New Orleans-area colleges make music together in joint education

New Orleans CityBusiness, Dec 31, 2007 by Stephen Maloney

In a city world renowned for music, two universities are teaming up to ensure would-be musicians receive a quality education.

In an unprecedented move, Our Lady of Holy Cross College teachers have been conducting class at Loyola University since the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved a partnership between the schools for the 2007 fall semester.

Instead of competing for students, the partnership created a symbiotic relationship allowing Loyola music education students to earn state certification through Holy Cross to teach in kindergarten through 12th-grade schools.

Loyola eliminated its education department after Hurricane Katrina in a cost-saving measure, leaving students in a bind, said Ed McClellan, Loyola coordinator of music education.

Loyola students can still take music classes at their own school but needed help to fill in the blanks in the education portion of their degree.

"We wanted to continue the music education program here at Loyola, although there was a need to have certain classes taught by education personnel and also meeting certain qualifications from the state in order for our students to be certified by the time that they reached graduation," McClellan said.

"Our Lady of Holy Cross College has its own education department. However, they don't have a music department on their campus, so it seemed like a great opportunity to partner between their campus and ours."

A campus switch had never been done before, leaving the fate of the program with the Louisiana Department of Education, McClellan said.

Sheila Talamo, assistant superintendent for the Office of Educator Support, said BESE members were enthusiastic about the unorthodox plan and eagerly approved it.

"In my tenure in office, this is the first time that two universities have approached us for this type of arrangement, so it was innovative in its approach," Talamo said. "It makes a lot of sense and we probably could do for more collaboration and less duplicative efforts."

Twenty seniors were enrolled as Loyola music education majors at the time of the storm, McClellan said. The program has expanded to 55 students this semester.

Four Holy Cross teachers are teaching Loyola's classes, said Miles Seghers, vice president and dean of academic affairs at Holy Cross.

"Most of their courses they take as music courses, but these four courses are courses that would be traditionally taught out of Loyola's education program when Loyola had an education program," Seghers said. "It's really a pretty good deal for both schools in a very unique partnership. The students that finish the program are really graduates of Loyola and they have a degree in music education but they're certified with the state through Our Lady of Holy Cross College, so we've become the agency that is going to confer the initial certification."

While Loyola professors take care of the music portion of the degree, helping refine the talents of future teachers meant Holy Cross professors offered the same education to every teacher regardless of subject.

"We basically teach them three foundational courses," Seghers said. "There's a course called multicultural education, which is the history and philosophy of education. The second course is called human growth and development, which is an educational psychology course. And the third course is reading in a content area. All secondary students have to have at least one reading course where they learn how to help students improve their reading in various contents."

Seghers said the unusual classroom partnership will prosper in the years to come.

"This program is poised to grow and really be an asset to the community," McClellan said. "It's really an asset to New Orleans as far as bringing students and people from all across the country to our city."