COLORADO MESA UNIVERSITY/Special to the Sentinel
The dance studio at Colorado Mesa University will be named in May for Professor Emerita Ann J. Sanders Shopbell.
A third-floor dance studio with wide windows overlooking 12th Street and North Avenue and the Grand Valley beyond is about to get a new name.
The Colorado Mesa University Board of Trustees on April 5 decided to honor Ann J. Sanders Shopbell by dedicating and naming the dance studio in the Moss Performing Arts Center for the professor emerita.
In addition to the studio honor, CMU established an endowed scholarship in Sanders Shopbell’s name for dancers from the Grand Valley area.
From the 1970s to her retirement in 2005, Sanders Shopbell was instrumental in starting and growing CMU’s dance program, said a news release from CMU.
“Beginning in the kinesiology department, she integrated the program with the theatre department in the 1990s, ultimately establishing CMU’s first bachelor’s degree in dance,” the news release said.
The trustees’ decision to name the studio for Sanders Shopbell was made “in recognition of her enduring impact on the university community and the dance community at large,” the news release said.
Sanders Shopbell was a founding member of the Grand Junction Arts Commission, on which she served for seven years. She served with the Colorado Council for the Arts and Humanities Dance Funding Panel and the Governor’s Excellence in Arts Panel.
She received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1998, the State of Colorado Gully Sanford Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts in 2005 and named a Legend of Dance by the University of Denver in 2021, according to CMU.
“Ann put CMU’s dance program on the map! Our beautiful dance studio would not exist nor our baccalaureate dance program. Former students and colleagues recognize her for her curiosity, passion, and love of dance, which extended to her love of all the arts. She’s a treasure to Colorado Mesa University,” said theatre arts department’s head Mo LaMee in the news release.
For information about giving to the Ann J. Sanders Shopbell Dance Scholarship, go to engage.supportingcmu.org/Ann-Sanders-Shopbell.
