Loading…
avatar for Julie White

Julie White

Mississippi Arts Commission (USA)
USA

Julie White, Associate Professor and Director of Dance Education, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in performance from the University of Illinois and a Master of Fine Arts in choreography from the Ohio State University, along with Ohio Licensure in K-12 Dance Education.  She performed professionally with BalletMet of Columbus (OH) and has produced work in Ohio and Illinois.  As an arts educator, White established the dance program at Stivers School for the Arts, a magnet school for grades 7th -12th in Dayton, Ohio.  She served as dance director there for eight years.   Professor White wrote the standards for dance education for the Dayton Public Schools, co-authored the standards for the Columbus Public Schools, and was a selected writer for the revision of the Ohio Standards for K-12 Dance Education.   She served on the OhioDance board and was a regular guest artist in Ohio public schools.  She also independently co-choreographed all dances for the 100th anniversary celebration of the Wright Brothers – Inventing Flight – a production involving over 300 performers.     

 

In Mississippi, Professor White redesigned the dance education licensure program and accompanying coursework to be in alignment with the National Standards for Dance Education and NCATE, NASD and MDE accreditation standards.  Ongoing partnerships with K-12 dance and education specialists were established and expanded to accommodate the significant increase of dance education majors and the need for quality culminating fieldwork.  Professor White served on the Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education (MAAE) board of directors and as an elected member of their Executive Committee.  She does advocacy and outreach work at USM (Office of Educational Field Experiences) and throughout the state of Mississippi instructing traditional classroom teachers on the benefits and multiple applications of movement in learning, management and student motivation/focus.  For four years, she has taught as a guest artist in several Whole Schools Initiative affiliated schools instructing elementary students modeling the above teaching strategies and collaborative curriculum.  She is the producer of the annual USM Young People’s Matinee (YPM) concert for K-12 students, and coordinator of the attached YPM master classes and concert tour that takes this production directly into select K-12 schools.

 

An investigator of assessment approaches and their potential impact on student empowerment and achievement, Professor White has presented on the topic at The Mississippi Department of Education MEGA Conference and at the American College Dance Festival.  She has written rubrics that have been adopted by the dance program and OEFE to be used by all instructors in certain courses.  In the fall of 2011, she will share her thoughts on assessment, specifically how to develop quality grading instruments for the evaluation of student performance and choreography, at the National Dance Education Conference.  Professor White has been twice nominated for the “Excellence in Higher Education Award” for the state of Mississippi (MAAE) for her work in dance education in all arenas.