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Greeting from the Chair

This is an exciting time for the Music Department. Our programs and enrollments are growing in quality, innovation, and quantity. We are fortunate to see a new University Center for the Arts becoming a reality with state-of-the-art facilities. Many new outstanding faculty have joined us and we are attracting highly talented and inspiring students. Our department has forged new links locally, nationally, and internationally.

One of our defining moments, the construction of the University Center for the Arts, is scheduled to be completed in fall 2008. Due to more than $12 million in private fundraising and $30 million in student support, the UCA will unify the new School of the Arts, housing all music, theatre, and dance programs as well as a visual arts museum and historical costume gallery.

I want to express my deepest gratitude in mentioning one historical moment, when music alumni Sheryn and Stewart Golden in 2004 provided a $1.5 million endowed professorship (the first ever in the College of Liberal Arts) to return our organ program to its historical significance and add new leadership with an innovative liturgical studies program.

We want to and can be the home for the best education, artistry, and research in the performing arts. We have gone through many changes, and the most critical element has been the wonderful commitment of faculty and students daring to dream towards new heights of excellence.

Michael H. Thaut
Co-Executive Director, School of the Arts
Department Chair