Enacting Curricular Change in Music Education through Vernacular Music

Marilyn Mobley

Vice-President Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Case Western Reserve University

Dr. Marilyn Sanders Mobley is the university's inaugural vice president for the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity (OIDEO) and professor of English. Appointed to this cabinet-level position in 2009, she provides strategic leadership for the university-wide effort to develop and sustain a welcoming environment for faculty, students, staff and alumni. Her efforts have been recognized by the Commission on Economic Inclusion, DiversityInc, the Women of Color Foundation and Insight into Diversity. She is a member of the Leadership Cleveland Class of 2010 and serves as a trustee for the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cuyahoga County Public Library Foundation and Women of Hope—a non-profit devoted to assisting women seeking to re-enter their communities. She was elected in January 2013 to serve on the board of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.

Prior to her appointment at CWRU, she served as provost at Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina. Prior to her provost appointment, she was the associate provost for educational programs at George Mason University and a tenured associate professor of English, where she was also a faculty member for 19 years. Dr. Mobley founded the African American Studies program at George Mason and served as its first director for six years. She has taught at Howard University, Marygrove College and Wayne State University. She has a PhD in English from Case Western Reserve University, a master's degree in English from New York University and a bachelor's degree from Barnard College of Columbia University. She has done coursework at the Howard University School of Divinity and completed the executive leadership program in higher education at Harvard University.

‌She is a published author and Toni Morrison scholar, whose first book— Folk Roots and Mythic Wings in Sarah Orne Jewett and Toni Morrison: The Cultural Function of Narrative (LSU Press, 1991)—was one of the first cross-cultural studies on the Nobel Prize winning author. Dr. Mobley is the former president of the Toni Morrison Society and now serves as Vice Chair of its advisory board. Her teaching, research and scholarship in literary studies, cultural studies and higher education have all focused on race, gender, diversity and inclusion. She has consulted in these areas for more than 25 years, and has presented her research and scholarship at various conferences around the country and in Canada, England, Russia, Austria, Paris and Kenya.

Constance McKoy

Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Connie McKoy is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the UNCG School of Music, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate music education courses. She holds a BM in Music Education from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and MM and PhD degrees from UNCG. She has 19 years of public school teaching experience as a general music teacher, choral director, and band assistant. Her research, which has been presented nationally and internationally, has focused on children’s world music preferences, music teachers’ cross-cultural competence, and culturally responsive pedagogy in music. Her work has been published in The Journal of Research in Music Education, The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, Music Education Research, The Journal of Music Teacher Education, and the International Journal of Music Education. She has served on the editorial review committees of the NAfME publications The Music Educators Journal and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. In 2017, she participated in the Yale Symposium on Music in Schools and contributed to the resulting document, The Declaration on Equity in Music for City Students. Dr. McKoy is co-author of Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music Education: From Understanding to Application, published by Routledge. She is an active clinician for state, regional, and national music education organizations, is certified in Level III of Orff Schulwerk pedagogy and has taught recorder for Levels I-III. She is a past president of the North Carolina Music Educators Association, and is the Immediate Past Chair of the Society for Music Teacher Education, an affiliated society of the National Association for Music Education.

Sandra Stauffer

Professor of Music Education

Arizona State University

Sandra Stauffer is a professor of music education in the School of Music at Arizona State University where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. She is also associate dean for academic personnel for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. 

Stauffer's research interests include creating in music, children and music, place and place philosophy, narrative inquiry, and arts-based research. Her recent publications focus on children and adolescents as creators of their own music, and the potential of place-conscious thinking in music teaching and learning. Her work includes collaborations with various educators, organizations, and musicians, including work with composer Morton Subotnick on the development of his software programs for children. She is co-author and co-editor with Margaret Barrett (University of Queensland) of two books on narrative and music: "Narrative in Music Education: Troubling Certainty" (2009), and "Narrative Soundings: An Anthology of Narrative Inquiry in Music Education."

In addition to her work in musical creating, place, and narrative, Stauffer has authored articles on music listening, general music education, and music teacher preparation. She was a contributing author for the "Music Connection" textbook series, a primary author for the "Silver Burdett Making Music" series widely used in K-8 schools, and a contributing author for "interactive MUSIC," a powered Silver Burdett and Alfred. Her work also includes materials for orchestra education programs and other community music groups, as well as collaborations with other music software developers. A general music specialist, Stauffer is active as a guest lecturer in the U.S. and abroad, and as a clinician and consultant for music education events and curriculum projects.

Stauffer was the first Evelyn Smith Professor of Music (2003-2006) at ASU, and she currently serves as coordinator of graduate studies in music education. Prior to joining the ASU faculty, she was a faculty member and coordinator of the Music Education Division at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Sandy has taught general, choral, and instrumental music in the public schools of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Virginia. She is a graduate of West Chester University (PA) and the University of Michigan.

Michael Largey

Professor of Musicology

Largey is an ethnomusicologist and folklorist who writes about the music and culture of Haiti, specifically Haitian classical and religious music. He teaches courses in Caribbean music, South Asian music, East Asian music, ethnographic fieldwork, world music, and historical musicology. He taught previously at Columbia University in New York. He is a core faculty member in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Asian Studies Center at Michigan State.

Largey is author of Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism (University of Chicago Press, 2006), which was awarded the 2007 Alan Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology for the most distinguished book in the field of ethnomusicology. Largey is also a co-author with Peter Manuel of the third edition of Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (Temple University Press, 2016). The first edition of Caribbean Currents (co-authored by Peter Manuel and Kenneth Bilby) won the 1996 Gordon K. Lewis Memorial Award for Caribbean Scholarship from the Caribbean Studies Association and was a 1996 Choice Outstanding Academic Book.  His most recent book is Haitians in Michigan (Michigan State University Press, 2010).  

Largey received the MSU Excellence in Diversity Award for Advancing Global Competency in 2018, the Fintz Award for Teaching Excellence in the Arts and Humanities from MSU in 2012, the Dortha J. and John D. Withrow Award for Excellence in Teaching from the MSU College of Music in 2010, and the MSU Teacher-Scholar Award for outstanding teaching and research in 1998. He was also a Lilly Teaching Fellow in 1996-97 and has served several times as a mentor for colleagues in the Lilly Teaching Fellow program.

Largey received an AB in history and music at Bowdoin College (cum laude, magna cum laude in music), and MA and PhD degrees in folklore and ethnomusicology from Indiana University.