The nation’s largest undergraduate dance program – now 15 staff musicians, 30 full- and part-time instructors, more than 300 students – has been steadily expanding at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts under the nurturing eye of Susan Glazer, who retires this month after 29 years.

Succeeding her as the program’s director will be Donna Faye Burchfield, who is dean of the American Dance Festival (ADF) School in Durham, N.C., and has been responsible for building the dance department at Virginia’s Hollins University over almost three decades.