Dance Degree Programs: Career Readiness and Preparation Criteria in Undergraduate

Dr. Kathleen Klein Palm Beach Atlantic University Director, Department of Dance Kathleen is the founding director of dance at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. For the past thirty years, she has also served as the executive director of Klein Dance Inc., which operated a thriving school for dance, a small alternative performing space, and the Demetrius Klein Dance Company. She has also been active in the training of the school’s three hundred students and is well known in South Florida for her ability to reach her student’s highest potential through discipline, grace, imagination, and accomplishment. . She received all of her professional dance training with a multitude of various artists in New England. She was employed by the School of Hartford Ballet in Connecticut while attending a rigorous teacher training program and dancing a demanding performance schedule. She has an extensive background in dance technique, pointe and partnering, ballet theory, kinesiology, dance history, music theory, and most important for her students, child psychology and pedagogy. Prior to her engagement at Palm Beach Atlantic University, Kathleen ran the dance department for Palm Beach Community College (Lake Worth, Florida) for six years and also taught dance technique and dance history courses at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida). Kathleen completed her PhD in global leadership at Lynn University in 2004. A Phi Kappa Phi member committed to community service, she is a member of Americans for the Arts, the American Association of University Women, the Florida Dance Association, Florida Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and the Palm Beach County Cultural Council.