Lisa Smith, MFA, retired Professor of Practice, Director of Dance, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Texas at El Paso for 20 years. She was honored by the Outstanding Faculty Awarded in the Arts. She has been teaching dance and directing dance programs and dance companies for almost 45 years. Her experience spans the elite pre-professional dance schools, community dance programs for disadvantaged children, NEA-sponsored residencies, and higher education. She has taught students from age 3 to 63 in a variety of workshops, classes, and conferences, and she has been an active choreographer of recitals, musicals, operas, and both ballet and contemporary dance productions throughout her career. She has written a number of essays, reviews, poems, and a chapter from a book titled "The Dance Experiment: Insight into History, Cultures, and Creativity” by Myron Nadel. She had a stroke, and since then went on to teach Aphasia and brain injury.