Continued: Dance hall
'An amazing woman'
The Pastides family has a strong connection to the dance program. Daughter Katharine took classes and danced with the program as a high school student. Son Andrew's fiancee attended summer dance camps under Anderson's tutelage.
Moore-Pastides also joined a dance advisory council as the program sought--and gained--approval as an official academic major, and began to raise scholarship money. She praises Anderson's leadership.
"She's an amazing woman with a tremendous amount of talent and energy--really tenacious," she says. "There are a lot of good performance opportunities for students, and Susan really cultivates that by bringing in the dancers from the New York City Ballet and really strong faculty.
"The other thing Susan does is teach dance-appreciation classes across campus, like 1,000 students a year. It's a really great thing, a life skill. The influence of popular culture has its place, but it's very nice to have students educated in the classics."