Carol K. Walker, Professor
(BFA: Freshman Seminar, MFA: Graduate Seminar, Studio Pedagogy, Choreology)
Carol K. Walker, international consultant and Professor of Dance has had a distinguished career as Dean of Dance at the Conservatory of Dance, a pre-eminent international training center offering BFA and MFA degrees, in the School of the Arts at Purchase College, SUNY for 23 years, 1984-2007. For three years, 2002 - 2005, she was Dean of the School of the Arts (Conservatories of Dance, Music, Theatre Arts and Film and the School of Art + Design). As Artistic Director of the Purchase Dance Corps for over two decades, she lead the Corps in performances to critical reviews in New York, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington D.C. ('04 & '06), and toured, often as sole representatives of the United States, to Dance Festivals in Hong Kong ('87, '90, '97, '06), Taiwan ('92, '95, '05), France ('95), Holland ('93), Beijing ('96) and Germany ('02). She was instrumental in forging a performance relationship between American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Onassis Studio Company and the Purchase Dance Corps.
Under Dean Walker's tenure the Conservatory of Dance established student exchange programs with leading dance institutions in the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam), London (LCDS), Taiwan (TNUA), Australia (WAAPA) and Korea (KNUA). Professor Walker has served on validation teams or as curriculum consultant for the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (HKAPA), the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation, the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA), London Contemporary School of Dance, and Utah University, Brooklyn College, Arizona State University, North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in the USA. She is currently on the New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA) Dance Panel and previously served for several years as the Chair. Ms. Walker has been a presenter at the National Association of Schools of Dance in the USA, the World Dance Alliance at conferences in Taiwan, Mexico, New York and Hong Kong, the Arts on the Edge Conference in Perth, AU., and the Beijing Dance Forum in China. She has been a member of the Fulbright Panel for Dance in the USA and a major adjudicator for the International Eisteddfod McDonald Dance Challenge in Sydney, AU. Beginning in 2005, Professors Bernd Michael Teichman from Singapore and Carol K. Walker designed a first-of-its-kind global alliance graduation completion agreement which the Presidents of Purchase College and NAFA in Singapore signed in March 2007 to commence in Fall ’07.
Prior to becoming Dean at Purchase College, Ms. Walker founded and taught at her own dance studio in the Chicago area for 13 years and was Director of the Performing Arts Center and director, choreographer and professor of Dance at Barat College. Before that, she was a professional modern dancer and a member of the Phyllis Sabold Dance Co., as well as a performer on TV and in Musical Theatre. Ms. Walker is an invited member of the International Dance Council CID UNESCO and has been declared a Subject Specialist by the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation ('97) sponsored by the Ministry of Education. She has been a guest speaker at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts ('07) and represented Purchase College and President Thomas Schwarz as a speaker at the 2007 World Forum for Higher Professional Art Education in Taiwan. She recently adjudicated the International Dance Festival Competition in Singapore ('08) and completed her third year as adjudicator at the Eisteddfod Challenge in Australia.
Carol Walker is honored to have received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence for Dance in 2002, the Westchester Arts Council Arts Award in the Education Category in 2006, and the Carmen de Lavallade Award for Dance from the NY Dance Festival in 2007. In 2008 the Merce Cunningham Dance Company honored Ms. Walker's contributions to dance by initiating two "Living Legacy" Carol Walker Scholarships in perpetuity for Purchase College Conservatory of Dance students to attend summer programs at the Cunningham Studio. She is currently a professor on the faculty of the Conservatory of Dance.
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