Con faculty meet

About 50 singing students welcomed Dean of the Conservatory Karen Wolff to the first Conservatory faculty meeting of the academic year with a happy birthday wish.

At the meeting, new faculty members were introduced and Wolff reported on recent student success, naming a number of recent graduates who have landed jobs with various orchestras around the country.

After new employees were announced, Wolff briefly mentioned a continuing need for a career advisor for the Conservatory.

She also said the Conservatory has decided to continue with the Masters degree program, but she said there is a "long cycle of examination before we are there."

David Bower, circulation coordinator of the Conservatory library, reported that he would advise the General Faculty committee on the Conservatory budget and have a follow-up on last year's long-range planning.

Wolff said the long-range planning was interesting last year. She said they are planning for more multimedia arts in the future. "We need to open the doors of the creative process for all of our students," Wolff said.

"We need to develop that creative urge that got them into the arts in the first place," she said.

One faculty member proposed requiring all students to publicly perform a work they had written in order to further their creativity.

Wolff mentioned a strongly emerging interest of students in the music of India and Japan. "I think the interest is always there," Roderic Knight, professor of ethnomusicology, said.

Wolff said there is an Indian music ExCo currently available that is alleviating stress but that it was time to "open the doors a little bit in our thinking."

Wolff then spoke about the tenure track and non-continuing faculty searches that are going to begin because a number of professors are retiring or taking leaves of absence.

She also spoke about the possibility of hiring a clinical teacher who could lessen the stresses on Aural Skills 100 and Music Theory 120 classes.

Two proposals were put forward concerning the concerto competition because of "small managerial problems in the last couple years," according to Wolff.

One of the proposals dealt with whether a student could receive a particular award more than once, and the other proposal would make it possible for students with AP credits that put them over class limit for a particular award to still be considered for the award.