Tennessee Musician - Vol. 67 No. 1

TM
Higher Education Chair
Eric Branscome
My name is Eric Branscome and it is an honor
and a pleasure to serve for this term as the TMEA
Higher Education Chair and I look forward to working
with you all. A special word of gratitude goes to Dr.
Barry Kraus for serving as the previous Higher Education
Chair, for his dedication to this position, and for
his leadership over the past few years.
I am the Coordinator of Music Education at
Austin Peay State University, and am beginning my 4 th
year in Tennessee. I vividly remember visiting APSU
for the first time, and my first interactions with Tennessee’s
collegiate music educators. In those first conversations
I remember being struck with the sense that
this is a time of significant transition in music education
across the state. In the few years since that initial
meeting, we have all been impacted in some way by
the implementation of the Student Growth Portfolio
Model, changes to the Praxis II Music exam, the
transition to the new Core Arts Standards, and the
Tennessee Promise. In addition, some campuses are
adjusting to new edTPA and Residency requirements
for student teachers. I am grateful to all of you as collegiate
music educators for the leadership roles you
play in implementing positive change in music education,
and for partnership with local school systems for
mutual growth through these times of transition.
Institutional Partnership
Last year, the idea of an institutional partnership
or membership was proposed as a means of
encouraging, or perhaps enabling more participation
in TMEA by non-music education university faculty
members (administrators, applied faculty, ensemble
members, etc…). Based on the unsuccessful attempts
of this model in other states, there is still some discussion
among the TMEA board regarding the logistics
of this type of proposal. More information will be
disseminated is it becomes available.
All-Collegiate Choir
This year’s all-collegiate ensemble is Choir.
We are proud to announce this year’s clinician will
be Dr. A. Jan Taylor, Director of Choral Activities at
Prairie View A&M University in Texas. She comes
highly recommended for her work as a music educator
and as a choral conductor, and we look forward
to working with her in April. The call for participation
and performance selections will be available on the
TMEA website.
Call for Mini Concerts
We will also be posting the call for chamber
ensemble participation for the mini-concerts that take
place in the exhibit hall at the annual conference.
These performances are 20 to 30-minute programs that
are available to student or faculty ensembles. More
information will be available on the TMEA website.
Annual Conference Attendance
One of Barry’s final reports included a request
to all collegiate music educators to consider the time
of year of the annual conference, and to facilitate
conversations with local schools and other personnel
about the benefits or detriments of moving the conference
to a different month. Ideally, the conference
should be scheduled at a time that is ideal for a majority
of the TMEA membership.
I would like to continue this discussion, and
begin an additional line of conversation concerning
means by which Tennessee’s universities might
endeavor to boost attendance at the annual conference,
and participation in TMEA in general. Yes, the
organization is strong and its members are active.
But there may be strategies for generating increased
participation from those who have not yet joined
or may not prioritize participation in TMEA. As an
example, seek-out funding sources to provide financial
assistance for your student teachers to attend the
24 www.tnmea.org
TM | Volume 67 number 1