Honorary Degree, Doctor of Fine Arts

Lynnette Young Overby

Admired faculty member, you earned a bachelor’s degree from Hampton University, a master’s from George Washington University and a doctorate from The University of Maryland. Your career in higher education took you to numerous universities before you joined the faculty of the University of Delaware in 2008 as a full professor. You taught here until your retirement last year as professor emerita in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

You are the founding director of the University’s Partnership for Arts & Culture and the University Dance Minor. You serve as the revered artistic director of the University’s Sharing Our Legacy Dance Theatre. You have authored, coauthored, or edited more than 60 publications, including 16 dance education books, with a 17th due out in September.

Creative and collaborative administrator, your work at the University beyond the classroom and the theatre has been both prolific and impactful. You are the former Director of the Community Engagement Initiative and the former Faculty Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Experiential Learning, where you served as administrator of several important programs. You brought together directors of undergraduate research from across the campus to form the Alliance of Summer Scholars Programs and initiate the annual Undergraduate Research and Service Celebratory Symposium.

Exemplar of community engagement, you have been a local, national, and international advocate for arts education. You are a past president of the National Dance Association and were honored by the National Dance Education Organization with its Lifetime Achievement Award. You currently serve on the National Council of the Humanities.

Your enduring commitment to arts education for all and your mentorship of future generations of artists and scholars has enriched the University and the community.

Therefore, under the authority of the Board of Trustees of the University of Delaware, I have the honor of conferring on you, Lynnette Young Overby, the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts. In testimony thereof, I am pleased to present to you this diploma.

Terri L. Kelly
May 24, 2025