Con meets Dean Dodson

The Conservatory Faculty met for the first time this week to kick off the year

The Conservatory Faculty met for the first time this year in a meeting led by new Dean of the Conservatory Robert Dodson. Dodson began the meeting by describing some of his goals for the year, such as increasing interaction between the college and the Conservatory.

Associate Dean and Director of Career Development Laura Kuennen-Poper introduced new assistant of Career Development Tamara Cissane. Kuennen-Poper discussed various ways to connect students to Career Services, including an on-line database with information about music competitions, music festivals, master classes, graduate assistantships in music and young opera artist programs.

She also announced that Dr. Don Green, a doctor who works with performance enhancement, has agreed to teach a Winter Term course in performance enhancement. Green has taught performance enhancement to Olympic athletes and also teaches a graduate course at the Juilliard School of Music.

Director of Conservatory Admissions Mike Manderen spoke about the incoming class. Out of 1,156 applicants, 169 students were accepted. The number of applicants this year went up six percent from last year's number. Manderen reacted enthusiastically to this since it reflects an increased interest in Oberlin's Conservatory. He also discussed some projects that the admissions office is working on to bring in more students. One project is an application that allows applicants to apply to eight different conservatories in one application.

Director of Public Programs and Campus Events Jane Mathison announced the Illuminate weekend of Nov. 5 and 6, which will kick off the New Oberlin Century campaign. Around 10,000 alumni were invited to kick off the campaign over the weekend, 400-500 of whomare expected to come.

The guests will commence the weekend on Friday night with a gala dinner and a performance by the Oberlin orchestra. On Saturday there will be a daylong "New Oberlin Century Symposium." The weekend will end with the groundbreaking of the new science center.

In the meeting, Dodson also initiated a discussion around changing the terminology of the Dean's Talent Award. According to Dodson, the word "talent" in the title of the award is troublesome because it may give the impression, depending on how the word "talent" is understood, that the award is not based on hard work. Later in the week, The Conservatory Dean's Award was chosen as the new title for the award.