Patricia Cohen, MA, RDE, a Master Registered Dance Educator, is on faculty of the Dance Education Program at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, where she is the Academic Adviser for the ABT/NYU Masters Degree program with a focus in ABT Ballet Pedagogy. She created the syllabus for, and teaches History, Culture & Pedagogy of Jazz Dance, a jazz dance course that is contextualized in history and culture. Arts Resources for Dance Education orients students to major artistic, research and education venues in New York City. In addition, she teaches a broad spectrum of undergraduate dance courses at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. Her Masters degree in Dance Education is from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she taught modern and jazz dance. Professor Cohen’s research on dance issues in the private sector and higher education has been published in the Journal of Dance Education, the peer review journal of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). She has presented workshops and papers at several NDEO conferences, at Dance and the Child International (daCi) conferences in The Hague and Taiwan, and at daCi USA gatherings.
A founding member of the National Dance Education Organization, Cohen has served as Director for Awards and Student Scholarship, and is currently NDEO’s Treasurer. She is also Immediate Past President of NYSDEA, the New York State affiliate of NDEO. She was the site coordinator for NDEO’s 2009 Annual Conference in New York City, and coordinates NYSDEA’s annual workshops, which are hosted by the NYU/Steinhardt dance education program. She is the 2011 recipient of the National Dance Education Organization’s prestigious Leadership Award.
Professor Cohen is active in several dance organizations, including UNITY Inc., an organization comprised of multi-sector member organizations, which provides a forum for open dialogue among dance educators and dance-related groups.