BTAA 2021 Faculty Panel

Undergraduate Oracles: Equipping students to guide the future of music education

Stephen Fairbanks, Jeananne Nichols, and Bridget Sweet | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The past eighteen months have unequivocally amplified the imperative for societal, ecological, governmental, and humanitarian change. Correspondingly, we have used the pandemic-moment to equip undergraduate music education students with tools for enlisting their skills toward real change. In this presentation, we showcase a radically-reimagined “ensemble methods” course which empowers students to lead out in addressing the issues of our times.

Conservative, Liberal, and Capitalist Ethics: Confronting the Culture Wars

Lauren Kapalka Richerme | Indiana University

In recent months, many states have proposed and passed legislation banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory-related materials. This philosophical presentation considers how music educators’ inattention to conservative ethics and promotion of key capitalist values may contribute to the current culture wars. Ongoing experimentations within an Instrumental Methods course that engage with these issues will be discussed.

20/20 Vision and Vision 2020: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Ryan Shaw | Michigan State University

In this talk, I discuss whether the field of music education met its vision for what children should learn in school music classrooms. More broadly, though, I interrogate what shapes a collective vision. I ask if it’s possible—and helpful—to write a vision statement on a national scope, and I muse about whose vision is presented.