Thanks to a $2 million gift from Maggie Allesee of Bloomfield Hills, Wayne State University's Department of Dance is poised to take a great leap forward.
The university's Board of Governors approved Allesee's gift in its regular meeting on Thursday, Jan. 27. President Irvin D. Reid and other university officials formally accepted the gift at a 10:30 a.m. news conference on Friday, Jan. 28, in the Elaine Jacob Gallery in the Old Main Building.
"This is a special occasion for us all," said Reid of Detroit. "Maggie Allesee's investment in our dance program marks a milestone in Wayne State's ability to contribute positively to the cultural life of Michigan and the nation."
Maggie Allesee has a long history of generosity to Wayne State. She previously funded the Maggie Allesee Dance Studio, the university's main dance space, with a major gift. She has contributed to several endowed scholarships and has made important grants to the departments of music and theatre as well as dance. Allesee also helped fund the Michigan Dance Archives, comprising photographs and documents about dance in Michigan over the last 100 years, housed at the Walter Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs. 
"We're delighted that Maggie Allesee has chosen to support the dance program at Wayne State," said Linda Moore of Grosse Pointe Park, dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts. "Her commitment to Detroit's cultural community, particularly in the area of dance, is unprecedented. This gift will help the dance department enhance its solid reputation and provide additional resources to assist our students in growing both personally and professionally."
The Board of Governors also approved the renaming of Wayne State's dance department to the Maggie Allesee Department of Dance, a first for any department at the university
"We are very excited about becoming the Maggie Allesee Department of Dance," said department chair Eva Powers of Bloomfield Hills. "This generous gift will allow us to offer increased opportunities for our students and faculty to excel while we continue to honor Maggie's tremendous contribution to dance in Detroit."
Powers said the new funds will be used to attract professional dancers of national and international stature as artists in residence; help support visits by international artists; fund some student housing and sponsor and partially fund opportunities for Wayne State students to study abroad.
It also will be used to underwrite full-time scholarships and provide a flexible pool of dollars to help support the myriad technical requirements of a professional dance environment.
Students Megan Brunke of West Bloomfield; Melanie Bruss of Center Line; James Flannery of Warren; Christopher Masters of Taylor; Michelle Moscone of Clinton Township and Nicole Sherman of Detroit participated in the news conference. Nicole Clark of Harrison Township, Erin Lakosky of New Baltimore, Hannah Sullivan of Clinton Township and Erica Sylvester of Warren also participated.
The department of dance at Wayne State has been a force on the national arts scene since the early 1900s, when the university was one of the country's first educational institutions to incorporate dance into its curriculum. Since then, a number of alumni have gone on to make their mark in dance. Foremost among them in recent years is Garth Fagan, whose choreography for the stage adaptation of The Lion King won a Tony Award, Broadway's highest honor, in 1998. Fagan is currently nominated for the Olivier Award, British theatre's equivalent of the Tony.