MANHATTAN — The world-renowned ballerina Heather Watts will be receiving an honorary degree from Hunter College on Thursday during the school's winter commencement ceremony for 1,500 graduate and undergraduate students.
Watts, a former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and one of the company's biggest stars, has taught master ballet classes at Hunter and serves on the school's Dance Advisory Board. She is receiving the degree at a time when Hunter is expanding its dance curriculum.
Watts came to New York from California at the age of 13 on a Ford Foundation scholarship to attend the School of American Ballet. In 1970, when she was 17, she was selected by legendary choreographer George Balanchine to join his New York City Ballet. She worked closely with him, Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins — all of whom created roles just for her — and often danced opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov. She remained with the company until her retirement 25 years later.
"Heather Watts is a perfect honorary degree recipient for Hunter, where our programs for artists and performers are more popular than ever," Hunter's president Jennifer Raab said in statement. "Like our graduates, Heather succeeded by doing it her way and following her own path."
Hunter currently offers a bachelor's in dance and dance education. From September it will be offering a five-year bachelor's/master's program, a two-year master's in dance education and an MFA in dance, school officials said.
The school's other arts programs are also in demand. For Hunter's MFA in Creative Writing, 788 people applied for 18 spots last year, including more than 500 applicants for the 8 spots in the fiction specialty, the school said. The writing program has seen a huge jump in applications, with 392 applicants in 2008 and 507 in 2009.
Watts, who has also taught courses on Balanchine's work at Harvard and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, said that receiving an honorary degree from the Upper East Side city university was "humbling."
"Hunter is at the heart of New York City," Watts said in a statement. "Receiving an honorary degree from Hunter College, being saluted by President Raab and standing near so many graduating students who have worked tirelessly towards this amazing achievement is completely humbling, as well as beyond thrilling for me."
Luis Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation, will deliver Thursday's 3 p.m. commencement address at the school's Assembly Hall at 695 Park Ave.
