Music Tenure­Track Proposal Submitted to the Academic Strategic Planning Committee by the Music Department February 1, 2015 The Department of Music requests permission to create a tenure track position in composition and sound studies. If approved, our search would commence in Fall 2015, and the position would begin in Fall 2016. Prompted by recent changes in the college­wide curriculum and in departmental staffing, this proposal continues our goal to emphasize connections between music and other disciplines and move away from conservatory models that are largely incompatible with the spirit of the liberal arts that we embrace. Our new curriculum has improved the coherence of course requirements for music majors and minors, has increased interdisciplinary connections, and has aligned the Music Department’s offerings with the Liberal Arts in Practice initiative and the ideals of the Beloit Project. This third position, which includes ensemble directing, the teaching of composition, and the exploration of sound studies, offers a blend of performance/interpretation, creation, and critical analysis. A new hire in this area will bolster the department’s support of the college’s mission, offer courses that will attract students with a broad range of interests, and complement the skills, approaches, and interests of existing faculty. This proposal is a revised and extended version of the proposal that we submitted in Fall 2013 for two tenure­track positions. ASP accepted our proposal for an ethnomusicologist, but recommended that we re­submit our proposal for the second position after our new curriculum was passed and our search for an ethnomusicologist was completed, thereby giving us time to define the second position in a way that complemented our existing resources, staffing, and direction. Tes Slominski was hired in the spring of 2014 and our new curriculum was passed around the same time. These recent changes have generated increased energy and enrollments, and we believe that this is the right time to hire the department’s third tenure­track person to build on our momentum, help anticipate impending retirements and sabbaticals, and continue to develop the goals of our new curriculum. Recent History of Department The Music Department has recently undergone significant transformations in staffing and, in response to a call from the provost’s office, sought to reimagine the scope and direction of the music program. A task force appointed by Ann Davies, consisting of Daniel Barolsky, Yaffa Grossman, Diane Lichtenstein, Laura Parmentier, and Charles Westerberg met in June 2013 to consider the music curriculum, staffing, and related issues. We had highly productive conversations, which were informed by the Music Department’s spring discussions following the receipt of the 2012 external review. Our conversations were enriched by Skype consultations with Professor Sean Williams of the Evergreen State College and Professor Forrest Tobey of Earlham College, as well as a meeting with Ian Nie. The committee also consulted via email with Dr. Scott Spencer, Ph.D. Ethnomusicology, New York University, and Timothy Cooley, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of California Santa Barbara. Additionally, members of the committee tested out curricular and staffing ideas with music faculty from the University of Chicago, University College Dublin, Columbia College, University College 1 Limerick, Amherst College, Lawrence University, Bucknell College, the University of Virginia, and Pomona College. The two primary goals of this task force were to create a new curriculum and imagine a faculty who could serve and enrich the goals of this new plan. This new curriculum was designed to provide an integrated and developmental structure within which faculty could collaborate both within and beyond the department, enabling the department to respond to larger disciplinary and interdisciplinary changes in the study of music. The New Curriculum Prompted and inspired by the external review in 2012, recent revisions to the college­wide curriculum, and changing trends in the discipline, the task force wrote a new curriculum that sought to decenter (but not devalue) Western Art Music and performance. This curriculum offers students a broader range of choices that they can better integrate into a more cohesive path, increases interdisciplinary connections, and aligns the Music Department’s major requirements with recent changes to the college curriculum, including the Liberal Arts in Practice initiative. The old curriculum reflected a model that derived largely from schools of music or conservatories, in which history and theory serve as “service” courses for students primarily interested in the performance of Western art music. We found that this music curriculum lacked flexibility, range, and balance between performance and scholarship­­for example, the major relied too heavily on applied music through required participation in lessons and ensembles. Furthermore, this old curriculum offered only minimal integration of scholarship and performance, and its structure did not allow for the study of non­canonical or non­Western musical traditions. The new music curriculum, which passed Senate in 2014, has attracted students who had felt alienated by a department previously so focused on the performance of Western art music. With this new curriculum in place, the Music Department is better able to support the mission of the college by providing a diversity of academic classes and instrumental and vocal ensembles. Under the new curriculum, the music department has offered courses that satisfy four of the five domains (all but 4U), the intercultural literacy and writing skills, and the LAP requirement. The curriculum also offers a CAP course open to students in the creative arts. We anticipate that a new position in composition and sound studies and would enrich and add to these offerings (including the possibility of providing a 4U course). A complete description of our curriculum can be found in our proposal to COA and our previous proposal to ASP. However, there are two structural components within this curriculum that a third person in composition/sound studies would expand to help Beloit attract and retain a wider range of students. We have three 100­level courses that introduce students to the three foundational topics in the study of music: history (150), culture (160), and music theory/sound studies (170). All three intersect intentionally so that they can be taught by multiple music faculty, but each course provides a disciplinary starting point represented by each of our three tenure/tenure­track positions: Daniel Barolsky (music history), Tes Slominski (ethnomusicology), and new hire (composition/theory/sound studies). In this sense, our faculty’s areas of expertise would line up with the structure of the curriculum. Music majors would study with all three faculty at some point in their career and, thus, would be exposed to very different 2 disciplinary approaches and encouraged to explore the overlaps and tensions among them. Music 150 and 160 serve as a framework through which students can think about the materials introduced in 200­level classes­­courses devoted to the study of music as a historical agent and/or a cultural practice (for instance, Music in the Third Reich, Music and Authenticity, Gender/Sexuality/Popular Music, etc.). Music 170, designed to represent music theory and composition, prepares students for thinking more critically about the acoustic, creative, theoretical, and material facets of music as represented in the 250 rubric, which includes courses in music theory, music and psychology, and­­if we receive approval for the third tenure line, composition and sound studies. Ian Nie’s courses on recording and editing techniques and interactive media also fall under the the 250 rubric. Although Daniel Barolsky and Tes Slominski teach courses within this category, we cannot do justice to composition and the aspects of sound studies that do not focus on historiography or social practice (these aspects include teaching technological skills, the physics of music, sound and its effects on the body, etc.). Needless to say, we are unlikely to ever achieve full coverage of music’s sub­disciplines, but with the addition of a third tenure­track faculty member, we believe the courses we offer will capture the core areas of music studies and provide students with a strong foundation for pursuing more specialized interests. Staffing Until 2011, the music department had five full­time (four tenure/tenure­track) positions. We have calculated that three tenure/tenure­track lines (even after the anticipated retirement of Ian Nie in the spring of 20181) can satisfy the teaching needs of the new curriculum while still allowing faculty to develop new courses, collaborate with colleagues across campus, teach INIT courses, and offer an FYI annually. Even with the added flexibility built into the new curriculum, it would be impossible to adequately cover the courses needed to offer a competitive and attractive major in music with only two tenure lines. Student choice in fulfilling major requirements would be severely limited, and our ability to serve non­majors and provide seats in our 100­level intro classes would suffer. Moreover, without a third tenure line in the department, our opportunities to contribute to FYI teaching and other innovative all­college initiatives would be meager at best. The provisional teaching five­year teaching cycle below (see ​
Figure 1​
) demonstrates how a new hire in composition/sound studies is vital to help the department keep up with student demand for courses, and would help the program grow in new and exciting ways. 1
The biggest challenge the department will face after Ian Nie’s retirement will be replacing the courses he teaches on sound recording and editing (Music 260). There is a possibility that our new hire would be able to contribute to this area. However, we have also had conversations with TDMS in hopes that a new position in media studies would be able to incorporate the study of sound recording, as it is an area that represents an obvious overlap or bridge between both programs, attracts students, and would allow us to continue make the most of the extraordinary recording studio that Ian Nie has set up and which serves the campus as a whole. Alternately, it is possible that a composer/sound studies hire could have the requisite skills to step in after Ian Nie’s retirement. 3 Figure 1: Music Department Five Year Plan D. Barolsky T. Slominski Position #3 Ian Nie F ‘15 150 170 250 NAME FYI 200 Not yet hired Lessons 260 250 Sp ‘16 170 200 NAME 160 200 Not yet hired Lessons 260 200 F ‘162 NAME CAP 170 Ensemble TBD 150 250 Lessons 260 250 Sp ‘17 Sabbatical NAME 160 200 Ensemble TBD 170 250 Lessons 260 200 F‘17 Sabbatical Ensemble TBD 170 CAP Lessons 260 250 Sp ‘18 160 170 NAME 160 200 Ensemble TBD 200/250 250 Lessons 260 200 F ‘18 NAME 250 200 Ensemble TBD FYI 170 Retired Sp ‘19 170 200 NAME 160 200 Ensemble TBD 250 250 F‘19 NAME FYI Ensemble TBD 170 Sabbatical3 150 FYI 200 150 CAP 200 150 200 2
After all three tenure lines are set, we anticipate a three­year cycle teaching FYI. Traditionally, Ian Nie would have been the person to teach an FYI in Fall ‘16. However, he has requested for personal reasons and with his impending retirement to forego his last FYI. 3
​
Apart from an adjunct hired to direct NAME in Fall 2017, we would not (pending sabbatical approvals and a successful search for the third person) be requesting sabbatical replacements for Daniel Barolsky and Tes Slominski because Ian Nie will still be teaching. If our proposal is not accepted, we would request the hiring of a visiting professor to cover Daniel Barolsky and Tes Slominski’s classes during their sabbaticals. 4 Sp ‘20 170 250 200 CAP 250 NAME 160 200 Ensemble TBD 250 200/250 We recognize that our new curriculum and the kinds of music faculty we would have (with PhDs rather than DMAs in conducting or piano performance) represent a radical departure from the past at Beloit. However, with a smaller department, we are dependent on faculty who can teach robust and meaningful academic classes as well as direct ensembles. For the new curriculum to work, all three full­time faculty need to have a wide range, the ability to teach in multiple sub­disciplines and, in the case of Tes Slominski and the new hire, be able to direct an ensemble. This new approach is in keeping with the recommendation of our external review, which questioned paucity of courses taught by one of our tenure­track directors. Sean Williams, one of the task force’s consultants, recommended that we hire generalists with different disciplinary backgrounds since, unfortunately, DMA (Doctorate of Musical Arts) programs in ensemble leadership (orchestra, choir, etc.) tend to produce graduates with very specialized skill sets instead of the breadth required to offer innovative academic courses. The consolidation of faculty, however, is not merely a tightening of the belt in our current era of austerity. Instead, the recent hiring of Tes Slominski and the proposed third tenure­track position in composition/sound studies seeks to exploit the collaborative possibilities and complementary nature of a small department. Furthermore, while the department will continue (as all liberal arts colleges do) to depend on adjunct faculty for many courses (especially lessons), our full­time faculty would not stand apart from them but rather, as scholar/performers, share similar philosophical approaches and thus be able to relate to and integrate the needs of our adjunct colleagues. Tes Slominski’s position is a case in point. Although she possesses a doctorate in ethnomusicology, Tes Slominski also directs the North Atlantic Music ensemble as part of her regular teaching load, and teaches fiddle and tin whistle lessons as an overload. Already in the fall semester, Tes Slominski has met regularly with two of our new directors, Amber Dolphin and Anders Svanoe, to think critically about how to run ensembles at Beloit. Historically, we have had the directors of our choir and orchestra represented among our tenured/tenure­track faculty. Thus, Tes Slominski and our new hire would provide an important on­campus presence for students (who often feel less connection with adjunct faculty who are only on campus one day a week) and represent the needs of the performing arts in faculty governance. State of the Field We believe that composition and sound studies fit well together because they both engage with questions about the nature of music and sound, and we believe that this combination will yield a diverse pool of candidates who can fill curricular needs in composition and theory and extend the department’s offerings in exciting directions. Generally, when music departments hire composers, they seek candidates with terminal degrees (PhD or DMA) in composition/music theory (the two fields are linked in many institutions). Depending on their backgrounds and 5 inclinations, academically­trained composers can have a very limited scope (teaching competencies in music theory and composition only, and a bias toward atonal music) or a broad range of capabilities, including creative activity in multiple genres and/or academic interests in sound studies, music history, ethnomusicology, dance, psychology, critical theory, or other realms. In these cases, the composer’s scholarly interests and artistic output inform each other. Thus, we are taking an expansive view toward composition, and while a doctorate will be necessary, we are open to the possibility of a strong candidate with a degree in a related field who also has a background in composition­­for example, we could envision attracting strong candidates with PhDs in musicology or ethnomusicology and MAs in composition. Sound studies is a relatively new area of interest within music studies that is quickly gaining traction because of its intersections with other disciplines and subdisciplines.4 Some sound studies scholars work on the role of technological development in shaping histories and epistemologies,5 while the work of others falls under the categories of medical ethnomusicology, music therapy,6 or music cognition.7 Some scholars focus on past and present soundscapes of nature and human endeavor,8 while others explore the creative potential of listening9 and work to broaden our understandings of aesthetic sound through composition and sound installation.10 Thus, equating “sound studies” with music technology or the physics of sound would be to reduce the scope of an exciting and rich field of study­­even if individual practitioners do engage with these topics. Because the range of possibilities within sound studies is so great, a “sound studies scholar” may also be a trained composer, music theorist, performer, musicologist, or ethnomusicologist­­and, less often, may have a background in more remote disciplines, including history or area studies. Although certain programs (including McGill and New York University) are developing reputations for training sound studies scholars, we are less interested in disciplinary training and more interested in finding a colleague who both understands and is willing to interrogate traditional ways of thinking about musical creativity, reception, modes of analysis, and objects of study. This emphasis on interdisciplinarity, we believe, will result in an exciting pool of candidates narrowed only somewhat by our requirement that the successful candidate be able to 4
Already, several handbooks and readers exist for use in the classroom. See Jonathan Sterne, ed., ​
The Sound Studies Reader​
(New York: Routledge, 2012) and ​
T. J. Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld, eds., ​
The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies ​
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 5
See Jonathan Sterne, ​
The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction​
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2003); Emily Thompson, ​
The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900­1933 ​
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004). 6
See ​
Tony Wigram, Bruce Saperston, Robert West, eds. ​
Art & Science of Music Therapy: A Handbook​
(New York: Routledge, 1995). There is also growing interest in the topic of music and disability, and much of this work is emerging from the subfield of music theory. 7
See ​
The Sonic Boom: Sustaining Sound Studies​
, a conference held in November, 2014, which reflects a window into the state of the field of sound studies and cognition: http://comm.soc.northwestern.edu/lambert­conference/ 8
​
See Murray Schafer, ​
The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World ​
(Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1994) and John Picker, ​
Victorian Soundscapes ​
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 9
​
See Pauline Oliveros, ​
Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice ​
(New York: iUniverse, 2005) and ​
Software for People​
(Baltimore: Smith Publications, 1984). 10
​
See Tara Rodgers, ​
Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound ​
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010) and the compositions and sound installations of Paula Matthusen (http://www.paulamatthusen.com/). 6 provide instruction in composition and theory. The potential overlap with media studies is unpredictable, but we suspect that very few media studies candidates will be competitive in music composition, theory, or have the ability to direct an ensemble. Moreover, the “sound studies” component of this position is not simply a “sound­flavored” media studies position. Our understanding of media studies is that it is a field focused on understanding the place of media in society, and whose foundational concern is mass media and its meanings and effects. While some work in sound studies (specifically work on technologies of sound) shares this concern, much of it does not. For example, work on acoustics, environmental sound, and music cognition have little or no overlap with media studies, and it would be unreasonable to expect that a strong candidate in media studies would have a knowledge of these areas­­just as it would be unreasonable to expect that a strong candidate in composition/sound studies would also have a background in visual analysis, the history of mass media, or film studies. Therefore, we are not submitting a combined proposal with TDMS for a joint media studies line because we feel that doing so would not serve the needs of either TDMS or the music department­­although we are excited about the possibilities for collaboration if either or both of our tenure lines are approved. Description of new position We seek a candidate with an expansive understanding of composition. While we will look for a scholar­practitioner whose work is recognized and outstanding, we are less concerned with genre (tonal, post­tonal, electronic, jazz, popular, musicals, etc.) than we are with his/her teaching interests, openness to collaboration, and most important, his/her ability to foster both musical creativity and critical thinking in our students. In this uncertain economy, many composers have expanded their skill sets to include entrepreneurial activities like forming composers’ collectives and writing music for broader audiences, and we feel our students would benefit from such candidates’ creative problem solving as well as their musical creativity. By including sound as part of this position, we push the boundaries of “music studies” to broaden our understandings to hear sound as evidence, inspiration, a mode of analysis, and a tool with which to create. The focus on sound does not in any way exclude what we commonly describe as “music.” Instead, the study of sound encompasses the exploration of bird song, truck rallies, and the manipulation of electronic noise alongside the analysis of Beethoven, the interpretation/performance of Bach, and the composition of a song.11 It is a discipline and a methodological lens that emphasizes inclusivity and counteracts century­old biases reflected in definitions of music that served to exclude the contributions of people other than white, often Christian, men. This inclusive shift in our curriculum and staffing extends to students, fosters diversity in the department’s offerings, and gives both a creative voice and a home to students who have traditionally felt that they have no place in our program (or, for that matter, in the majority of music programs in the United States). The position we propose places value on both music and sound as a way of maintaining 11
For an example of the kinds of work sound studies scholars do, see www.soundboxproject.com. 7 traditions of music as artistic practice while addressing the changing trajectory of music studies, with its increasing diversity of content and growing imperative to teach skills that transfer to activities outside the classroom or off stage. This approach views music theory as a tool, composition as the application of that tool, and performance as the realization of these applications. Students thus learn more than just “how to write music”: they learn project management, how to work with others to plan and complete often complicated tasks, and how to communicate the value of their work. This process embodies the Liberal Arts in Practice, and provides students with the kinds of expertise that distinguish Beloit graduates, whether they pursue careers in music or not. In order to find someone with such a range of skills, we are continuing to follow the advice received from Sean Williams, an advisor to the task force that met in the summer of 2013. Professor Williams recommended hiring generalists who are trained as musicologists or ethnomusicologists. Although our other consultant, Forrest Tobey, recommended hiring at least one faculty member with expertise in ensemble conducting (choir or jazz ensemble) with the assumption that such a person would inevitably bring with her/him other areas of knowledge and experience, we concluded that a PhD in composition, sound studies, music theory, music therapy, musicology, or ethnomusicology who could direct an ensemble in an exciting way would likely contribute more dynamically to classroom and curricular innovations than an ensemble director with a Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) teaching academic classes, in part because DMA programs rarely take interdisciplinary approaches, and their coursework is designed to produce specialists rather than generalists. This position has few analogues at similar institutions and no precedent at Beloit, although we imagine that candidates may bring skill sets that overlap with current faculty interests, including Ian Nie’s work in music technology, Daniel Barolsky’s interest in early recordings, or Tes Slominski’s interest in ecomusicology. But while we are not proposing a line in something immediately legible like “choir director,” we are unshakably committed to further integrating performance and scholarship in the department. Therefore, we are not rejecting performance in proposing a hybrid scholar­practitioner line, but we ​
are​
rethinking the skills and perspectives we would like a new colleague’s performance teaching to foster, including collaboration, exploration, calculated risk­taking, and peer critique. For that reason, our ideal candidate might indeed be able to lead choirs or direct a jazz band­­but we also welcome other possibilities that would augment the department’s current offerings, including the ability to direct musicals or create a composers’ collective. The non­performance courses a colleague in composition/sound studies classes could offer would fill a gap in our current roster, from dedicated classes (not lessons) in composition to courses in her or his area of speciality. The addition of a third tenure line would enable the department to contribute more courses that meet skill, domain, and LAP requirements, and if the successful candidate’s skill set includes acoustics, electronics, or the physics of sound, the music department could potentially add a 4U/Q course to its roster. Thus, we could imagine that a hypothetical third faculty member might offer Music/Sound/Theory, Introduction to Composition Techniques, and an ensemble (counted, for the teaching load, as half a unit) in a typical fall semester, and Harmony and Arrangement in Popular Music, Introduction to Sound 8 Design (a class likely to be cross­listed with TDMS), and an ensemble in the spring semester. More broadly, a new hire in composition/sound studies could potentially offer courses on a variety of topics, including the Physics of Sound, Music and Cognition, Performance Art, Electronic/Computer Music, Music and the Posthuman, or The Politics of Noise, depending on his or her area of expertise. Anticipated impact on the recruitment, admission, and retention of students Much has been made about the demise of traditional musical institutions, from symphony orchestras to the teaching of piano lessons.12 This does not mean, however, that there is a decline in the interest in or appreciation of music. In fact 33% of last year’s applicant pool expressed a specific interest in music. 13 But students’ experience with music has changed to become more DIY (do­it­yourself), entrepreneurial, and stylistically varied. Although increasingly fewer students grow up with 10+ years of piano lessons or a thorough grounding in the Western art music tradition, more students are interested in a wide range of musical styles and applications and want the opportunity to study and develop these interests in meaningful and rigorous ways. In our experience, this new kind of music student seeks an understanding of the transferrable skills they can learn through music scholarship and performance, and with guidance, is quick to connect their experiences with music to other realms of intellectual and personal life. While music remains a creative outlet for these students, it is not merely entertainment. The new curriculum’s openness to students with eclectic or non­traditional backgrounds addresses these changes in demographics and separates Beloit College from most of our peer institutions. Indeed, many prospective or admitted students claim, “I don’t want to major in music, but….” These are the students we seek to attract­­the students poised to see how music fits into their life in ways that we, at a liberal arts college, will be able to support. When we describe our cross­listed classes to them (classes that most high school students could not imagine), they become more excited about studying music because of the ways these courses extend beyond common boundaries and connect with their other interests. Our consultant, Forrest Tobey, acknowledged that our new curriculum could, by comparison with a more conventional program such as Earlham’s, potentially put off those students who seek a traditional classical musical education. Nevertheless, he readily conceded that the different kinds of courses we offer could attract more students than would be lost­­and help put Beloit on the map. Forrest Tobey’s analysis, however, overstates the extent of our departure from tradition. Although we do not have a full orchestra (many schools our size do not), our string ensemble (the Creative Strings Collective), jazz ensemble, wind ensemble, and choirs mirror the traditional ensembles offered at most schools. But with the North Atlantic Music Ensemble, the Improvisation Ensemble, and (potentially) whatever new direction our third hire brings, the department also offers a collection of ensembles that balances the need for tradition and 12
See, for instance, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/02/piano­stores­are­closing­_n_6407120.html on the decline of piano stores and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/arts/music/roll­over­mahler­us­orchestras­are­shrinking.html?module=Search&m
abReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A5%22%7D (on the shrinking orchestras. 13
​
This data was provided to us by Bill Mortimer in the Admissions office. 9 innovation. Students on any instrument and at almost any level have multiple opportunities to perform in different styles, apply different techniques, and practice the different approaches to music in a manner that parallels and intersects with the range of approaches reflected in our academic courses. And, as mentioned below, the study and analysis of Bach, Handel, or Mozart is still represented in our academic classes as well, but its context has shifted. In short, Western art music and its canonical ensembles are not being thrown out, but now represent one tradition among many. Enthusiasm for existing or past courses that overlap or anticipate possible offerings in composition and sound studies also supports the potential behind the kinds of courses taught by our new hire. We need only consider the popularity of Paul Stanley’s two courses on the physics of music or the overenrolled and cross­listed course taught by previous teaching fellow, Denise Gill­Gürtan, on Music and Healing (Spring 2012). Additionally Ian Nie’s Music 260 (Sound Recording and Editing) is full every semester and our new Music 170 (Music/Sound/Theory) exceeded capacity both last fall and this spring, even when taught by different instructors (Tes Slominski and Daniel Barolsky). Finally, Anders Svanoe’s new improvisation ensemble, a course that encompasses a different perspective of sound and composition, has generated a great deal of student interest and energy. It was offered for the first time in Fall 2014 and immediately overenrolled, and attracted and accepted a significant number of students who hadn’t otherwise been involved in departmental ensembles. These courses reflect only the tip of the iceberg, but their high enrollment demonstrates that students are eager to pursue these areas of scholarship and performance. Our students relish the opportunities they have, and are asking for more: for example, several of our majors and minors, as well as some of our non­majors, are clamoring for more opportunities to study composition. While Anders Svanoe’s ensemble and Daniel Barolsky’s theory classes provide some space for composition, neither can fully focus on it­­nor can either faculty member effectively train students ​
as​
composers. For a liberal arts college that attracts creative students and otherwise supports them in synthesizing classroom and co­curricular learning through the Liberal Arts in Practice, our currently thin offerings in composition are a detriment to the department and the college, a shortcoming emphasized in our most recent external review. A third and fully­devoted tenure­track line in composition and sound studies would (1) ensure that such courses could be offered regularly; (2) allow Daniel Barolsky and Tes Slominski to address student interests in their respective areas in greater depth (if left with just two faculty members after Ian Nie’s retirement, our offerings would become drastically limited); and (3) facilitate increased collaboration within and outside the department in ways that adjunct or non­tenure track faculty cannot. Yet as with our introduction of ethnomusicology to the department, the new position in composition and sound studies is still something largely new to Beloit College and, thus, it is difficult to provide numbers demonstrating how student enrollment already supports not­yet existing courses or ensembles. However, we believe that changes in student demographics, the continued interest and participation in music, and the draw that new recent courses have had, demonstrate the potential support for our proposal. The biggest indicator for success is the continued high enrollment that we have seen over the years. According to Table 2 provided by 10 IRAP to ASP, the total enrollment of students from 2009­13 was 2722, more than any other individual department or program.​
​
These numbers for enrollment in the Music Department can be read in many ways, and comparisons to other departments/programs can be misleading since, on one hand, a significant number of courses offered (especially lessons and ensembles) are 0.25 credits and, on the other hand, we have a sizable number of adjunct faculty who provide lessons or direct ensembles. The average enrollment per course is also misrepresentative since it includes both lessons (one instructor per one student) and ensembles (one instructor per 20­60 students). Nevertheless, because we are proposing a tenure­line for a position that, for the most part, has never before existed at Beloit, we can see that a significant portion of the student body already participates in some kind of musical activity, whether it be classes, ensembles, or lessons. Thus, we see significant interest on the part of the student body in music to justify the hiring of a third tenure line. Moreover, of the students the Music Department has taught over the last four years, just over a third have participated in musical ensembles. Additionally, well over half of first­year students from 2009 have experience performing music ​
(see Appendix A​
). Our data on this question is a bit out of date because the question was eliminated from the CIRP in 2010. We do not imagine, however, that these numbers would have changed significantly in just five years, even if the nature of student interest in music is shifting. Because a person in our proposed position would direct an ensemble, they would be able, like Tes Slominski, to bridge the world of scholarship and performance (as well as add composition), thus bringing performance to the classroom and vice versa. By bringing together scholarship and performance, the Music Department can produce better­rounded, better­equipped, and more musically­literate students who can understand and act upon the relationships among performance and theory, history, culture and practice. And with this richer, more integrated curriculum, we believe that we be able to continue the recent trend of increasing class size and the number of majors and minors. Finally, the number of students interested in music suggests an untapped resource of potential music students that we hope that our new hire and curriculum will attract. There are, for instance, a sizable number of students involved in music outside of the department. The student­run Music Club and WBCR easily involve over 100 students, many of whom are not involved in departmental activities, although many of them have recently started taking classes and have joined NAME and the improvisation ensemble. Beyond increasing enrollment for the department, our proposed new line would continue to help bridge the divide between student­run musical activities on the residential side and departmental offerings. And through a music club that is increasingly collaborating with student dancers, GEM, the Women’s Center, the Russian house, and other student organizations, the chance for them to make further connections with the larger student body becomes even greater. Advising A music department with three generalists as advisors would be able to steer students in a way that is in keeping with the larger mission of the college and the new curriculum, while advancing their development as musicians. The faculty members will be able to help students identify and leverage connections between their music courses and their other courses. The faculty will guide 11 students in articulating, reflecting upon, monitoring, and revising their educational and professional goals. They will do this by helping students to select and construct experiences­­both in the music curriculum and beyond it­­that will help them achieve their goals. The new music curriculum and proposal for new faculty demand that all faculty teaching within the Music Department make advising a core feature of their pedagogy. More specifically, the new curriculum offers students a great deal of flexibility in choosing courses and experiences that will satisfy the major requirements. Faculty advisors in Music help students set goals, refine them, and chart a path that makes the best use of the flexible requirements. Comparison of staffing and curricular profiles with appropriate peer institutions The curriculum we have devised models itself on various aspects of other colleges. One finds courses analogous to our 200­level courses (the “Music and…” category) at Earlham and Bates. Similarly, the integration of music and sound beyond Western art music is a project colleges like Amherst and Bowdoin have undertaken with success. But while there are similarities between the new curriculum and other colleges, the proposed staffing plan and curriculum stand apart from most peer institutions for a number of reasons: 1) Staffing: we anticipate having only three tenure lines. Excluding schools such as Lawrence or Depauw, which have full­fledged conservatories, all other peer institutions on our list (except for Earlham) either have more tenure­track lines or offer no courses outside of the Western canon. In part, this staffing discrepancy stems from the fact that many schools still aspire to compete with conservatories and thus maintain tenure lines in various instruments (e.g. piano, violin, voice, etc.) as well as faculty whose sole and singular purpose is to direct ensembles. But those schools whose liberal arts curriculum more aligns with what we aspire to have (e.g. Amherst, Bowdoin, and Bates) have at least five or six tenure lines. As a colleague at Amherst explained, the size of their faculty allows them to satisfy the needs/wants of faculty who want to hold onto an older school­of­music­like curriculum while still expanding in the direction more akin to the spirit of the liberal arts. At Beloit we do not have this luxury. 2) Linking Staffing and Curriculum: were we to have retained a more conventional curriculum in keeping with the standard divisions of music studies (history, ethnomusicology, theory, composition, sound studies, and performance), our proposed staffing would be inadequate. However, the strength of our new curriculum rests in the fact that we actively seek to temper these divisions. Musicology is not a separate track from ethnomusicology, performance, theory, or sound studies. Rather, our focus is on the intersections among subdisciplines. For instance, instead of a two, three, or four­course sequence devoted exclusively to the canon of Western Music,14 we have a single class (Music 150, “Music as History and the History of Western Music”) that examines the phenomenon of the canon itself. The material that was covered in the older sequence has been relocated and re­situated alongside musical traditions and cultures in 14
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Recent debates through the American Musicological Society demonstrate a growing trend away from surveys or sequences of Western Music History. See, from the national conference for AMS in 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ArH0tCVjUc 12 200­level courses. In other words, one might teach Beethoven in a course on music and power, Debussy in a course on music and authenticity, and Monteverdi in a course that examines distinctions among music, sound, and text­­or even music and psychology. Similarly, instead of a three or four­course sequence devoted to tonal music theory (which takes up valuable course loads and limits the range of an individual hire), we have developed 250­level courses that examine musical material from a broader perspective that combines creation and analysis, texts and experiences (i.e. scores and perceptions). The topics of our 250­level courses currently include recording techniques, harmony and counterpoint, and music and psychology, and a tenure line in composition/sound studies would enable us to add new dimensions to this rubric and fill the gap left when Ian Nie retires. This structure emphasizes the intersections among fields and allows individual faculty to engage with multiple facets of their research interests. In addition to fostering a more dynamic department and curriculum, this creative approach to “coverage” allows us to do more with fewer faculty. This integration of disciplines is unique among our peer institutions. Many have failed to move beyond the Western canon either in the classroom or in performance, and few have explored sound as an area of inquiry. With the rare exception of those departments with far more tenure lines than we have, few of our peer institutions have added courses in sound studies even as a token supplement to departments dominated by the study of Western art music. And to our knowledge, no undergraduate music program has a faculty line even partially devoted to sound studies. Our outside consultants (Sean Williams at Evergreen State and Forrest Tobey at Earlham), upon hearing a description of our new curriculum, described it as “a good departure from traditional paths,” “elegant, cohesive, coherent,” “ahead of the curve,” and “cutting edge!” In short, the Music Department has had a rare opportunity to reinvent itself, and we believe that we have an opportunity to pave the way for how music can and should be taught at liberal arts institutions. Less than a year into our new curriculum, we are already beginning to be recognized within the Society for Ethnomusicology and the American Musicological Society for our innovative approach to music studies.15 Two concerns came up regularly in conversations about the new curriculum: what happens to students who want to follow a more traditional path (e.g. who want to take classes that would prepare them for a particular sub­discipline) and how would graduate programs react to a transcript that looks unfamiliar. In answer to the first query, we have mapped our old curriculum onto the new one, and we have found that with good advising, a student could cover the same kinds of material in the new curriculum. Both of our consultants were satisfied with this mapping, and we have several students now pursuing this kind of path within the new curriculum. Bowdoin’s music program, which comes closest to the one we envision (but which is supported by six tenure lines), and Evergreen State, which has an entire undergraduate program that is different from most schools, also put their students out in the world with transcripts that do not 15
Following conversations with Beloit music faculty, music colleagues at Wellesley and Duquesne have adopted elements of our approach, and the Society for Ethnomusicology Council is in the early stages of compiling information from institutions that have done significant overhauls of outdated curricula. Beloit and Bowdoin have been at the forefront of these conversations. 13 resemble the norm. Mary Hunter at Bowdoin and Sean Williams at Evergreen State have assured us that their respective curricula have not interfered with their students’ success, and that letters of recommendation, the reputation of the institution, and writing samples have more than compensated for the unusual transcript and academic path. Consequently, we do not feel we are doing our students a disservice with this new curriculum. Indeed, we are better preparing students for graduate programs that are themselves becoming more interdisciplinary. Along the same lines, we want to emphasize that a student who wishes to pursue a career in performance and, therefore, would take lessons for eight semesters, is not precluded from doing so, especially since the new college curriculum does not limit the number of credits earned in a single department. Relation to broader trends beyond Beloit College Our department’s new curriculum anticipates the priorities the College Music Society (CMS) set out for music departments in its October 2014 report. We find that the spirit of this report speaks to the very issues Beloit’s music department is already working to overcome: TFUMM [the Task Force on Undergraduate Music Majors] identifies three core deficiencies in the conventional model of music study, in response to which emerge three core pillars for an entirely new framework. The first core deficiency is subordination of the creation of new work to the interpretive performance of older work; the second is ethnocentrism; and the third is fragmentation of subjects and skills. When these tendencies are reversed, the three core pillars of a transformed model—creativity, diversity, and integration—come into view.16 With recent curricular and staffing changes, we have already begun this process­­and our request for a tenure line in composition/sound studies is in keeping with this CMS directive. In most institutions, this transformation will be slow and tokenistic. Because we have anticipated this move toward “creativity, diversity, and integration” in our curricular reform, Beloit is at the vanguard of this movement, and we are in a position to gain an exciting new colleague and an enticing and distinctive profile for prospective students by acting now to create a tenure line in composition/sound studies. Thus, the new position described in this proposal and our new curriculum will move the Music Department at Beloit College to the cutting edge of higher education in music. Our vision for a highly interdisciplinary Music Department firmly rooted in the liberal arts moves us beyond the norm, and positions Beloit College to be a strong leader in music studies across the nation. While many liberal arts music departments employ composers, only a few have followed trends in graduate education to hire specialists in sound studies. Programs in sound culture and sonic arts are more established in the UK and Northern Ireland (see Queen’s University Belfast MA in Sonic Arts, for instance) than they are in the US, although the work of scholars from NYU, McGill, and elsewhere suggests these programs are gaining interest in the US. Not only does the 16
CMS, ​
Transforming Music Study​
, p. 16. See http://www.academia.edu/9060144/Transforming_Music_Study_from_ its_Foundations_A_ Manifesto_for_Progressive_Change_in_the_Undergraduate_Preparation_of_Music_Majors for the full document (accessed 30 January 2015) 14 field of sound studies expand the range of scholarship to include more overt links to politics, perception, technology, natural sciences, and the environment, it also offers fascinating connections with the exploration of material culture, urban studies, and radically new approaches to musical composition. On the level of day­to­day operations and the integration of scholarship and performance, professional training in music and the structure of music departments have produced and reinforced several divisions we believe are not productive in the Beloit College context: between performance and academic/creative endeavors (including composition), between Western classical music and everything else, and between music and sound, often relegating topics like music technology to the periphery, or even to separate programs. We believe that we best serve our students and the college by minimizing these distinctions where possible through our curriculum and faculty ethos. This integration of sub­disciplines and methodologies (in which we consider performance one “methodology” among several) makes sense with the nature of the students we teach, and is also in keeping with the direction of other forward­looking departments like Bowdoin at the undergraduate level. Strategic Priorities: College and Departmental The Music Department supports the 2014–15 academic priorities announced by Dean Ann Davies and President Scott Bierman in the fall of 2014, and the institutional expectation that all faculty positions will contribute to the liberal arts mission of the college. The connections between these priorities and the proposed positions are described in the next sections. 1. Promoting the Liberal Arts in Practice in a residential learning environment. The Music Department engages students in a wide variety of activities beyond the traditional classroom. Each year, over 100​
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take voice and/or instrument lessons from tenure­track and adjunct faculty in the department, and on average more than 300 sing in choirs or play in ensembles. Some of these ensembles, like NAME, build in opportunities for co­curricular activities like event planning and promotion. Many students perform in campus concerts, and they and many others attend concerts given by Music faculty and invited performers. Additionally, members of the faculty collaborate regularly with the music club (which resides in the music house) and Contra Club, resulting in guest lectures, performances, or other events. Finally through the Merrill program taught by Amber Dolphin, several students have given music lessons to students at the Merrill Community Center. These collaborations among students and between students and faculty shape students’ interactions elsewhere on campus, and often provide students a way to connect and integrate with their peers. 2. Providing compelling and sustainable learning though the new curriculum–the Initiatives program, the liberal arts in practice requirement, the capstone experience, quantitative reasoning, and intercultural literacy. Under the new curriculum there are music courses (including lessons and ensembles) that currently meet four of the five domains (all but 4U) as well as the Intercultural Literacy requirement. A new position in composition and sound studies offers the possibility that we would also meet the 4U requirement as well as both Writing and Quantitative skills. 15 The curriculum also provides a structure whereby ensembles and interdisciplinary courses can provide opportunities for Liberal Arts in Practice activities, and a capstone course focused on “creative practices” for music majors and students of the other creative arts. The new faculty member will join the FYI teaching rotation and explore the possibility of offering Initiatives courses. 3. Focusing on intercultural engagement and development as a core component of our mission. The distinctions we often make between music and sound are not only fluid and culturally determined, but reflect a wide range of power dynamics that can serve to exclude or discriminate against individuals, communities, races, and so forth. For instance, scholars have pointed at the ways that the categorization of music (vs. noise) has serve to articulate racial divides and hierarchies, most often at the expense of those with no power.17 By opening up our areas of study to include the exploration of sound studies, both with our new curriculum and with this new position, the music department seeks to direct students to think more critically about how sound (in all forms) can shape culture, place, and identity and, more important, offers a lens through which to look at other disciplines­­a lens that is largely overlooked in our image­dominant culture and curriculum. 4. Engagement in compelling experimentation in teaching. The core of the new music curriculum embraces the spirit of experimentation. The integration of composition and sound studies and the connections between music and other disciplines are major departures from the conservatory model of music education. From the student perspective, ensembles that are not built on conductor­performer hierarchies allow supported experimentation that mirrors the curricular emphasis on student agency. 5. Encouraging faculty and student collaborations around research, creative work, and curricular development. The new curriculum, supported by the faculty position described in this proposal, will continue to provide many opportunities for student­faculty collaboration within and beyond courses. Advancing the liberal arts mission of the college Our new music curriculum positions students at the cutting edge of music studies and is consciously designed to advance the liberal arts mission of Beloit College. It intentionally builds into the requirements the idea that students should be connecting the learning they are doing in the Music Department to the rest of their education at Beloit. By focusing on the intersections of musicology, ethnomusicology, sound studies, theory, composition, and performance, the new curriculum approaches the study of music in an explicitly liberal arts fashion. It directs students and faculty to make connections among music courses and other departments, courses, and experiences across campus. The new curriculum was designed to help students develop the 17
See, for instance, Bonnie Gordon’s analysis of Monticello http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2012/05/thomas_jefferson_the_sounds_of_monticello_from_patriotic_songs_
to_the_slap_of_the_whip_.html; or Tricia Rose, ​
Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1994). 16 dispositions, habits, and skills that will bring their liberal arts education to life in ways that will advance their proficiency as musicians, while simultaneously positioning them to be able to confront the complex problems of the world ethically and thoughtfully. By taking the liberal arts mission of the college as the starting point for the development of our curriculum, we build liberal arts approaches into the core of our requirements rather than superimposing them on the pre­made model of conservatory curricula. Interdisciplinarity We have already addressed the inherent interdisciplinary nature of the new position earlier in our proposal. But because we are seeking a generalist whose range of interests could vary significantly, and because our primary goal is to find someone who both complements the department’s existing faculty and excels as teacher and colleague, we are open to any area of sound studies expertise. Therefore, we are not yet able to provide promises to other departments or programs about how our new hire could contribute to or shape their curricular offerings. However, we have had productive conversations with colleagues in TDMS, creative writing, environmental studies, art, and psychology (who will be sending amicus briefs on our behalf), and these colleagues support the direction we are taking with this new position with the hope, depending on whom we hire, that substantial collaborations can take place in one or more of these areas. Supporting diversity in the curriculum, faculty, and/or student body The new music curriculum emphasizes diversity in its transformation from a department centered on Western art music to one that takes an expansive view toward sound and music. Already, anecdotal evidence suggests we are seeing a more diverse pool of majors, minors, and students in music classes. For example, by making space for popular music, musics outside the Western canon, and music technology within our course offerings and major requirements, we seem to be attracting more first­generation students and students of color­­students whose musical experiences and tastes have been shaped by genres other than classical music. The case for an ethnomusicologist’s contribution to campus diversity was obvious. The role a hire in composition/sound studies could play in supporting/enhancing diversity is less obvious but potentially very powerful. Because we are leaving genres of composition and areas of sound studies specialty open, we anticipate that we will attract a broad range of applicants. Some of those applicants may embody diversity themselves, and others may support a more diverse student body through course offerings that have traditionally appealed to students more interested in popular and vernacular traditions. But the most potentially far­reaching work a composition/sound studies faculty member could do­­whatever his or her own background­­would be to foster creative action in groups historically underrepresented in composition, music theory, and sound studies: domestic minorities and women. In addition to supporting diversity on campus, this initiative could also potentially contribute to much­needed diversity in professions that students of composition/sound studies might enter, including writing music for advertisements/film and sound engineering. Such a contribution would have a positive impact well beyond the boundaries of campus, and a demonstrated commitment to supporting 17 diverse students is one of our stated requirements for the position. Proposed Advertisement Beloit College seeks an excellent teacher and productive scholar to fill a tenure­track position at the rank of Assistant ​
or Associate Professor of Composition/Sound Studies beginning in August 20​
16. This faculty member will help the department further develop the college’s music program into one that embraces the spirit of the liberal arts. The successful candidate will hold a Ph.D. in music (composition, sound studies, performance studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, or related fields) and be able to offer introductory courses in composition, sound studies, and music theory, as well as upper­level topical/thematic courses in her or his area of specialty. While we seek a scholar­practitioner whose work is recognized and outstanding, we are less concerned with genre (tonal, post­tonal, electronic, jazz, popular, musicals, etc.) than we are with teaching interests, openness to collaboration, and most important, the ability to foster both musical creativity and critical thinking in our students.​
Therefore, candidates must be able to teach discussion­based classes and create and lead an ensemble that complements existing offerings. We are especially interested in candidates with secondary backgrounds, including (but not limited to) music technology, film studies, cognitive science, disabilities studies, or music therapy. Ability and enthusiasm for interdisciplinarity in teaching are vital, as is a demonstrated commitment to supporting a diverse student body. The successful candidate will be an active and engaged teacher, will develop a scholarly program that can involve undergraduates, and will contribute to all­college work, including teaching first­year seminars and interdisciplinary courses, as well as participating in international education initiatives and campus governance. Located in a diverse community close to Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago, Beloit College is a highly selective liberal arts college of approximately 1250 students from 48 states and 40 countries. The college emphasizes excellence in teaching, learning beyond the traditional classroom, international perspectives, and collaborative research among students and faculty. Recognized as one of the Colleges that Change Lives, Beloit is committed to the educational benefits of diversity in our learning community and encourages all interested individuals meeting the criteria of the described position to apply. Inquiries may be addressed to Beth Pohl at [email protected]. Interested individuals may submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, statements of teaching and scholarly interests, and three letters of reference to [email protected] or send them to Beth Pohl, Department of Music, 700 College St., Beloit College, Beloit, WI 53511. ​
Application deadline: November 1, 2015. The search will remain open until the position is filled. AA/EEO Employer. Conclusion The Music Department is committed to helping the college achieve fiscal stability. Right now, the department is down to two tenure lines and a full­time lecturer, and with Ian ​
Nie​
’s retirement in 2018, we will have gone from five full­time faculty to two. ​
With the addition of a third tenure line in composition/sound studies, the Music Department’s staffing plan will allow it to offer a full program, including a major, minor, and classes and ensembles that serve non­majors. 18 Overall, this departmental structure represents a reduction over the last decade from five full­time faculty members to three. This reduction would have rendered the old curriculum unsustainable, but the new curriculum can be staffed by three tenured/tenure­track faculty. The music department is also firmly committed to continuing and growing our choral programs in particular, given their connection to alumni and the college’s history and traditions. We are very much open to the possibility that our new hire might lead a choral ensemble as part of her/his teaching load, but we are also exploring other possible models for this ensemble. We do not anticipate seeking a fourth tenure line unless enrollments and the college’s fortunes rise dramatically, but a third line is vital to sustain the quality and quantity of our contributions to the life of the college. Appendix A: Percentage of incoming students who indicate that during the past year, they frequently or occasionally played a musical instrument* Beloit Highly selective 4­year private non­sectarian colleges All 4­year private non­sectarian colleges 57%** 52.2% 43.4% *These numbers derive from the CIRP figures from 2009 provided by Cynthia Gray. This question was last asked in 2009, so we have nothing more up­to­date. **We can only imagine that the percentage would be even higher were singing or vocal music included in the CIRP question. 19