ships.  Of course, world travel was my favorite part of that job! Since then, I have now visited 42 countries and counting with my most recent visit last year to Iceland. Yes, we constructed and taught the shows in a Dance studio in Los Angeles, CA, but as a Dancing team member, I traveled with the cohort teams of dancers, who would remain on one ship for a six-month contract. I went with them for their first few cruises to set the shows on the ships and instruct the orchestra conductors, technical staff, and dancers about the technical nuances of performing each particular production show on their ship. I ensured consistency in choreography, music and lights, costume use and care, prop construction and care, and many other aspects of each production show on each ship. Travel in this position was approximately six months per year for me, too, spread out at different intervals and different ships/places.*

*One particular instruction experience took me to London for several weeks to stay and work with our dancers and a few new local dancers to teach a new show in a local dance studio in London, England. I then took the dancers on their new ship to complete the tasks to set the shows on the ship. This was not my first time in London; however, it was the longest time, and it was very fun to learn more about the public transportation on the Tube, to visit famous locations and monuments, and to see famous "West End" musicals like Cats & Starlight Express in their original theaters!

A most exciting travel experience was after replacing an injured dancer for a time on a ship in the Caribbean, the company needed to rush to reposition me to join another two teams on two different ships in the Mediterranean Sea. We were opening our newest show on these ships while they were nearby on the premium summer cruises. So, I disembarked the Caribbean ship in Cartagena, Colombia, and then stayed two days there before flying to London to board one ship just in time for its repositioning cruise from London to the Mediterranean. Of course, the English Customs officers at London Heathrow airport thoroughly inspected my bags and asked me a very long series of questions about why I was going from Cartagena to London to get on a Cruise ship in Southampton to go the the Mediterranean?! "Smuggling Choreography in my head, of course!" The cruises of the ships in the Med were ten days, and it took me three cruises on each ship to work with the dancers on their current shows and teach a new one late at night when the show lounge was free since only smaller vessels cruised the Med at that time. So, I was in the Med for two months that summer on two different ships.