Higher Education Division Fall 2011 Report

The 2011-2012 academic year may prove to be one of the busiest yet for the Higher Education Division. Thanks to the able leadership of Mark Britt over the last two years, we have seen growth in participation at the annual conference, and considering the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, I believe we are poised for continued growth moving forward.

As music teacher educators, we are uniquely positioned to contribute to music education in South Carolina on a variety of levels. Issues of music teacher recruitment, socialization, retention, and evaluation, are typically viewed as being largely confined to the purview of university faculty and policy makers, yet they affect every division in SCMEA.

One of my goals for our division is that we capitalize on these connections, taking a proactive, collaborative, and intentional role in supporting the protection and growth of our organization as a whole, and by extension the cause of music education in our state. In that regard, several pressing issues warrant our careful attention.
Particularly urgent is the September 15, 2011 NAfME announcement of a draft position statement on teacher evaluation (available here: http://www.nafme.org/about/view/nafme-position-statements). They are accepting comments on the draft through October 14, 2011, and I urge you to read the document and contribute to the discussion as this issue will have a profound effect on the preparation, evaluation, and professional development of both pre-service and in-service teachers.

Other issues that call for dialog and collaborative action across our entire organization pertain to the recruitment and retention of music teachers in our state. In connection with this, I am pleased to announce that David Perry of Anderson University will be our featured speaker in the SCMEA conference in February 2012. David’s session, entitled “Recruiting Future Music Educators: Who is Signing Up and Why,” is based on research that he and several others conducted and will have implications for K-16 music educators involved in general, choral, and instrumental music.

In light of these issues and our unique position within the organization, I believe it is incumbent upon us as a division to do more than arrange good annual conference sessions (as important as that is) and then go our separate ways until the next year’s conference. For example, if recent accounts of teacher performance assessment implementation in Tennessee, Minnesota, and Michigan are any indication of what we may eventually face, student achievement in non-arts classes will constitute a substantial portion of a music teacher’s performance data. I fear what may happen if we are not proactive in contributing to the discussion surrounding the development of a valid and reliable system for measuring music teacher performance.

One of the NAfME recommendations mentioned in the teacher evaluation draft position statement calls for the formation of a task force comprising K-12 and higher education music educators to address this issue. Other states have gone so far as to form a state chapter of the Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE) to engage this and similar issues. Perhaps it is time we as a division consider re-envisioning our role within SCMEA.
Currently the Higher Education Division, Collegiate Division, Research Committee, and Teacher Education Committee all operate independently of each other and the other divisions in SCMEA. It may be that we could pursue goals of raising awareness of relevant issues, setting research agendas, sharing best practices, crafting policy recommendations, etc. without changing our current structure. A clear, unifying identity (i.e., SC-SMTE), however, might tie these currently somewhat disparate entities together and increase our collective impact as we seek to improve music education in our state.

I am currently collecting data on similar efforts in other states and will have a recommendation to present for your consideration in February. Membership input is vital to any initiative, and I welcome your thoughts and suggestions!

Best regards,

Michael W. Moore, PhD
President, SCMEA Higher Education Division
Head, Department of Music Education
School of Fine Arts and Communication
Bob Jones University
Greenville, SC 29614
mmoore@bju.edu
(864)242-5100 ext. 2770