Growing up, Lana Carroll Heylock heard grownups plan the Ohio Ballet and the University of Akron Dance Institute around her family's dinner table. Over chicken and mashed potatoes at the Carroll house, the German dancer Heinz Poll laid out his ideas for a professional company and a school to train its dancers from a young age.

The spacious, $11.1 million center for dance, theater and arts administration that expanded the University of Akron's Guzzetta Hall in fall 2006 is payoff from those dreams in the 1960s. Anyone in the community can sign up their children for preparatory classes, K-12, at the University of Akron Dance Institute that is housed here and serves about 150 students a year.

Poll's Ohio Ballet is gone, but the training institute that he and others dreamed of continues, headed by Lana Carroll Heylock.

But not for long.

Heylock will leave the posi
tion at the beginning of July. Her last duties will be to run the Dance Institute's annual Summer Intensive program. Heylock will also leave her faculty position in the University of Akron Dance Program.

Teachers and parents alike on Saturday praised Heylock for her passion and her people skills, not to mention her high standards.

''She knows the kids, all of them, by name and what class they're in,'' Patti Eickhoff said as she waited during her 8-year-old daughter Kate's class.

''It seems like she takes the pre-ballet as seriously as she takes the advanced ballet. . . . I think she sees the potential in little kids,'' said Gina Mendiola, whose daughter, Elaina, also 8, studies pre-ballet and hip-hop.

The sluggish Northeast Ohio economy pushed her family toward the decision to leave, Heylock said Saturday in her office.

Heading the Dance Institute suits her, but her husband, Scott Heylock, who is in construction, has found better opportunities in Jacksonville, Fla., than in Akron. Scott has been commuting between Jacksonville and Akron since December. When Lana was offered a teaching job at Jacksonville University, they decided she should take it. The Heylocks have two young daughters, Gena and Sasha.

Leading as a teacher

In 2003, the Akron Area Arts Alliance presented Heylock the Outstanding Artist Award for Dance. You can find Heylock's mark on Akron's dance community through students like Duane Gosa, who is graduating this month from the UA dance program. Heylock recommended him to Jennifer Muller at the New York modern dance company Jennifer Muller/The Works, where Heylock formerly danced. Gosa successfully auditioned and will start work on Saturday.

Training young dancers in 2008 is different from when Heylock was growing up. Then, she saw high school dancer friends kicked out of Heinz Poll's Ohio Ballet because they missed a rehearsal to go to prom, she said. She missed the prom herself as a member of the company.

When she was put in charge at the Dance Institute, she first defaulted to Poll's point of view.

''I said, 'What do they mean, they're going to trick or treat? They have class!' I had to sit down with myself and say, 'Why is it that on Oct. 31, they have to come to class?' ''

Students today want to squeeze in more options, from sports to music and more. Heylock tries to allow them room to explore, but without losing the devotion to dance that it takes to get results.

Heylock doesn't schedule Dance Institute classes on Fridays, so that students have time for their families and friends. Dance Institute families (mine is one; my daughter studies there) got to see Heylock's own babies grow, since UA dance graduate Julie Goncy often baby-sat them right at the old Ballet Center building.

Goncy, who now has taught at the Dance Institute for eight years, said Heylock believed in her, and helped her get started. ''She wants to keep you motivated as a good teacher, but she's (also) interested in all of us, our lives. She realizes that's an integral part of being a family here,'' Goncy said.

Dance Institute teacher Pauline Howe first got to know Heylock when her own daughter started studying dance. ''Lana was always understanding when our child was sick or had a First Communion,'' she said. Now, she said, ''it's so wonderful as a teacher not to have to choose between my job and my family.''

Howe praised Heylock for assembling a team of teachers that has skills in teaching different areas. Some are good at gently molding young children. Others have professional performing skills to pass on to advanced students.

All in the family

Heylock's departure will mark the first time that the Dance Institute has not been headed by someone from the Carroll family.

Heylock's mother, Gena Carroll, was the founding executive director in 1967. Heylock moved back to Akron in 1994, following nearly 20 years as a dancer in New York City. Following Gena Carroll's death in December 1995, Heylock was appointed interim director. After a national search, she was appointed director in fall 1996.

There's still another distinguished Carroll in the building, of course: Andrew Carroll, who teaches dance at the University of Akron and is a close collaborator with his sister.

Nadeen Green, who teaches young students at the Dance Institute, said that she looks up to Heylock. Her boss taught her how to love and care for children, seeing things from their point of view, Green said.

Passion, too: ''Her picture is under the word passion in the dictionary,'' Green said. ''With Lana and Andy, they could talk about meatloaf and you would want it.''

Heylock said her family will keep its house in Akron for visits. She said she hopes to be asked back to guest-teach at UA, too. So, it'll be a new chapter — but first, staff and students are focusing on a good send-off. On Thursday, Dance Institute's evening classes are canceled for a bon voyage party. This is one time when family comes first.