Graduation Year
2022
Graduation Month
May
Document Type
Professional Paper
Degree Name
Bachelor of Music
School or Department
Music
Major
Music
Faculty Mentor Department
Music
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Holly Riley
Keywords
student advocacy, budget cuts, music, music school, school of music, music building
Subject Categories
Art Education | Arts and Humanities | Educational Administration and Supervision | Educational Leadership | Higher Education | Higher Education Administration | Music | Other Music
Abstract
Increasing instability in higher education funding (Thomas, 2021) has directly impacted the University of Montana music program but has also indirectly changed the role of music students to such an extent that I now often say, “every artist is an advocate.” In 2018, the University of Montana School of Music experienced significant threats from budget cuts, and in the years following, attempts to earn legislative funding for capital development failed. Faced with these budget cuts and other lack of funding, music students had to advocate for themselves and employ community and institutional support to maintain the strength of their program. Due to this heightened organizing and advocacy from music students, proposed budget cuts were significantly reduced, and some authority funding was still received from our legislature. In this paper, I describe how I leaned into policy and grassroots organizing of music students as a student body Senator and the Student Music Union President to advocate for these efforts, and I evaluate how these efforts highlight future challenges for music students and their advocacy. I use autoethnographic research methods (Ellis, 2011) to reflect on these events and to highlight how the personal impacts of these events motivated my research on common themes surrounding music advocacy. The project demonstrates both the bounds and capabilities of student advocacy while indicating themes of financial instability across music schools, lending to the concept that "every artist is an advocate".
Honors College Research Project
Yes
GLI Capstone Project
no
Recommended Citation
Durnell, Noah R B, "Every Artist is an Advocate: An autoethnographic analysis of how higher education imposes artist advocacy" (2022). Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts. 374.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/utpp/374
Included in
Art Education Commons, Educational Leadership Commons, Higher Education Commons, Higher Education Administration Commons, Other Music Commons
© Copyright 2022 Noah R B Durnell