The graduate council review is far from music to the ears of the U music department.
A graduate council review submitted to the U’s Board of Trustees said that some aspects of the School of Music’s academics are lacking, but many faculty and students disagree.
A lack of rigor in the dissertation for the doctorate of music composition, a lack of coordination between the musicianship and requisite written theory courses, and a higher than average student-teacher ratio were the concerns detailed by the council.
“They misunderstood our Ph.D.,” said Miguel Chuaqui, the chairman of music composition within the School of Music. The review compared the composition dissertation to other universities and did not review in-depth its own, thus misunderstanding the rigor of the paper, Chuaqui said.
Jefferson Corn, a junior in music theory, said he disagrees with the council’s point that musicianship and requisite written theory are not well-connected, saying that they “go hand in hand.”
David Cottle, a professor of music theory, said there is a lack of communication between musicianship and written theory instructors, but only because they assume that students who take the courses simultaneously are on track and learning what they need to know in the one class to succeed in the other class.
“There have been some instances when a student will not have learned what they need to in musicianship, but this is not a huge problem, and no students have complained about it,” Cottle said. “It’s one thing we can improve on.”
The student-teacher ratio could be another misunderstanding by the council, Chuaqui said, because there are popular classes that do get crowded. The cap for most of the classes Cottle teaches is 21 students, but there are a few quirks where classes will get over-enrolled, he said.