Academic leadership record

Building Music Industry Studies.

A program built around the idea that students should have room to develop an artistic practice—and a real way to carry it into professional life.

Program
Music Industry Studies, Albright College
Growth
12 to 75 students in five years
Extension
Live-production learning through HU Presents

The premise

An arts program needs a life beyond the classroom.

I launched and led Music Industry Studies at Albright College as a program that treated creative work and professional preparation as connected responsibilities. Students needed more than a set of courses; they needed a way to understand the field, build relationships, and see where their own interests could lead.

The program brought curriculum, performance and production, mentorship, and industry connection into the same conversation. The result was a major that grew from 12 to 75 students in five years.

That work carried forward at Harrisburg University, where I connected academic programs to the professional work happening around the university's concert series.

Albright College

Build the program around the field.

01

Program and faculty leadership

I led the major, its curriculum, and a faculty community that included full-time and adjunct instructors. The work meant aligning creative, technical, and business learning without losing sight of the students behind the enrollment numbers.

02

Industry relationships with a purpose

Relationships with Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Publishing, ASM Global, and Live Nation gave students a clearer view of the field and brought outside expertise into the life of the program.

03

A forum for the larger conversation

I created the Music Business Forum to put students in conversation with practitioners and ideas shaping the industry. It made professional life visible without treating one career path as the only measure of a music education.

Harrisburg University

Put students where the work is happening.

At Harrisburg University, I used HU Presents—the university concert series—to connect institutional goals with the working ecology of live production.

Academic programs

Audio Engineering and UX Design

Students in Audio Engineering and UX Design, particularly those focused on Advanced Media Production, brought classroom knowledge into a live setting.

Professional partners

Venues, union, and talent buying

I worked with local venues, the local union, and our talent buyer to align the concert series with both the institution and the realities of the field.

The shared setting

HU Presents

The concert series became a place where institutional programming and hands-on learning could support one another.

Student opportunity

Work alongside professionals

Students gained opportunities to work with the professionals responsible for bringing a live event to an audience, making the standards and collaboration of the field tangible.

Why it matters

Creative education should make more possible.

For me, post-graduate outcomes are not a reason to narrow arts education. They are evidence that a program has taken students' ambitions seriously. The work is to create the conditions where students can deepen their practice, understand the worlds their work moves through, and leave with relationships and experience they can use.

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