David Willoughby
This Message is the last that I will write as CMS President; my two-year term concludes on December 31. I can think of no more appropriate "coda" than a comment on the status and the future of the Society.
The interests and commitments of the Society's leadership during the past several years have generated activities that grew out of the past yet moved the Society in new directions. I trust that the accomplishments of the Society during my term will prove to be additional blocks upon which future leadership will be able to build substantially and effectively. It is my hope that, during my term as President, the Society produced programs and activities that (1) manifested continuity yet built for the future, (2) were responsive to immediate needs in the profession yet helped to advance the thought of college music teachers, and (3) respected past and current practice yet provoked and challenged long-held assumptions.
The College Music Society in the 1980s is an organization committed to raising issues about music in higher education. It does so with the intention of stimulating dialog about important topics such as curricula, teacher preparation, music courses for non-music majors, and repertoire for music study. One facet of this that has provoked considerable interest is the matter of repertoire and culture as presented at annual meetings and at the Institute for Music in General Studies.
Annual Meetings - Dating from the 1984 Annual Meeting in Nashville, a series of presentations at annual meetings has focused on regional musics and their place in the local and national culture. The Nashville meeting included traditional folk music of the Appalachians and the southern moun¬tains; at the 1985 meeting in Vancouver, folk music of the Pacific Northwest was evident; the 1986 meeting in Miami concentrated on music of Latin America and the Caribbean; the 1987 meeting in New Orleans featured Black, Creole, and Cajun music with a strong emphasis, of course, on jazz; and the 1988 meeting in that small, quaint, multi-ethnic community of Santa Fe emphasized the musics of the Hispanics and the Native-Americans. This focus on local and regional music will continue at the 1989 meeting in St. Louis and at the 1990 meeting in Washington, D.C., meetings which I hope all readers will be able to attend.
The Standing Committees - The Committee on the Status of Minorities and the Committee on the Status of Women both have been active during my term in office. The Minority Committee, chaired by James Standifer of the University of Michigan, planned several significant sessions for the Santa Fe meeting and has begun the initial planning for the revision and publication of the 1972 Source Book of Afro and Afro-American Materials for Music Educators, published by the Contemporary Music Project and MENC.
The Women's Committee, chaired by Karin Pendle of the University of Cincinnati, has completed CMS Report No. 5, Women's Studies/Women's Status. It provides a valuable resource of useful information compiled by its three authors who devoted an untold number of hours to this project over the past several years: Nancy Reich, Adrienne Fried Block, and Barbara English Maris. CMS Report No. 5 will soon be available for purchase.
Music in General Studies - I have asked for an assessment of the status of the nine-year old Music in General Studies program and requested that Barbara Lundquist, Board Member for Music in General Studies, be responsible for leading this assessment. We will determine whether this program continues as is, is shaped into something else, or is phased out. This assessment includes the status of the Institute for Music in General Studies.
I express appreciation to Don Funes for his successes with recent Institutes. Although numbers of participants have decreased, the vitality and enthusiasms have not diminished. Because of timing and planning problems, the Executive Committee voted against holding an Institute for 1989, doing so without opposing one for 1990.
College Music and the Community - At its meeting last February, the Board directed that more information be obtained about the potential response of the profession to a consideration of the issues of college/community alliances as embodied in the proposed CMC program. The mechanism for obtaining this information was to be a national survey. This survey document has been completed and distributed. To this date, responses have been received from well over one thousand institutions. Douglass Seaton of Florida State University is in charge of preparing a report of this survey to be completed by mid-January 1989; he will be ably assisted by the Florida State University Center for Music Research, Jack Taylor, Director.
Publications - Jan Herlinger and his Editorial Board have completed Volume 28 of College Music Symposium, scheduled for release this month. Arthur Komar of the University of Cincinnati will take over these editorial duties in January 1989.
Those involved with the Bibliographies fn American Music series have been active in 1988. Volume 10—Music in American Higher Education: an Annotated Bibliography, by Edward Brookhart—was issued in June. Volumes 11 and 12 are announced this month. Additional volumes are in progress for publication in 1989.
Over 600 sets of the Columbia Records' reissue of the Black Composers Series have been sold; this impressive collection is available for purchase through CMS.
The 1988 publication—CMS Proceedings, covering the 1987 national and regional annual meetings—has been mailed to the membership. Kay Hoke of Butler University is Editor. Michael Budds of the University of Missouri at Columbia will edit the 1989 Proceedings.
Other Matters - I am delighted for Roger Foltz and Gary Wittlich—and for CMS—at the success of the first Institute for Music Theory Pedagogy Studies. It attracted over 100 participants last summer. I congratulate them and wish them well with the 1989 Institute.
CMS is fortunate at the growth in numbers and in vitality among its regional chapters. Eleven chapters will have annual meetings next spring, plus the unique activities of the European chapter.
CMS is continually striving to make the dues dollars go farther. One way will be longterm savings derived from the purchase of a substantial, newly-installed computer system with excellent desktop publishing capabilities. The Society continues to explore improvements in its "living conditions" in Boulder; it needs larger facilities to support its expanded programs.
CMS Publications, Inc. the Society's for-profit subsidiary, continues to be active, producing and selling faculty directories and mailing labels. It is a possibility that our sense of entrepreneurship needs stimulation; our abilities to develop profit-making projects are limited only by our imagination and staff time.
With the quality of the CMS leadership and the programs that the Society has been generating, it has been a wonderful time to be the CMS President. I offer my sincerest best wishes to Elliott Schwartz as he assumes his duties as the next CMS President. Finally, I express my heartfelt appreciation to all Board Members and Officers and to Robby Gunstream and his excellent staff for their valued contributions and enjoyable relationships.