Wither CMS Beyond 50?
Cynthia Crump Taggart
What an exciting time to be a member of The College Music Society! For the past two years we have been looking back and celebrating our accomplishments of the past 50 years, and they are many. But, now that the celebration has drawn to a close, it is time to look forward and define our organization for the future. What do we want CMS to stand for in the next 50 years and beyond?
CMS is the only organization that represents all music faculty members. This rich representation has enabled CMS to broaden the discussion of music in higher education beyond the teaching of individual disciplinary subjects and has allowed us to focus on the holistic education of students, both in and outside of music. “Building Bridges” sessions have been central to the last several CMS conferences. These sessions have focused on the links between the disciplines in music in higher education and how these links can be used to enhance the educational experiences of our students. Certainly, this discussion needs to continue into the future. How can we help our students to see the connections between our disciplinary silos? How can we teach our disciplines so that what we teach is integral to what our students both need and value? CMS needs to deepen this discussion and make it as rich as possible, but how?
Over the past several years, I have worked with the Pittsburgh Symphony in developing community engagement initiatives in early childhood settings. These marvelous musicians are going out into early childhood centers and are working regularly with children as young as 3 months old. Engagement in the community is a contractual obligation for these performers, and this is becoming more and more common, not only for orchestral performers but for college faculty as well. Are we preparing all of our students to be successful in engaging the community in meaningful experiences with music? Are we modeling rich engagement for our students and involving them in our engagement projects? Are we connecting engagement to our own scholarship and teaching, learning from the community members with whom we are engaging? How can we help our institutions not only require engagement but value it as important to promotion and tenure?
Over the past several years, CMS has stepped forward as an organization to move this discussion forward. Our national and regional conferences have featured engagement sessions in the community, and the philosophical and practical underpinnings of engagement have been a central focus of many of the sessions at the conferences. In addition, The CMS Fund has funded a seed-grant program for engagement initiatives of CMS members in their home communities and has endowed an award for excellence in community engagement. The first one was given to Suzanne Burton of the University of Delaware at the national meeting in Atlanta. CMS, which has already begun to examine critically the scholarship of engagement in music, is poised to move this discussion forward so that community engagement is an integral part of music in higher education. What should be the organization’s next steps?
In Atlanta at the national conference, the Career Development and Entrepreneurship Committee held an outstanding pre-conference session on entrepreneurship in music. Careers for those with music backgrounds are becoming more and more diverse and the paths toward these careers are not always traditional. How can we help our students find these pathways? How can we prepare them for the diversity of careers that is available to them? How should this diversity affect our curricular models? To quote an e-mail from Gary Beckman, our new Chair of the Committee on Career Development and Entrepreneurship, how can CMS “present entrepreneurship in an intellectual, realistic, and integrative fashion in the context of music instruction?” CMS can serve in a leadership role in articulating the role of entrepreneurship in music in higher education. What is the best pathway to pursue this endeavor?
In this President’s Message, I have posed many more questions than I have answered. These are some of the questions that are most important to me as a teacher, scholar, and President of CMS. Over the next several years, I hope to encourage CMS to grapple with these questions and act on what we learn in the process. As the only organization that represents the entire enterprise of music in higher education and beyond, CMS needs to lead the discourse. What do we, as faculty members, really care about? How can we enhance the education of our students so that they are optimally prepared when they leave us? What role can and should music faculty and students play in our communities as artistic leaders?
CMS can serve as an agent of change in higher education, but this is only possible with an engaged membership. Step forward and contribute to the discourse, whether this be in the form of attending regional and national meetings, joining a committee that is critically examining issues that you find compelling, or writing for the publications. CMS will welcome your contributions and be stronger as a result. It is only through considering the voices of all that we will come to the most meaningful conclusions. As Johnathan Sacks says in The Dignity of Difference, “Difference is the source of value… It is precisely because we are not the same…that our exchanges are non-zero-sum encounters. Because each of us has something someone else lacks, and we each lack something someone else has, we gain by interaction” (pp. 14-15). I look forward to sharing these discussions with you and to positioning CMS as an organization that serves as an agent of change through the examination of the critical issues, questions, and continuing concerns facing music in higher education and beyond.