music WHAT?!

so...martin told me i have to make my post today really good, because apparently it will be "getting a lot of traffic." that's a lot of pressure...i'll see what i can do.

i'm back in the real world now--back on campus, that is. and it is certainly straight back into the swing of things. i just got back from a meeting with my statistics professor.

i got a phone call from my sister in haifa. unfortunately i was meeting with my professor so she had to leave a voicemail. nevertheless, it has been months since i've heard her voice, so it was really nice to hear from her. love you, rox!

in other news, my university is in a bit of a pinch. there is a budget gap of $8.2 million for the 2006 fiscal year. now i ask you: how does the university with the highest tuition in the country (with the tuition rising each year) have that big of a budget gap? well, one reason is that they are using the tuition of the current students to pay for a new building on campus which will be called square 54. the best part is--square 54 will be everything EXCEPT academic! it will be for residence, commercial use, and food places.


ok ok, so what does a budget gap have to do with me? well, when the university has such a large gap, they have to cut the budgets of different departments all across the university. the columbian college of arts and sciences (CCAS) has to make $700,000 worth of cuts to its academic departments. here's where it gets touchy: the music department is being targeted.

starting next year, students without a "close affiliation" to the music department will not be able to take studio music lessons. so the university is basically saying, "i'm sorry, but you haven't studied music before, and a university is not the place to study something you have never studied before." (ok, maybe that's a bit extreme, but as a music major this is a touchy subject for me). this won't affect me directly since i am "closely affiliated" with the music department, but i feel a loss for any future students who might not have the opportunity to study music here.


now i ask you--and please feel free to post comments in response--is music not an integral part of a liberal arts education? if a university is going to offer music at all, shouldn't it offer lessons at the introductory level? it's as if i had come into university interested in taking an introductory sociology course. if, "i'm sorry, but you can't take sociology because you've never studied it before," was the response i received, i would seriously think twice about the motives of my university. some of the upperclassmen music majors i've been collaborating with have told me that if they had come in their first year and had to take some sort of exam in order to take a music lesson, they wouldn't have passed it and they would not currently be music majors. is this not distressing to all of you???


the university still hasn't announced exactly how much the budget for the music department will be cut, but we already know that it will be more than any other individual academic department.


the students staged a rally last wednesday. we assembled in front rice hall, the administrative building, bearing instruments. we played for over three hours, and approximately 60 people showed up to join in. we made a lot of noise (literally and figuritively)...so let's just hope we made some effect.

martin, was this good enough?

also...i'm not sure how, but rox and ruha found my blog independently. any guesses, anyone?