The State of the Society
John Buccheri
Nearly everybody was standing. The scene was CMS's forty-fourth Annual Meeting held in Santa Fe in November. I had asked all those who occupied an official position in the Society during the past year to rise and receive acknowledgment for their contributions. This included Board members, committee and task force chairs and members, directors of summer workshops and institutes, editors, regional chapter officers, and members of the CMS office staff.
These loyal citizens, as so many have in the past, give the Society its character and direction through their continuing efforts and creative energy. They are the best evidence we have for an enduring positive outlook toward our Society and its future in this second year of the 21st century. Their individual efforts put meat on the bones of the strong Organizational structure that helps our music profession promote its values through a wide range of activities. Some carry out critical ongoing work in areas of publication, advocacy, professional development, and technology—while others lead efforts to wrestle with some of the serious challenges facing music in higher education through our task forces on non-tenure track faculty, on music faculty in the community colleges, on music administration, on the implications of digital audio technology, and the professional life initiative.
While my optimism rests on this energetic and dedicated membership, there are additional specific indications of the health of our Society that lead me to suggest that CMS is emerging as the premier professional society for musicians in higher education. Here are five of them:
- We are beginning to recognize clearly our responsibilities as global citizens and musicians, and to develop ways of becoming an international organization. You may have noticed that we are now calling our headquarters in Missoula the Executive rather than the National Office, and our yearly meeting the Annual rather than the National meeting.
- We have arguably the best computer infrastructure of any academic professional music society, both in terms of its offerings to members and to its outreach capabilities. This has expanded our services and allowed members to customize the way they receive information from the Society. And our Executive office is continuing to find ways to tailor the society's benefits to individual member's needs.
- Our ten regional chapters continue to build their programs and to encourage students and part-time faculty to participate more fully in the Society's activities.
- We are becoming more visible outside of the music profession as we ally ourselves with organizations that espouse parallel missions, particularly the American Association for Higher Education and the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. We have a lot to gain from these collaborations, and we have much to offer the academic community at large in return.
- As final evidence of our strength, at year's end our membership reached 8,109—the largest in the Society's history.
I hope you will agree that we are at the threshold of realizing many of our potentials. As members, please allow yourselves to think boldly about the future of music in the academy and the evolving refinement of music teaching and learning. This is not a time to be timid. I encourage all of you to spread the word about our meetings and the wonderful summer events held each year, and to convey to your colleagues a sense of the vitality, stimulation, fulfillment, and camaraderie that is the College Music Society. For we have the technical and human infrastructure, the creativity, the energy and leading-edge thinking to take our place as the premier professional society for musicians in higher education.
As we begin the new year, I want to thank you all for the privilege of serving as your President. The office provides a unique perspective on the wonderful work done by the Society's members, and I expect mine will continue to be a joy-filled labor with many rewards.
On behalf of the Society, I would like to express special thanks to our outgoing officers: Dale Olsen; Immediate Past President; Barbara Bennett, Vice President; Board Members Terry Miller (Ethnomusicology and World Music), Pamela Poulin (Music Theory), and Gail Woldu (Musicology); and Janet Sturman, Chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee, along with her committee provided such a rich and engaging experience in Santa Fe. The absence of these officers from the "front lines" is compensated by knowing that they will continue as faithful contributing members of the Society.
