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Curriculum Revision in Practice: Designing a Liberal Arts Degree in Dance Professions

Dance programs in higher education offering both professional degrees (BFA) and liberal arts degrees (BA, BS) often focus most of their energy, attention, and resources to everincreasing BFA programs (Risner 2007, 2010a). At the same time, liberal arts programs in dance often provide the real bread and butter of program headcounts, credit hours generated, and degrees awarded (Higher Education Arts Data Services 2011). For example, of dance degrees awarded in 2011, 64 percent were liberal arts degrees; only 36 percent were professional degrees. I have written extensively about the last decade’s proliferation of professional degree programs—its benefits and challenges—especially the ramifications for liberal arts degrees in dance and dance education degrees (Risner 2010a, 2010b; Anderson and Risner 2012), but this practical article focuses squarely on the process and challenges of curriculum revision, rarely documented or discussed in the professional literature. Without ignoring the limitations of professional degree centrism, this short article provides practical approaches for recuperating liberal arts curricula in dance, details the revision process for a particular BS in Dance Professions degree program, and describes a cohort course for BS dance majors, Introduction to Dance Professions. It is not within the scope of this brief article to debate rationales for offering the BA or BS degrees, or why departments offer one instead of the other. What’s more, I know of no research on the topic, question, or institutional practices.1 Therefore, I