In Memoriam: Susan Valerie Cashion, 1943-2013

Susan Cashion, a professor emerita of dance at Stanford University, died late last month in what officials have determined was a suicide. She was 70 years old.

Professor Cashion joined the dance faculty at Stanford in 1972 and retired from teaching in 2007. She was a specialist in Mexican, Caribbean, and Latin American dance. She was a founder of the Lupenos de San Jose Mexican Dance Company and the Ballet Folklorico de Stanford, one of the first Mexican folk student dance groups in the nation.

A native of Pasadena, Dr. Cashion held a master’s degree in dance from the University of California at Los Angeles and a second master’s degree in anthropology and a doctorate in education from Stanford. She was the former president of the California Dance Educators Association.