Centennial Events
MENC: The National Association for Music Education Centennial Celebration
June 25-28, 2007
Orlando, FL
A Centennial Declaration -- June 26, 2007
MENC Centennial Congress: Meeting the Goals of Music Education
Featured Speakers
Mike Huckabee, Former Governor of Arkansas
Anne L. Bryant, National School Boards Association Executive Director
Don Ester, Ball State University School of Music
Donald A. Hodges, Music Research Institute, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Samuel Hope, National Association of Schools of Music
Paul D. Houston, American Association of School Administrators Executive Director
Joe Lamond, NAMM, the International Music Products Association
Paul Lehman, University of Michigan
Michael Mark, Towson University
Bennett Reimer, Northwestern University
Brenda Lilienthal Welburn, National Association of State Boards of Education Executive Director
View the Program (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)
At the Centennial Congress, June 25-26 in Orlando, Florida, the leadership of MENC: The National Association for Music Education met and interacted with other stakeholders in education to discuss two key issues:
- Our shared goals for music education. For decades, the broad education community has been in agreement with the music education community on the importance of music education for every child in America. We need to review and renew this agreement in light of current trends in education and society
- Why, in light of our longstanding agreement on goals, music education is not yet universal. Even without strong, exact data on the status of music education programs around the nation, it seems clear that some large percentage of American children—estimates hover around half of the total population—do not receive a credible music education.
Presentations were made by leaders from the music education policy, research, and professional development areas; and by leaders from the fields of school administration, state boards of education, and school board associations. Information was sought from a variety of other sources representing the broadest reaches of education, and participants had a chance to help in formulating an answer to the key question that the Congress hopes to answer:
- What conditions must be met if we are to reach our shared goals for music education?
MENC: The National Association for Music Education will use the answers developed at the Congress as a foundation for the Association’s ongoing Strategic Planning Process. In addition, MENC hopes to use the results of the Congress to influence grass-roots advocacy, other organizations, and decision-makers to take actions calculated to meet music education goals in the foreseeable future. Thus, the outcomes of the Congress will have a real impact on the future of music education in America. And that means that the Congress will have a real impact on the lives of future American citizens.
Report from Orlando: MENC’s Centennial Congress and Celebration By Rosalind C. Fehr (adapted from October 2007 Teaching Music)
The music educators who make up the MENC membership as well as the association leadership are accustomed to taking introspective looks at the profession. From the initial meeting of music supervisors in 1907 in Keokuk, Iowa, which led to the formation of MENC, MENC members have periodically considered and examined the profession. Key ideas and turning points can be traced through events and documents that include the Statement of Belief and Purpose (1947), the Tanglewood Symposium of 1967, the 1994 National Standards for Music Education, the “Vision 2020” Housewright Declaration of 1999, and the 2007 Resolution in Recognition of Music Education. (Read these and other historical documents.)
More than two years ago, when the MENC National Executive Board began to look toward the association’s centennial in 2007, MENC leadership decided that the centennial celebration would serve a specific purpose: creating a statement that would lead to direct action.
“We wanted to provide a sense of history, a sense of celebration at this wonderful milestone,” said Janet R. Barrett, who facilitated the Centennial Congress, June 25–26 at Walt Disney World’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida. Barrett, associate professor of music education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a former MENC North Central Division President, said that equally important was a “substantive focus on music education that led to including experts inside and outside music education to help move MENC closer to realizing its goal of high-quality music education for all.”
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| Former North Central Division President Janet R. Barrett facilitated the Centennial Congress in June. | Music education historian Michael Mark helped provide context at the Centennial Congress |
The Centennial Congress posed a basic question: if everyone agrees that the goal of high-quality music education for all children makes, sense going forward, what needs to happen for that to become a reality?
“We wanted to include other partners who are as dedicated to that idea as we are,” Barrett said. “We realize we can’t make progress, we can’t have wide influence, unless we forge strong alliances with others who believe as strongly as we do in the concept of quality music education for all children.”
So, speakers at the Centennial Congress included representatives of the realms of school boards, school administrations, state boards of education, research, the music industry, and higher education. Panelists and speakers were: Anne L. Bryant, National School Boards Association; Don Ester, Ball State University School of Music; Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor; Donald A. Hodges, Music Research Institute, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Samuel Hope, National Association of Schools of Music; Paul D. Houston, American Association of School Administrators; Joe Lamond, NAMM–International Music Products Association, and Brenda Welburn, National Association of State Boards of Education.
Esteemed music educators Paul Lehman (University of Michigan), Michael Mark (Towson University), and Bennett Reimer (Northwestern University) also addressed the Congress. All three are members of the Music Educators Hall of Fame. Reimer is a well-known expert on music education philosophy, while Lehman is a former MENC President (1984–1986). Mark is a renowned music education historian. All have written numerous books in the field of music education.
With those special talents in mind, Barrett said, the three were given an additional task. They were asked to sit in on discussions of the issues raised in small breakout groups over two days. Congress members met in the smaller groups so they could respond to the ideas presented in the larger plenary sessions.
After gathering information from each breakout session, Barrett, Reimer, Lehman and Mark gathered to talk and to reach a consensus on the Centennial Declaration, which was issued June 26.
As the declaration states: “In this centennial year of 2007, we reaffirm our longstanding ideals in a challenging context that calls for directed action in curriculum, assessment, research, teacher education, advocacy, and building alliances.” All of which, Barrett says, will strengthen music education for future generations.
Music education philosopher Bennett Reimer (left) and former MENC president Paul Lehman added their expertise to the process of crafting the MENC Centennial Declaration. They also addressed the Centennial Congress in Orlando.
MENC Executive Director John Mahlmann, NAMM President Joe Lamond, and keynote speaker Mike Huckabee at MENC's Centennial Celebration.
Past and present members of MENC's National Executive Board, led by President Lynn Brinckmeyer, sing happy 100th birthday to MENC.
Keokuk II: The MENC Centennial History Symposium
May 31-June 2, 2007
Keokuk, IA
This symposium commemorated the founding of MENC: The National Association for Music Education in Keokuk, Iowa in 1907. (Read the official program.)
Sponsors for the Keokuk II Symposium:
MENC: The National Association for Music Education
City of Keokuk
The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance
Arizona State University School of Music
Hal Leonard Corporation
University of MIssissippi Department of Music
Back to Keokuk to Celebrate MENC's Beginnings - by Rosalind C. Fehr (adapted from August 2007 Teaching Music)
Symposium attendees gather at MENC commemorative plaque, the site of the 1907 meeting. The marker in Keokuk was dedicated during the symposium.
MENC President Lynn Brinckmeyer using the official MENC gavel carved from a pew of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Keokuk, Iowa, the site of the 1907 meeting where MENC was born.
When attendees for Keokuk II: The MENC Centennial History Symposium gathered in Iowa May 31–June 2, they aimed to examine MENC’s first hundred years with a sense of history—and the sharing of music. That reverence of history led the History Special Research Interest Group (SRIG) of the Society for Research in Music Education of MENC to organize the meeting in Keokuk, a small town in southeastern Iowa where MENC was born on April 12, 1907.
The 1907 gathering brought together 104 attendees from fourteen states. The Centennial celebration in Keokuk included more than one hundred music educators, performers, and historians from twenty-six different states. In another nod to history, the United Presbyterian Church of Keokuk provided a banquet for the group, just as church members did for organizers one hundred years ago.
“After we decided to organize a meeting for Keokuk, we wanted to make it something special,” said Jere Humphreys, national chair of the History SRIG. “We all understand the importance of MENC’s Centennial.”
“Our aim was to honor MENC, so we wanted a scholarly symposium, a study of music education during that one-hundred-year period. We wanted to honor MENC as the largest arts education organization in the world,” Humphreys said.
More than twenty papers were presented, including “A Synoptic History of the Life and Works of the Music Missionary Frances Elliott Clark and Her Influence on the Music Appreciation Movement,” by John R. Dulaney of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The keynote address was “Reinventing Tradition: A Future for Historians in a Transculturally Congested World” by Barbara Finklestein of the University of Maryland in College Park. Symposium organizers invited historians to discuss general history as well as music education history.
The symposium was not all papers and presentations, as music performances played a large role as well. The Keokuk High School Choir, directed by MENC member Daniel Proctor, sang during a ceremony when a historical marker commemorating the founding of MENC was dedicated at the corner of Seventh Street and Blondeau, site of the original church.
MENC President Lynn Brinckmeyer presided at the marker dedication.
At a concert commemorating the MENC centennial, performances included a jazz band, a choral ensemble, and brass players. James T. McRaney, of Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia, led sing-along sessions during the meeting. He is immediate past president of the History SRIG.
MENC Immediate Past President David Circle, who approached Keokuk mayor David Gudgell about conducting the symposium in Keokuk, attended the symposium, as did MENC President-Elect Barbara Geer.
The symposium’s sponsors were MENC; Keokuk Area Convention and Tourist Bureau; The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance; Arizona State University School of Music; Hal Leonard Corporation; and the University of Mississippi Department of Music.
The newly dedicated historical marker.
Iowa Music Educators Association President John Aboud, MENC President Lynn Brinckmeyer, MENC President-Elect Barbara Geer, and MENC Immediate Past President David Circle attended Keokuk II.
David Circle unveils the Centennial marker.
For more information, contact:
Jere T. Humphreys
School of Music
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-0405 USA
Jere.Humphreys@asu.edu