Professor Harold Abeles
Professor Lenore Pogonowski
Professor Jeanne Goffi-Fynn – Cohort Advisor

About Teachers College

Teachers College is the world's largest, most comprehensive graduate school of education. Through its programs, faculty, and students the College is concerned with teaching, learning, and the promotion of mental and physical well-being across the life-span. The College prepares men and women for careers of professional service in schools, colleges, universities, museums, clinics, business organizations, community agencies, government bureaus and research facilities. The College also provides opportunities for continuing professional development and training in all these fields.

The Department of Arts and Humanities

The Program in Music and Music Education forms part of the Department of the Arts and Humanities. The Department consists of academic and professional specializations in philosophy, historical, cultural, critical and social studies, language studies and the arts. The Department promotes scholarly inquiry into the processes, purposes and practices of education within specialist domains and across interdisciplinary frameworks. While the separate programs of the Department maintain disciplinary integrity, they also represent modes of inquiry, discovery and creation which share a concern with the production and interpretation of societies and cultures. The Department is committed to an understanding of culture as a broad and diverse process, a constitutive human activity involving the various modes of representation and ways of thinking within which meaning is constructed and historically transmitted.

Program in Music and Music Education

The Program in Music and Music Education offers the M.A., Ed.M., Ed.D. in Music Education, and Ed.D. in College Teaching of Music degrees. The Program embraces a conception of music ranging from the traditions of western art music to the popular music of mass culture. Within this context, courses in music education examine the different environments and populations in which the various art forms reach their audiences: public and private schools, colleges, performing arts centers, and other special settings. The Program seeks to encourage flexible and informed habits of mind in students such that they can enter leadership positions in the profession. Faculty of the program are seasoned practitioners, who embrace a comprehensive range of expertise in music performance, music theory, music history and music education. They are national leaders in music education.

The five degree programs in Music and Music Education are each built around a core of courses considered central to exemplary music education. Beyond the core, students have flexibility to plan with their advisor individual programs designed to meet particular needs and goals. In addition to courses in music education, students are expected to select courses from other offerings at Teachers College and Columbia University in order to fulfill degree requirements.

Weekend institutes, colloquia, mini-courses, opportunities for involvement in professional development workshops, and summer study provide additional richness to student experiences. Suitably qualified students may also apply for apprenticeships in the Center for Arts Education Research to assist on funded projects studying the artistic development or assessment of the relationships between schools and cultural organizations. Qualified students may also apply to intern with the Creative Arts Laboratory (CAL), a professional development program that integrates and contextualizes music and the arts into the curriculum. The vast cultural resources of New York City offer students myriad opportunities to enrich their conceptions of art and its diverse practices.

Doctoral Program Overview

The Ed.D. program in Music and Music Education prepares candidates for research, administration and teaching in universities and colleges and for related work in teacher education, schools and performing arts centers. In addition to core courses within the Program, doctoral candidates take courses from other programs in the College to support the development of individual specializations. Ordinarily candidates will spend time in advancing their studio performance work and will attend seminars designed to integrate course work with respect to developing individual research interests.

The Program leading to the degree of Doctor of Education in Music Education emphasizes the acquisition and integration of a broad array of musical, intellectual and professional competencies as these contribute to educational practice, instruction, administration, research and scholarship in music education. This specialization offers opportunities to develop critical perspectives for understanding the ends, means and practices of music education across the life span and across diverse cultural environments. Students undertake advanced research on a variety of topics and are expected to carry out fieldwork in support of their commitments. Individual courses of study are planned by students with their advisors. Candidates for admission to the doctoral program are expected to have a master's degree and several years of teaching or equivalent experience, and are expected to provide evidence of a strong performance-academic background. Evidence of focus and commitment to the field of music and education are sought in a personal application statement.

Preparation for Careers

Alumni of the Program in Music and Music Education at Teachers College have found employment in many and diverse settings. Graduates assume positions in private and public schools, post-secondary institutions, performing arts centers, state and federal arts and education agencies; they work in research and consulting firms, administration, development and consulting in the public, private and international sectors. In addition, the Program has prepared students who have made distinguished careers as performers, college teachers, and researchers. The field of music education in the United States and overseas numbers many leading practitioners and writers of seminal influence whose formative backgrounds include degrees from Teachers College.

The career paths of graduates of the Program in Music and Music Education are becoming ever more eclectic and responsive to major educational trends. Teachers College offers students extensive career counseling services and the Program itself receives many requests from individuals and from organizations seeking highly qualified personnel for leadership positions. Indeed, there has evolved a natural tendency to turn to graduates of the Program in Music and Music Education at Teachers College when job opportunities arise.

The Students of the Program

The student body exemplifies a diverse mix of ages, races, background, and experience, and draws from a demographically and ethnically varied range of individuals. Most students entering the degree programs in Music Education bring with them high-level professional experience gained from work in the United States and overseas. Many students have been teachers, or school or university administrators; some students have had careers in performance, while others have worked in government, community, social service and the corporate sector. This diversity in background, experience, and expertise adds richness and range to everyone's course of study. Frequently students visit each others' homelands and often act as conduits to new career openings and jobs.
The various student service offices at Teachers College offer an array of activities, opportunities, counseling, financial aid assistance and other support systems that complement those offered by the Program in Music and Music Education itself. On-campus activities, for example, include social occasions and special events designed to augment professional interests. Off-campus activities include discount tickets and reservations for theaters, opera, concerts, dance, and other special events in the city. In addition, sports activities are available to students, staff, and faculty including use of the swimming pool, gymnasium, fitness center, and squash courts. Information about any of these activities is available through the Student Activities Office, lobby level, Thorndike Hall; Telephone: (212) 678-3406. Columbia University's Dodge Fitness Center is also available, including swimming pool, tennis and racquetball courts, weight rooms, and gymnasium.
 
Things to Consider As a New Doctoral Student

Being a graduate student involves more than completing coursework and other academic requirements. Becoming a graduate student means you:

Need to be self-directed – a pillar of adult learning

In order to be successful as a graduate student it is fundamental that one embrace one of the tenets or hallmarks of adult education – that is that one be or become increasingly self directed.  In the role of graduate student developing self-direction is not simply a goal or outcome.  Rather, self –directedness must be an accepted or welcomed predisposition – where the student can function and take primary responsibility or ownership for their own learning and development.  As a graduate student you will find that some of your most valued and significant learning will be achieved through self-defined projects, peer networking and ensuring that your time, energies and resources are well channeled.

Develop professional identity (what the profession is)

Our students come with a diversity of experience in Music and Music Education. They may practice in diverse settings.  Whatever the setting the shared concern is optimizing learning for children and adults with conscious and conscientious recognition of the implications and repercussions for constituents and their organization or the learning communities to which they belong.  Whether your interests are primarily on individual development or are on challenging the existing social order our cardinal focus is the facilitation of contextual awareness, critical reflection and collaborative learning.

Develop a support system of peers (learning community, network)
 
Our program will encourage you to develop your own cohort based either on your interests or your incoming class.  A peer group will encourage you to stay on-track with the program, certification projects, and most of all, the dissertation process.  Our most successful students have often had a peer group throughout the program and we strongly encourage this community.

Take ownership and responsibility for your program of study

Consistent with the work of Wenger, in Communities of Practice, (Cambridge Press, 1998) the program sees graduate study and student development as a process of: engaging, belonging, identifying, and practicing. Taking ownership for one’s learning is a matter of engaging with the material and with others. Once accepted as a graduate student you belong to a program and a discipline.  The vitality or meaning of this depends on your investment.  The extent to which you can identity with the discipline and its practices also affords you the ability to help shape future practice.  Finally through sharing your expertise and experiences and through participation and volunteerism in the instructional setting you will also gain leadership and reflective skills through your practice of the many techniques advocated.

College and Professional Organizations

Students may stand for election to the Teachers College Student Senate. The Student Senate works to promote the best interests of members of the student body through its engagement in college-wide decision-making, facilitating communication, and identifying problems and implementing solutions.

Beyond the College and Program organizations, students are urged to join the Music and Music Education faculty in membership in the various professional organizations in the field, such as the Music Educators National Conference and the College Music Society. As future leaders in Music Education, students are encouraged to participate in national and local conferences, symposia and meetings, and to keep abreast of contemporary research, issues and practices through reading the journals published by the professional organizations. Announcements about conferences and calls for proposals are routinely brought to student attention by faculty and through the Program bulletin boards. Information about membership is also available from faculty advisors and from the Student Activities Office.

The Faculty

As befits one of the top schools of education in the United States, Teachers College has a proud history of prestigious faculty both college-wide and in Music and Music Education specifically. Given the Program requirement to take courses from other areas within the College, students can expect to meet faculty drawn from a variety of academic and artistic fields. Included in the present faculty of Music and Music Education are five full-time professors in addition to adjunct professors of Music and Music Education. In addition, faculty from across the Department of Arts and Humanities offer courses to music education students and may serve on dissertation advisory committees. For the most part, the faculty combine teaching with research, writing and performance; faculty also serve in administrative capacities within the college and as consultants to arts agencies in the U.S. and throughout the world. Faculty members are active in the field of music education; they publish, and speak frequently at conferences, symposia and meetings nationally as well as internationally. From time to time, visiting faculty join the program while on sabbatical or to teach specific courses.

Dr. Harold Abeles, Professor of Music and Music Education, has been at Teachers College for 24 years. Prior to coming to Teachers College, he served on the faculties of the School of Music at Indiana University, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Oklahoma State University. He also served as a general and instrumental music teacher in Ashford, Connecticut, and in Prince Georges County, Maryland. At Teachers College, Professor Abeles has previously served as the Chair of the Arts in Education Department, and the Director of the Division of Instruction.

He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Music Education from the University of Connecticut and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.

Dr. Abeles has contributed more than 50 articles, chapters and books to the field of music education. The Foundations of Music Education is now in its second edition. Recent chapters by him have appeared in the Handbook of Music Psychology and the Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning. He is the founding editor of The Music Researchers Exchange, an international music research newsletter founded in 1974. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. He serves or has served on the editorial boards of several journals including the Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychomusicology, Dialogue in Instrumental Music Education, and Update.

His research has focused on a variety of topics including, the assessment of instrumental instruction, the sex-stereotyping of music instruments, the evaluation of applied music instructors, the evaluation of ensemble directors, and the verbal communication that takes place in applied lessons. He recently completed a study with Professor Judy Burton and Dr. Rob Horowitz on Learning in and Through the Arts.

Dr. Randall Everett Allsup is a graduate of Teachers College Columbia University where his 2002 dissertation, Crossing Over: Mutual Learning and Democratic Action in Instrumental Music Education was awarded “Outstanding Dissertation of the Year” by the Council on Research in Music Education.  Prior to returning to Teachers College as assistant professor, Professor Allsup was coordinator of music education and director of bands at Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY and taught courses in creativity and music education and instrumental conducting at the Chinese Culture University, Taiwan.

Randall Allsup grew up in central Illinois, outside of Kankakee, and was the first in his family to graduate from college.  A Pell grant recipient at Northwestern University, Allsup received a Bachelor of Music in saxophone performance, studying with Frederick L. Hemke.  After graduation, he continued his training with Jean-Marie Londeix at the Bordeaux Conservatory, France.  At Bordeaux, Allsup was awarded the prestigious prix d’or.

Dr. Allsup became interested in issues surrounding social justice and democracy from his work in schools in neglected neighborhoods of New York City.  First at Hayes High School in the South Bronx and then at the Our Children’s Foundation in Harlem, Allsup has written about the challenges of reconceptualizing music pedagogy. His teaching is influenced by thinkers like Maxine Greene, Paulo Freire, and John Dewey.

Articles by Allsup appear in Philosophy of Music Education Review, Music Education Research, Music Educators Journal, Bluegrass Music News, TeachingMusic, and Journal of Research in Music Education.

Dr. Lori Custodero, Associate Professor of Music and Music Education, is the Program Coordinator. She has established an Early Childhood Music concentration at Teachers College that integrates pedagogy and research through both theory and practice. Her background includes degrees in piano performance and music theory: her doctorate in music education is from the University of Southern California.

Prof. Custodero’s research has focused on children from infancy through preadolescence, and adults as musicians, teachers, and parents. She has presented and published on issues of musical challenge, engagement, and meaning in classrooms, playgrounds, and family settings; recent titles include “Singing Practices in Ten Families” and “Passing the Cultural Torch: Musical Experience and Musical Parenting of Infants” (Journal for Research in Music Education);  "Observational Indicators of Flow Experience: A Developmental Perspective of Musical Engagement in Young Children from Infancy to School Age" (Music Education Research); and "'Being With': The Resonant Legacy of Childhood's Creative Aesthetic" (Journal of Aesthetic Education).

A guest editor for a 2002 issue of the Journal of Zero to Three entitled “The Musical Lives of Babies and Families,” Prof. Custodero has served in various professional leadership roles including Co-Chair of the Music Educators National Conference's Special Research Interest Group for Early Childhood. She recently finished a 6-year term as North American representative on the International Society for Music Education’s Early Childhood Commission during which time she chaired seminars in Barcelona and Taipei. Interested in international issues of music education, she currently is involved in two projects, one involving flow experience and music teachers in Greece, and the other, a multi-national study on the spontaneous musical behaviors of young children. In addition to regular presentations at international conferences, Prof. Custodero has accepted invitations to speak in Australia, Greece, Crete, Portugal, England, Finland, and Taiwan.

In addition to the international work, Prof. Custodero has developed music programs with many local institutions in New York City, including Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, the Midori Foundation, and Columbia Head Start.

Dr. Lenore Pogonowski, Associate Professor of Music Education, is in her 23rd year at Teachers College. She is Director of the Creative Arts Laboratory (CAL) which was established at Teachers College in 1994 as a result of a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education: Fund for Innovative Education. CAL’s purpose is to provide experiential sessions in dance/movement, music, story-telling, videography and visual arts to enable students to design and enact arts experiences that facilitate development of critical and creative thinking skills in core curriculums.

Prior to coming to Teachers College, she served on the faculties of the School of Music at North Texas State University, College of Music Temple University in Philadelphia, and Western Connecticut State University. Dr. Pogonowski started her teaching career in the Greenwich Public Schools Department of Music when she was privileged by an invitation to join a federally funded curriculum project, the Manhattanville Music Curriculum Program. Curriculum development and implementation were the foci of the project and included composers, musicologists, performers, educational psychologists, and musician educators from all levels of the music educational continuum.

At Teachers College, Professor Pogonowski served as Chair of the Arts in Education Department and Coordinator of the Music Program each for seven years. She has written numerous articles and chapters on issues of teaching and learning music. She is currently working on a book with the working title Creativity and Problem Solving in Music Education.  She has served on the editorial boards of the Music Educators Journal and General Music Today. Dr. Pogonowski was national chair of the special research group in creativity for eight years. Among her teaching responsibilities are courses in musical creativity and problem solving, comprehensive musicianship, and interdisciplinary studies that relate to the Creative Arts Laboratory. Throughout her career, she has appeared as a clinician for professional development workshops nationally and abroad. She is the first person in her field to define metacognition as a dimension of musical thinking.

Dr. Jeanne Goffi-Fynn, Soprano, is active both as a performer and teacher in the New York City area.  Dr. Goffi-Fynn received her Doctorate from Columbia University, Teachers College where she was recently appointed as director of the Doctoral Cohort Program in the Program of Music and Music Education.  Her particular area of interest at Columbia is the applied music studio and she is currently investigating factors for a student-centered learning environment.  Previously, she was on the faculty of New York University, the New School Actor’s Studio M.F.A. Program, William Paterson University, and The American Musical and Dramatic Academy.  She credits the beginning of her vocal teaching career to Dr. Barbara Doscher (author of The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice) with whom she studied voice and pedagogy in at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  She continues working in the area of Vocology, specifically in the retraining of singers, after completing internships at the Grabscheid Voice Center, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City with Dr. Linda Carroll, Ph.D. and Dr. Peak Woo, M.D. and at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital with Dr. Anat Keidar, Ph.D. in the diagnosis and treatment of singing voice disorders.  She has presented workshops and masterclasses in vocal issues with NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing), The Voice Foundation, and the New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA) in addition to pedagogical presentations at CMS (College Music Society) and NYSSMA (New York State Schools of Music).

Dr. Goffi-Fynn also remains active as a performer in the New York City area.  She is most active as a recitalist, singing a variety of programs often with newly commissioned repertoire.  Operatic roles sung most recently include Marie in Daughter of the Regiment (updated version), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Olympia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann).  Concert and oratorio performances include the Cantata Singers (NYC), and Temple Emmanu-El (NYC) while performances in Europe include the Lugano Radio Orchestra (Switzerland) and the Rumanian Radio Orchestra in a tour of Northern Italy.  She has also studied and performed at the Zurich Opera Studio and with the American Institute of Musical Studies (A.I.M.S.) in Graz, Austria.

Listed below are faculty office locations and phone numbers. Office hours are determined during the first few weeks of each term. For matters of program and course advisement, it is best to schedule appointments with faculty members at least two weeks prior to the desired date of meeting.