Carol Hess, chair, was born in New York City where she trained as a dancer and received her BA from Barnard College. She has performed with Hannah Kahn and Dancers, The Rondo Dance Theater, DANCES/Janet Soares, and as a tap soloist she appeared on television and in concerts in the United States and York, she received a MA from Columbia University, where she studied dance composition from Robert Ellis Dunn. Dunn's approach to developing and manipulating movement has had a profound effect on her work as a choreographer. Her choreography has been presented in New York at the Cubiculo, Dance Theater Workshop, the Grand Finale, and Dance Workshop in Bonn, and the Flora Theater in Amsterdam. She has been Artistic Director of Oregon Dance Theater and Phoenix Repertory Dance Company. Changing Room, a work for video created in collaboration with video artist Vin Grabill and composer Neal Woodson, has been featured on the Innovators Series, Artscape 1995, and on Maryland Public Television's Independent Eye, an associate professor of dance, and chair of the dance department, she has taught at UMBC since 1982.

Elizabeth Walton, associate professor, served as chair of the dance department for twenty years. During the sixties she was a leading dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company of New York, performing with them on stage and television in the United States, Europe and South America. In 1981 she danced her original role in Taylor's Aureole with Rudolph Nureyev and Friends. Ms Walton has choreographed fifteen dances including some for theatrical productions of A Christmas Carol and The Women at Center Stage in Baltimore. In 1984 Ms Walton's reconstruction of Rose was performed by Phoenix Repertory Dance Company at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Judson Church in New York City. She has taught at the American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, International Werkstatten in Bonn and Münster, Germany, FNB Vita Dance in Johannesburg, South Africa, London Contemporary Dance School, University of London, Goldsmiths College as well as at the Paul Taylor School in New York. In 1995 she was invited to Guangzhou, Peoples Republic of China to set Taylor's Aureole on the first modern dance company in mainland China. She has also set this work on companies at Ohio State University and Goucher College.

Doug Hamby, associate professor, has a BS in Biological Sciences Michigan State University and an MFA in Dance Temple University. He lives, dances and choreographs in the Washington/Baltimore area. He is the artistic director of Doug Hamby Dance, a professional dance company in residence at UMBC. The repertory of the company features works that spring from collaborations with dancers, composers, visual artists, engineers and other creative people. He received a 1999 Individual Artist Award in Choreography from the Maryland Arts Council and a 1999 Choreographic Fellowship in Dance and Media from the Arts Council of Montgomery County, as well as choreography awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Arts Council and the Baltimore Mayor's Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture. Featured performances of his company have included the 1998 New York Fringe Festival, the 1997 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the 1995 International Fringe Festivals in Edinburgh, Scotland and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as Riverside Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and Celebrate Brooklyn, New York City, and three seasons at Dance Place, Washington, D.C. Earlier, he directed the Douglas Hamby Dance Company in New York City, and performed with Martha Graham, May O'Donnell, Rachael Lambert, Elizabeth Keen, Pearl Lang, Norman Walker, UMBC's Phoenix Dance Company, Hamby and Lacy, and the Chicago Moving Company. He is currently a dance panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council. Mr. Hamby has appeared on national television as a giant slice of American cheese.

Sandra Lacy, instructor, holds a BA in Psychology and is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dancing in London. She has performed with the Maryland Ballet, Impetus Dance Company, Path Dance Company and Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane and Company. Currently Ms. Lacy is employed as an instructor of dance at UMBC and the Baltimore School for the Arts. She is a recipient of two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in solo dance performance.