Missing Piece: Music Excluded at AUP
The American University of Paris chartered as a liberal arts college in 1962, fails to deliver a full liberal arts experience to its students in 2020.
Students at the American University of Paris (AUP) yearn for a more comprehensive liberal arts education since the school’s resources have proved insufficient in their pursuit of ‘the arts. Even in 2020, there are no courses given on the topic of music — a crucial subject in the liberal arts repertoire. What AUP needs is a professor to push for the arts and encourage the administration to increase their resource allocation to this discipline.
Music as a Liberal Art
The American University of Paris is one of the oldest American institutions of higher education in Europe. Today, AUP follows the liberal arts model of curriculum that most universities uphold in the United States. A model that has a nearly two-thousand-year history dating to Latin writers of late antiquity. It was an essential element to Greek and Roman study known as the seven liberal arts: Grammar, Logic, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Today, however, these disciplines have splintered off into countless academic fields, and ‘liberal arts’ have become a way for higher education facilities to cross-teach students across a broad spectrum of academia and give students an opportunity for self-exploration.
Music — as one of the traditional liberal art forms — has a presence at universities all around the world. The baffling exception seems to be AUP. The university evidently lacks the physical space that would allow it to have a full music department or major. However, it is questionable as to why AUP does not have any elective courses related to music to complement their offered majors. AUP already hosts a thriving art history and fine arts department with various courses in the visual arts including painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, film, photography, etc. So why is the study of music entirely foregone?
History of Music at AUP
For some time, AUP did have music courses available to its students. Due to the alleged incompetence of a former professor, however, these courses were taken out of the curriculum. No efforts have been made to replace the professor and reintroduce music courses. Most at AUP believe that is the case due to a lack of student interest and involvement in music. This unfounded notion, however, is far from the truth.
Do Students Even Care?
In a journalism course at AUP, 80% of students responded that they would be interested in taking music courses if it were an option. Students of varying majors and interests believe that music courses would be fascinating and beneficial across academic fields.
Journalism student Kiera Roddy says, “I think a lot of people would love taking music classes as an elective.” Student Jacob Shropshire majoring in International Comparative Politics and Journalism says, “if there was a minor available that would be something I’d take advantage of.”
There is no doubt that music holds importance across various fields of study. As such, many students believe that there are specific courses that would further their primary academic ambitions. For example, Marketing and Journalism student Valeriia Serova says “I think it would be easy to add a course in Music Marketing.”
Several majors would benefit from the addition of courses about music in their curriculum. For example, “music production” could be added for film majors, “music history” for history and philosophy majors, “physics of music” for mathematics and science majors, “music journalism” for journalism majors, and even the course that was previously offered “Cultures of Music Production” for communications majors.
There is no doubt that there is a demand for the arts at AUP. Associate professor of fine arts Jonathan Shimony teaches painting, pre-architecture, and drawing at AUP. He says, “our classes are just about always full.” As a fine arts Professor, Shimony witnesses firsthand the enthusiasm from students to pursue the arts, saying he “would imagine there would be similar interest in music.”
Students believe that the fine arts and Jonathan Shimony’s classes have been so helpful and successful because they were able to learn skills in the arts even if they had no basic training before attending university. Students believe that this is a necessary opportunity in the field of music as well.
“Extra-curriculars are not enough to encourage the arts” says Global Communications major Sarah Salama.
Students need to have the proper instructors and tools so that they can learn about music and can pursue it outside of the classroom. Jeffrey Hanrahan says, “[…] instruction is going to help open your eyes to it [music]and the college environment is also a great place to do it, because you do it with your peers, get feedback, and positive reinforcement.”
As of now “when you want to take music at AUP, you have to find another school and transfer the credits” says Shimony. When asked why, Shimony said, “I would love to change that, lots of people at AUP would love to change that.” However, the truth of the matter is that there are only a select few that have the power to do so.
Shimony explained that the professors in the Art History and Fine Arts department at AUP have been asking the administration for years for better conditions for the visual arts.
“Im a visual artist, and I have been pushing really hard to make the conditions for the students in my department better. The studio we had was miserable, we were packed in there like sardines. We had people teaching great stuff, in miserable conditions. So, thank god the administrators listened to us and are giving us something that we desperately need” says Professor Shimony.
Because of professors like Shimony, AUP’s President Celeste Schenck finally found the money and resources to meet the faculty’s and student’s requests.
Rue Monttessuy Center for the Arts
The result was the restoration of one of AUP’s buildings on Rue Monttessuy so that it could be transformed into a center for the arts. Although it has been named the center of the arts, in reality, the building is a center for art history and visual arts. A video on AUP’s website only promotes the building concerning visual arts. According to both Professor Shimony and President Celeste Schenck, the only thing in the renovated Monttessuy building for music is a tiny stage.
Presidents Response
To say the least, visual arts at AUP are lucky. They have a department full of professors advocating for better conditions. However, music at AUP has not been so lucky. There is currently no music faculty or staff at AUP and no one advocating on its behalf.
What is the Next Step?
After an interview with the President, it’s clear that for music to exist at AUP the Provost, William Fisher, alongside the faculty must decide that music would be beneficial to various departments curriculum. Although the President has expressed that she is supportive of music finding its place at AUP she says,
“I defer to the provost and the faculty on this issue of music.”
The only way for a professor to come in and teach music would be to get through the Provost. “He is the ultimate decider on what courses get taught and what hires get made” says President Schenck. However, the first step must come from the existing faculty.
“Obviously there would have to be a demand coming from faculty who create those majors, who create the learning objects, who structure those majors, and those [professors] would go to the provost ordinarily and the provost would work with those departments to see whether that was their first priority in hiring” says, President Schenck.
It seems that the students and the President are interested in having music courses at AUP. However, the power lies in the hands of the Provost and existing professors. Interviews have been arranged with Provost William Fisher and department chairs to hear their opinions on the matter and the future of the arts at AUP.
