Innovation as a collaborative act
From left to right: On Oct. 1-4, 2025, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Margaret Berg, Assistant Dean for Strategic Initiatives Kate Cimino, Dean John Davis and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies Matthew Roeder welcomed participants of the National Association of Music Executives at State Universities (NAMESU) Annual Meeting to our campus and the brand new Limelight Boulder.
Greetings “from the road” where I’ve been engaged in two accreditation site reviews for the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)—at institutions in Mississippi and New York—as well as a trio of October conferences: From hosting the National Association of Music Executives at State Universities (NAMESU) Annual Meeting right here on our campus and at the new Limelight hotel to the 61st Annual Conference of the International Council for Arts Deans (ICfAD) in Santa Fe, New Mexico to the College Music Society (CMS) National Conference in Spokane, Washington this week where I’ll be interacting with other deans and senior arts administrators engaged in public service and mentoring. Everywhere I go, I enjoy representing the unique achievements, aspirations and opportunities of our College of Music; along the way, I’ve been struck by the supportive camaraderie and timely shared learnings among my counterparts.
As noted by American theatre and opera director Anne Bogart, “We have been discouraged to think that innovation can be a collaborative act” and yet it’s exactly that—a collaborative act—that’s at the heart of institutions like ours.
It’s a collaborate act to not only innovate our curriculum in accordance with our universal musician approach—most recently including the launch of our songwriting degree emphasis, a new master’s degree in performance and pedagogy and the addition of a strings emphasis within our jazz studies degree programs; but also to sustain a healthy environment in which our students and faculty can advance their artistic integrity and imagination, and push back against ongoing pressures and pervasive feelings of despair—for example, when the Evergreen High School Cougar Pride Marching Band joined our Golden Buffalo Marching Band for a halftime performance on Oct. 11, marking a significant moment of healing for a community still recovering from a school shooting in September; and when our University Choir takes the spotlight at the National Collegiate Choral Organization Biennial Conference at Cal State Fullerton College on Nov. 7, among just 10 choirs selected to perform via a nationwide competitive application process.
These days, we’re constantly buffeted by events. In the 24/7 news cycle, it’s all too easy to catastrophize, to lose proportion. In response, among arts leaders nationally, I’m finding a palpable purpose to meet the moment with intentionality, resulting in more opportunities for energetic engagement based on shared values.
At ICfAD, I participated in several facilitated discussions including Building Coalitions Across Campus, Creating Cultural Buy-In, and Strategies for Leading and Building a Team; as well as a riveting presentation—Common Characteristics of the Most Successful Fundraising Deans by James M. Langley, a prolific author and successful pioneer of fundraising strategies in higher education. The result? My own deepening dedication to the college’s focus areas—offering relevant, adaptable curriculum and student opportunities; enhancing faculty and staff success; and sustaining a community of wellness and resilience—as well as refining, right-sizing or even shifting college priorities to ignite greater immediate impacts as well as future possibilities for our students.
In short, my notes from a month of travel on behalf of our college—where I’m enthusiastic about my second term as dean—reflect that we’re not alone in taking a fresh look at everything we do to ensure student, staff and faculty flourishing within a resilient community, no matter the external pressures on (and often misdirected passions against) universities, generally.
Through radical resourcefulness, and with your programmatic and scholarship support, I’m eager to redirect adversity into advocacy, and conflict into collaborative acts that elevate music making as a basic human right: A right that serves and sustains the human experience, that draws us together when words fail, that offers an inclusive place of refuge and that uplifts expression of the beauty within all of us.