Update on Conservatory Presi dential Initiative Goals

CONSERVATORY

September 30, 2022 Established 1874 Volume 152, Number 4

Update on Conservatory Presidential Initiative Goals

Walter Thomas-Patterson Conservatory Editor

Sept. 9 marked the two-year anniversary of the Conservatory’s 2020 action plan, “Towards a More Equitable and Diverse Conservatory Education: Statement from Oberlin Conservatory Faculty.” The plan was a Conservatory-specific extension of the 2020 Presidential Initiative. This document was made in consultation with students, alumni, and student groups, particularly the Oberlin Conservatory Black Musician’s Guild.

The report was divided into eight sections: curriculum and pedagogy; programming, repertoire, and performance; admissions and auditions; personnel; climate; community engagement; student success; and advisory council. Over the coming weeks, through a series of in-depth articles, the Review will examine how the Conservatory has addressed its targets through a series of reforms over the past couple of years. This article will examine how the Conservatory has addressed two of these areas: curriculum and pedagogy and admissions and auditions.

Curriculum and Pedagogy

The focus of the Curriculum and Pedagogy section was on restructuring a set of nine classes taught over four semesters for first and second-year students that served as the core curriculum required of all Conservatory students regardless of their major. An institution-wide curriculum review was initiated in 2019 as part of the One Oberlin plan, so the work was already in progress when this report was released.

The four-semester music theory sequence has undergone the most noticeable restructuring since the release of the plan. Students no longer need to take a linear path through the four-semester track that encompassed Western harmony and analysis in every class. That sequence has been shortened to two required classes, and from there, second-year students choose from a slate of 200-level courses, some of which deviate from a Western music focus. This semester, courses offered at this 200 level include Questioning Genius, Jazz Theory II; and Scales, Sets, Series, and Spectra.

While students could previously test out of one or more core music theory courses, all students now must take Music Theory I and II during their first two semesters.

The form and structure of these two core music theory classes have also been changed. Previous iterations of the class included learning goals such as “compose short exercises in the style of 16th- and 18th-century composers” and “develop and apply a vocabulary for describing diatonic harmony with Roman numerals.” These kinds of classical-centric approaches are now accompanied by topics including jazz and pop notation, atonality, and blues and jazz tonal forms.

“By letting go of four-part voice-leading, we’ve made space to do so many other things,” Associate Professor and Division Director of Music Theory Jan Miyake said. “I like voice-leading, but that’s not all of what music theory really is.”

Within this greater restructuring, the Music Theory department has also added an introductory course, MUTH 120: Introduction to Music Theory, a course that is geared toward incoming students who need to strengthen their music vocabulary and other fundamental skills before tackling upper-level classes.

For Professor of Music Theory Brian Alegant, who is currently teaching MUTH 120, the structure of the class is unlike anything he has encountered before.

“It’s as diverse as I can make it – we started with Hildegard von Bingen; have explored classical, romantic, contemporary, pop, metal, and jazz; and will devote a ton of time to contemporary music after break,” Alegant wrote in an email to the Review. “This is a wide lens.”

Although the four semesters of aural skills courses were also considered for restructuring, their forms have remained mostly unchanged. Miyake, who served as one of the chief architects for the restructuring of the Music Theory division, explained how the decision was made to preserve most of the aural skills curriculum.

“We’ve actually found less urgency in aural skills to change,” Miyake said. “It’s very dependent on five-line staff notation, and I’m not sure how, or if, it would be right to get away from that. It’s pretty much the only class that forces students to engage deeply with five-line staff notation.”

Reforms also targeted the musicology side of the Conservatory and specifically focused on making the entry-level class, Music History 101, a less central part of the curriculum. The report made two important points: eliminate MHST 101 as a prerequisite for all Music History courses and revise the title and course description to better capture its course content.

Currently, only some of these changes appear to have been realized. While MHST 101 has been eliminated as a course requirement for 200-level music courses, certain departments still include MHST 101 as a required class. Furthermore, the current course description for MHST 101 remains identical to its Spring 2019 iteration, and its formal title remains unchanged.

Outside of the core classes, an overarching effort was made by the entire Conservatory faculty to include works from historically underrepresented communities in their curriculum. From 2020 – 2022, a series of workshops was held to assist faculty in bringing this new curriculum into the classroom. The Oberlin Library developed digital guides, which compiled databases highlighting music by historically underrepresented groups, including women composers and composers of color.

Admissions and Auditions

The report found that on-campus visits for auditions strongly correlate with eventual attendance among prospective students. Therefore, to help mitigate the costs of traveling to Oberlin for an audition, an Audition Travel Fund was established for prospective students to help them make the trip to Oberlin. The upcoming application cycle will mark the first time these grants will be distributed.

The report also focused on modifying the repertoire that students were expected to use for the first round of auditions before they were invited to the final round. The action plan called on departments to either strongly encourage or require students who were auditioning to perform music from underrepresented groups. This directive was aimed at the classical divisions of the Conservatory — keyboard (piano and organ) and orchestral instruments, where music from underrepresented composers exists but has long been repressed.

Currently, all classical performance divisions outside of Historical Performance either include audition repertoire by composers from underrepresented groups or have statements on their web pages that encourage prospective students to apply with music from “Blacks or other underrepresented composers.” However, most areas of study still do not require students to audition with music from underrepresented composers.

The lack of a requirement among all departments for students to audition with music from underrepresented groups does fall short of demands made by Conservatory alumni in a September 2020 Letter to the Editor, where they called that music from an underrepresented group be included as “a requirement of one piece regarding this criteria.”

According to Conservatory Associate Dean for Academic Support Chris Jenkins, who serves as the Conservatory liaison to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, efforts to address the concerns of students and alumni are still unfolding.

“Satisfying the demands of students can be difficult because the timeframe for the change they want to see often extends beyond their graduation date,” Jenkins wrote in an email to the Review. “It’s important for students to understand that a lot of the work behind the scenes isn’t simply making decisions and executing but has to do with creating the conditions necessary for change. Even when students have amazing ideas that are theoretically possible for us to execute, there has to be an alignment of will, funding, personnel, and opportunity, and it can take more than four years to get to the right point.”

What is Oberlin Conservatory’s OA4 Mentorship Program?

Ginger Deppman

The Oberlin Alumni Association of African Ancestry, also known as OA4, is a branch of the Alumni Association founded to establish and maintain a relationship between African American alumni and current students of Oberlin College and Conservatory. The OA4 and Oberlin Conservatory launched a mentorship program this academic year to provide participants with guidance from Oberlin alumni. Presidential Initiative charge that President Carmen Twillie Ambar announced Aug. 28, 2020. In the Presidential Initiative on Racial Equity and Diversity document published May 2022, the goal of the OA4 Mentorship Program is described as follows:

“To more effectively support students during their time at Oberlin and as they prepare to launch into careers post-graduation, the Conservatory will launch a new student-alumni mentorship program in 2022. Developed and run in partnership with the Oberlin Alumni Association of African Ancestry (OA4), this program will pair OA4 mentors with mentees who are Conservatory students who identify as being of African ancestry and/or students who are committed to supporting and advancing the study of Black music.”

Every alum mentor is expected to provide social, emotional, and career support for their mentee over the course of at least four meetings per semester, either in person or over Zoom. The connection established through this program between each student and their alum mentor works to potentially open up valuable professional opportunities and performance engagements for students.

Andrea Nguyen

Sports Editor

Zoe Kuzbari

Contributing Sports Editor

Third-year Leander Herman is a dual-sport athlete on both the lacrosse and football teams who still finds time to participate in ultimate Frisbee on campus. A Computer Science major, he loves playing board games, spending time with friends, and playing ice hockey.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you start playing lacrosse and football?

I started playing lacrosse in probably fifth grade. I went through a lot of sports in my life, but I stuck with lacrosse. People always used to ask me if I played football or basketball because of my height though. You know, maybe that’s what got me to play football now — all the years of people just asking me if I did. I joined the team two weeks ago. I’d been thinking about it since the end of last year and was waiting to talk to the coach. I had never played before, but I have the build for it and I thought it would be fun to try a new sport. It keeps me organized too.

Why did you choose Oberlin to play lacrosse?

I chose Oberlin to play lacrosse because after visiting all the schools I planned to apply for, Oberlin seemed to fit what I wanted academically, and the team had the best community feeling compared to other schools’ teams. I felt that I would be part of a great community right when I got to school.

Are your positions in lacrosse and football different?

Sort of. In football I’m a lineman. Initially I was an offensive lineman, which is a lot like defense in lacrosse. I have recently moved to the defensive line in football, which is a lot like my position in lacrosse as the attacker. So I’d say now it’s a lot more similar because in lacrosse, I’m running at the goal trying to get by a defender, and as a defensive lineman, I’m trying to block a path or get to the quarterback. It’s a similar thing though, and I’m essentially just trying to run through people.

In what ways do the two sports differ?

Lacrosse is a very fast-paced game; you’re always going back and forth offensive- and defensive-wise. With football, there are breaks between each play. There’s always some time to plan the game out, and it’s meticulous planning; there’s a lot of specific plays you have to know. When the coach calls something out, you have to know what he’s talking about. But in lacrosse, we have more of a general flow on how you’re supposed to play. We have certain plays in lacrosse, but usually it’s more in the moment.

Do you play any other sports for fun or do anything else on campus?

I try to play some ultimate Frisbee here and there. I never really played before college, but I had a lot of family members who played, and I always tossed with them when I was young. The team here practices at the same time as lacrosse so it’s not easy, but I enjoy playing it. And I like playing ice hockey as well; I played ice hockey for almost the same amount of time that I played lacrosse. But it’s hard to do other things with two sports.

Third-year Leander Herman was recruited for lacrosse and is a walk-on for football. Courtesy of Maggie Balderstone

Was the football team welcoming when you first joined? How was it similar to when you joined lacrosse?

The football team was very welcoming. Once I joined it, I felt like I was instantly part of the team. It felt a lot like freshman year with lacrosse — how I already had a group of friends that I could do things and socialize with, even under many COVID-19 restrictions which made it hard to meet new people. Both teams are hardworking but are always fun to be around.

Federer Retires After Doubles Match in Laver Cup

Continued from page 16

Images of Federer and Nadal after their match have gone viral for the amount of emotion each friend displayed. It was anticipated that everyone would be emotionally affected and for Federer to be in tears, but Nadal crying and holding hands with Federer on the bench was unexpected.

“We can coexist in a tough rivalry and come out on top and show that, hey, again it’s just tennis,” Federer said in the postgame interview. “Yes, it’s hard, and it’s brutal sometimes, but it’s always fair. And you can come out on the other side and still have this great, friendly rivalry.”

Federer’s last match was the second time he and Nadal had partnered together in the Laver Cup, a unique tournament on the professional calendar. In this team-focused event, the top European players band together as Team Europe to take on the best of the rest, Team World. Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe, two Americans competing for Team World, saved a match point and prevailed over the European pair 4–6, 7–6 (2), 11–9 in a two-hour battle. Despite his final match ending in defeat, Federer was not disappointed by the outcome.

“It does feel like a celebration to me,” he said. “I wanted to feel like this at the end, and it’s exactly what I hoped for.”

Tennis has always been an individual-focused sport with few opportunities for team involvement. The Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup competitions, in which male and female tennis players play for their individual countries, were tennis’s primary team events for years. Although these two events are still important, the Laver Cup has become the most anticipated team event of the year. Along with being incredibly entertaining for tennis fans, the Laver Cup has reduced the perception that top players around the world are not friendly and harmonious with one another.

Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic have shared nearly every accolade in this generation of tennis, and many of their matches have occured on opposite sides of the net in prestigious singles competitions. The Laver Cup united these three legends on Team Europe, where they are no longer rivals but allies. Fans have seen players on both teams cheering loudly in support of their teammates. The Laver Cup has successfully brought a team dynamic to tennis and has put healthy and competitive behavior on display for fans to witness.

Many athletes are forced to retire due to contracts or injury. Although Federer’s final comeback was stopped short due to his recurring knee injury, he was still able to retire on his own terms. Surrounded by friends and family, Federer’s last match contained everything an athlete could want in their farewell to their sport.

“The way it all happened yesterday, I think it’s the perfect way to say goodbye,” Djokovic said to reporters the day after Federer’s match.

Roger Federer is an exemplary sportsman: graceful, sensitive, strong, and compassionate. His rivalry with Rafael Nadal is one for the history books, in both records and respect. He has left an indelible mark on tennis and his legacy will last forever. Thank you for everything, Roger, and enjoy your retirement.