The Celebration of Teaching Excellence ceremony held in the Concert Hall lobby on April 17th, was a particularly joyous event for the School of Dance. Our much beloved Associate Professor Elizabeth “Buffy” Price was presented with the prestigious David J. King Teaching Award, a university wide distinction, for her many years of positive and profound contributions to the School of Dance. Employed at Mason since 1991, Buffy has been involved in the development and evolution of our program in every possible aspect. The Director of the School of Dance for ten years, she has taught numerous courses of all kinds for both undergraduates and graduate students, developed curriculum, used both her practical and artistic eyes to help design our new spaces in the De Laski Performing Arts building, and made it possible for us to be one of the few programs in the country to employ a full time Athletic Trainer. She has enriched our guest artist program by selecting thoughtful and challenging works from major choreographers, and contributed her own beautiful and unique dances to the Mason Dance Company repertory. Currently returning to the studio to teach dance technique to majors after a brief hiatus, she beautifully and expertly shares her own experiences with the Erick Hawkins technique she learned from Erick himself and also performed as a member of the Nancy Meehan Dance Company in New York City. Buffy continues to inspire and excite the imaginations of our freshman students in her improvisation classes as well as serving as academic advisor to every student in the School of Dance. Both inimitable and indefatigable, her kind and generous spirit resonates though our corridors on a daily basis. While all our faculty contribute to our students development in a variety of ways during their matriculation with us, it is Buffy’s warm smile and open heart they will carry with them after graduation and into any field they pursue professionally. Please join us in congratulating Buffy on this richly deserved and long overdue acknowledgment of her Mason career.
—By Mason School of Dance