Tag: OMEA

I am now in my seventh year as a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma, and this past week, I was able to break away from the daily grind of academia to engage with the music community in a celebratory fashion at the yearly OMEA conference in Tulsa, OK. Working the OU booth is always a pleasure. I enjoy meeting music educators from across the state, catching up with alumni, and discussing OU’s graduate music education programs (MME and Ph.D.) with potential students.  I’m always recruiting! 🙂

At the Thursday night awards ceremony, I had a chance to hear Dr. Glenn Nierman, who is the Glenn Korff Chair of Music Education at the University of Nebraska. He is also President of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Music Education (ISME). Dr. Nierman told us how the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) can positively impact the state of music education. I know many of us have strong opinions on this issue, and I look forward to hearing about them in future blogs. Generally speaking, I am quite optimistic.

For me, the highlight of the conference was watching Mr. Chris Barber, one of our Ph.D. candidates, being named the 2015-16 Exemplary Music Educator by the Oklahoma Music Educators Association. Chris invited me to sit at the front of hall with his friends and family during the ceremony.  To say the least, I was honored by the invitation.  Mr. Barber has been a member of the music faculty at Owasso High School since 1996. The Owasso band program has a long history of excellence, including numerous appearances at the Bands of America Grand Nationals in Indianapolis, in which the PRIDE of Owasso was a Semi-finalist in 2001, 2002, and 2009. The band reached the finals in 2005 (12th) and 2011 (7th). These are just a few of the many great accomplishments in which Chris has been professionally involved.  For more details, I suggest you visit the following link http://owassobands.com/owassobands/about.html. I look forward to working with Mr. Barber as he completes his dissertation, which is titled, The Creation and Validation of a Multi-Dimensional Rating Scale for High School Instrumental Honor Band Auditions. I advise my colleagues across the nation to keep an eye on Chris Barber.  He’s going places!

I give thanks to the OMEA leadership for their successful efforts in Tulsa. I am already looking forward to next year.