The State of the Society
Cynthia Crump Taggart
The year for CMS is marked by many accomplishments as well as by a continuing commitment to addressing the full implications of our new mission statement. Are we changing with the changing climate in higher education? Are we doing what we should be to address the changing needs of our membership? So, first in this address I would like to focus on the year’s accomplishments, and then I will reflect on the strategic planning process that is underway with the membership and Board.
Membership
Membership growth and development continues to be a priority for CMS, with a special focus on bringing in student members, members at the early stages of their careers, and adjuncts. This year CMS developed a presence both on Twitter and Facebook to help reach out to this part of the membership, who tend to be more technologically savvy, and to facilitate communication throughout the membership and to others who are interested in CMS. In addition, we continue to work on developing student chapters, and membership development is central in our strategic planning.
Professional Activities
In our Professional Activities this year we have been implementing some new ideas to enrich our offerings. Perhaps the most important of these ideas took the form of the Inaugural CMS Summit. Summits are designed to give CMS members an opportunity to explore and discuss in depth a topic of immediate interest with others who are vitally interested in the same topic. This exploration is informed by the most cuttingedge scholarship, because we bring in nationally recognized scholars as plenary speakers. These summits will position the Society to serve in a leadership capacity and, as appropriate, to identify partners with which to tackle some of the most pressing concerns surrounding music in higher education. Our first CMS Summit focused on infusing entrepreneurship into the music curriculum, and was held in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University in January. Special thanks to Gary Beckman, Chair of the CMS Committee on Entrepreneurship Education, and his Committee members for all of their hard work on putting together this outstanding inaugural summit. Approximately 70 persons attended, and the discussion was rich and lively.
The second CMS Summit, entitled “Community Engagement: Music Beyond Educational Institutions,” will be held January 15 and 16, 2011, on the campus of Georgia State University in Atlanta. After hearing David Myers’s Trotter lecture at our national conference this year, the need for a focus on community engagement should be crystal clear. Those attending this summit will participate in re-imagining “community engagement” as an equal partnership among all, will help articulate the differences and similarities between engagement and outreach, and will share information concerning basic, best practice approaches to engagement. In addition, participants will share curricula for teaching the necessary skills to do either engagement or outreach well. I hope that many CMS members will take advantage of this professional development opportunity, as it is through engagement that the importance of what we do will become clear to higher administrations and those in the communities in which our institutions reside. It also is through engagement that music students in higher education will develop many of the skills that they need and desire to build a meaningful career in music. Thank you Donna Emmanuel and the Committee on Community Engagement for planning this next Summit.
We should be extremely pleased at the excellent attendance at the national conference in Minneapolis in September. Thank you to Barbara Bowker, Chair of the Program Committee, and Program Committee members for developing an outstanding conference. We had approximately 550 attendees, making it one of the best attended CMS conferences ever, which is particularly impressive in light of declining travel budgets at most of our institutions. At this conference, we explored new presentation formats such as the lightening talks, which were a tremendous success. The Expo also was an experiment and grew out of the results of the survey of the membership. It was clear that the membership did not know the wide range of activities and professional development initiatives offered by CMS, so the Expo was a way of making the richness of CMS more visible to the membership. We continue to plan far in advance for each conference. Next year our National conference will be held in Richmond, followed by San Diego (2012), Boston (2013), and probably St. Louis (2014).
In July 2011, CMS will be holding an international conference in South Korea. This conference is already taking shape and is being chaired by John Robison. It promises to be an outstanding conference that is rich in cultural excursions, and I hope that many of you will have the opportunity to attend and present. Our publications, which are another important part of our professional activities, have made significant strides this year as well. Mary Ann Rees’s History of CMS, which was undertaken in honor of CMS’s 50th anniversary celebration is complete and available, as is the first monograph of the Cultural Expression Series, Oscar Macchioni’s Tango in American Piano Music. Symposium, our research journal, had declared a moratorium on submissions so that they could catch up on publications and complete the anniversary issues. However, the moratorium has been lifted, so please submit work for consideration. Symposium is now available on JSTOR, which will enhance the visibility of the publication. Publications are also under review as part of our strategic planning process, so there will be some significant changes in what is offered in terms of publications and how they are offered over the next several years.
Career Services
Career Services is one of the most active and important branches of the Society. In August the Committee on Careers within the Academy announced a new on-line, career mentoring program. The program matches individuals desiring professional advice with experienced CMS colleagues who will review materials and provide guidance. Within the first weekend after announcing the program, Terry Lynn Hudson, Chair of the Committee, received 45 requests for mentoring. Clearly this program is addressing an important need of the membership. Congratulations, Terry Lynn and committee members for making this available.
Engagement and Outreach
Engagement and Outreach continues to be one of great importance to the Society. This year Laurence Kaptain and his Committee on Higher Education produced podcasts that address topics of interest to the field of music in higher education. The podcasts feature interviews with special guests on topics of current interest to all teaching music in higher education. I encourage members to explore them on the CMS website. Initiatives such as these podcasts help to position CMS as a leader in higher education, and they provide information that can help to transform the profession.
We were fortunate again this year to offer seed grant awards, the Gunstream Award in Music, and the Yamaha In- Residence Fellowships to further the engagement efforts of the membership. The Society is grateful to Yamaha/Steinberg for their support of this fellowship program.
The CMS Fund and 50th Anniversary Campaign
The Anniversary Campaign, CMS Beyond Fifty, chaired by David Woods, continues, and is well on its way to meeting the $100,000 goal with a year left in the campaign. The Fund is currently conducting some strategic analysis to determine how to best continue to serve the Society after the campaign is complete. Just this week the CMS Technology Endowment Award was fully funded, so that award should be given for the first time next year at the national conference in Richmond. Congratulations to David Williams for his work in accomplishing this important goal.
Governance
This year the Board has been extremely active and has focused most of its energies on the strategic planning process that was initiated last year. As a part of this process, the Board surveyed the membership in January so that the voices of the membership would be a central informant to the strategic planning process. I was extremely excited by the response from the membership, which was thoughtful and prolific. In fact, a higher percentage of the membership participated in the survey than usually participates in CMS elections. Using the results of the survey as a guide, the Board articulated five primary goals for our strategic plan. I will share with you these goals so that you know what our foci will be over the next several years. Our first goal is to promote more effectively CMS resources, professional opportunities, and high-quality programming to all members. In reading the results of the survey, it became clear to the Board that the Society is not being effective in communicating CMS resources to the membership, and this needs to change so that members can take full advantage of what CMS has to offer. As a result of the survey results, initial steps are already being taken to improve communication with membership. The CMS website currently is being redesigned so that it is more transparent, and our Twitter and Facebook presence will help to this end.
The second goal is to expand membership. Some of the work toward this goal will be focused specifically on engaging faculty members in the early stages of their careers, on adjuncts, and on students, as they are the future of the Society and the profession. As a part of achieving this goal, the Society needs to make sure that it is relevant to all members so that the membership grows and is energized.
The third goal is to promote communication and collaboration that results in excellence in scholarship, creativity and pedagogy across disciplines. Many members identified the inter/trans/multidisciplinary nature of the Society as the strength at the core of the organization. It is what distinguishes CMS from a myriad of other disciplinary organizations and is what lies at the heart of the society. CMS provides its members with opportunities to talk across silos and enrich their research and teaching by engaging with others outside of their immediate scholarly orbit. This strength needs to continue to be nurtured by the Society so that it results in rich, high quality scholarship that can be disseminated through publication and presentation to CMS members and throughout higher education.
The fourth goal is for CMS to provide leadership on current issues facing music in higher education. When members were asked to prioritize how the Society should spend its resources, they resoundingly identified the need for CMS to serve as a leader and advocate for music in higher education. This is not surprising in this financial climate, when music programs and faculty members are in peril due to budget cuts. CMS can serve as a voice that articulates the role of music in higher education, both as a primary discipline and as an enrichment for the general population. Yet, this theme in the survey responses was linked to the need for CMS to help music programs and music faculty make their curricula more educationally relevant to students and to society as a whole. Unless what we do is relevant, it is difficult to defend.
The fifth and final goal was for CMS to support and enhance operations and the use of technologies. CMS needs to identify new ways in which to expand and reinvigorate our revenue streams. Innovative uses of technology have been an essential component of the Society’s fiscal health. We need to identify and create new technology-based resources for our members and the profession that are valuable and generate income for the Society.
The Board has articulated strategies for accomplishing these five goals and is currently in the process of articulating and prioritizing action plans. Please communicate with me or any member of the Board if you have ideas that you would like to share.
New Organizational Structure
An outgrowth of the strategic planning process has been the Board’s rethinking of parts of the CMS organizational structure. In reading the membership surveys, it became clear that the CMS membership was not aware fully of the organizational structure of the Society. As a result, the Board has clarified this structure so that it is more logical, it eliminates “mission creep” between the committees, and CMS members can identify the parts of the Society with which they most want to engage. I briefly am going to share with you now the structure of the society, highlighting the changes that were made. At the national level, CMS has four primary areas of activity, all of which are overseen by the Board of Directors, which is the primary governing body of the Society. The first of these areas is Professional Activities, which includes publications and conferences. This area remained the same structurally, although there will be operational changes as a result of the strategic planning process.
The Career Development Initiative, which constitutes the second area of activity, functions to help CMS members develop strategies to enable them to have successful careers. This Initiative is the area of CMS that has undergone the most extensive reorganization by the Board, and what I describe next will not be fully operational until January 1, 2011. Five committees will function under this umbrella. The Academic Careers Committee will focus its work on strategies for developing successful careers as a music faculty member and communicating these strategies with the membership. The Academic Leadership and Administration Committee will focus its work on developing and communicating strategies for those who wish to pursue leadership positions in higher education, including those within administration. The Careers Outside the Academy Committee will focus on strategies to prepare CMS members for successful careers in music outside of higher education. This will be supported by the work of the Music Entrepreneurship Education Committee, which organized and hosted the first CMS Summit. This Committee focuses on how higher education can prepare students to be more entrepreneurial by infusing entrepreneurship education within higher education music curricula. And, the Academic Citizenship Committee, which is the final committee within this area, seeks to “explore what it means for musicians to be part of the higher education community and to identify and articulate the responsibilities that academic citizenship holds” (CMS Handbook). Because mentoring is context dependant, the Mentoring Committee will be subsumed within the structures of the Committees that focus on careers inside and outside of the academy.
The third area of activity is Engagement and Outreach, and this area was “tweaked” organizationally. The role of the Engagement and Outreach Initiative is to engage with constituencies beyond CMS. In terms of changes, the Board is exploring the formation of a new committee that would reach out to performing arts organizations outside of higher education and K-12 educational institutions. The fourth area of activity, Information Services, will remain the same structurally. Finally, beginning in January, two advisory councils will inform the work of CMS across all areas of activity. These are the Student Advisory Council and the Cultural Inclusion Council, both of which currently exist as committees. The Student Advisory Council will be charged with making sure that students’ perspectives permeate the work of the Society, and the Cultural Inclusion Advisory Council will be charged with promoting the inclusion of the Society’s diverse membership in all areas of its work.
These structural changes will enhance the work of the Society as a result of making its organization more logical and transparent to its membership and to others who wish to interact with us professionally.
The structure of the Board itself is changing. Beginning in January 2012, the Board will add a member-at-large position. This member-at-large will represent those CMS constituencies such as music business and industry, technology, administration, music therapy, and others that are not currently represented on the Board, giving voice on the Board to a larger portion of the membership.
Expressions of Gratitude
There are many individuals who deserve our heartfelt thanks for their work over the past year and longer. There are four retiring Board Members who have served the organization extremely well. I feel fortunate to have had these persons on the Board during my entire time as President. They are extremely thoughtful, creative, and a true pleasure to have as colleagues. Matthew Shaftel is completing his term as Music Theory Board Member, and in January, Claire Boge will be stepping in to that role. Janet Sturman is completing her term as Board Member for Ethnomusicology, and Carol Babiracki will begin her term in January. Todd Sullivan is completing his term as Musicology Board Member, and John Koegel will begin his term in January. Max Lifchitz is completing his term as Vice President, and Bill Everett will be beginning his term in that role in January. And, in January, David Williams will be stepping in as President, and I will be moving into the role of Immediate Past President. The Society will be in excellent hands with David at the helm, and I look forward to working with him in our new roles.
It has been a tremendous honor for me to serve this organization and its membership as President. CMS, obviously, is near and dear to my heart and has played an important role in my own professional development. It has been a joy to give back to an organization that has done so much for me. I firmly believe that CMS can do things that no other organization can because it is situated across disciplinary lines. This enables, and in fact requires, the Society to look at issues that are more systemic in nature and to take action that is more holistic and richer than that of the disciplinary organizations. I hope that CMS will never lose sight of what only it can do and will continue to work toward addressing the largest issues facing music in higher education.
Finally, I would be remiss without giving thanks to Robby Gunstream, CMS Executive Director, and all of the staff in the national office. Every single staff member is outstanding and fulfills his or her responsibilities with commitment, creativity, and passion. We are fortunate to have them supporting our efforts in Missoula.
And, thanks to you, members of the Society. The CMS membership is vital and engaged, and I hope that it continues to be even more so as we finish discussing and begin to implement our strategic plan.