Jan Short, Lecturer in Theatre Arts and the coordinator of the program, is a proud graduate of Morgan State University (1991). She received her Master of Arts in Theatre from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio (1995).  Ms. Short joined the Morgan State Fine Arts and Speech Communication Departments in the fall of 1995. Jan is a performer, director, and writer.

Jan has directed several Theatre productions and staged readings at Morgan State University. Some of her directing works consist of The Medea Myth, T-Bone and Weasel, Big Momma ‘n Em, Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery, The Vagina Monologues. "I Ain't Noways Tired", "Vignettes from the African-American Male Experience" and "The Conductor's Song". Also directed by her is the children's play, "The Storytrain," a collection of world trickster tales that she adapted for the stage;   Anna Deveare Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling, the stage reading of Joanne Braxton's Crossing a Deep River, and the stage reading of Dwight R.B. Cook's A Prayer. She co-directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning production Topdog/Underdog and James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones. 

To her credit is a collection of monologues created for the Mt. Auburn Cemetery project, "Living History Program: Into the Future from Our Past" and many creative performance scripts for local museums such as the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore museums, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, the Walters Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the James E. Lewis museum of art. Under her direction, the production of "Drop Me Off in Pittsburgh," a script originated by Theatre Morgan students in honor of the playwright August Wilson, traveled to Agadir, Morocco to participate and perform in FITUA, an international theatre festival.