The American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Summer Intensive program at The University of Alabama has established the Edith Barnes Endowed Scholarship with a $20,000 gift to the University.  ABT endowed the scholarship to pay tribute to Barnes’s role in promoting the education of students in the dance program, which is part of the Department of Theatre and Dance in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences.  
Priority will be given to full-time undergraduate students majoring in dance.

Barnes served as director of the College’s dance program from 1987 to 2005. During her 18 years of leadership, she shaped the program into a respected academic training ground for professional dancers and brought nationally renowned professionals to campus to teach in the program.
“I have a tremendous respect for what Barnes has done as well as a great respect for the breadth of the dance program and the excellent work of dancers here,” said Gage Bush Englund, ballet mistress of the ABT. “Barnes was indispensable in creating the pilot UA American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program, and her work here has been an example to other ABT intensive programs begun around the country because of her.”