Department Chair: Carole Cowan, Music
First published in the March/April 2013 edition of The Bullhorn. The original publication can be found here.
Carole Cowan was destined to pursue a professional career in music, since her mother was a musician and her father frequently sang as a minister. From an early age, she studied piano, but when her mother realized there were more conservatory scholarships for violinists, she encouraged her daughter to pursue the string instrument. For two summers, Carole attended the competitive Interlochen Summer Arts Camp in Michigan, where she played in an orchestra with soloists such as the pianist Van Cliburn. She remembers being awe-struck in the middle of a Brahms symphony, experiencing the joy of playing beautiful music as part of such a good orchestra. Carole also enjoyed tutoring younger students in violin during high school.
By the time she had to decide among music conservatories for further study, she was being offered substantial scholarships wherever she applied. “I knew it would be hard to become a world-famous violin concert artist, because that would be highly competitive, and I had started a little too late. Besides, it’s a hard life. I thought I would be more successful in chamber music and orchestra positions.”
She pursued her passion for music through extensive education, earning her Bachelors in Music from Northwestern University and both her Master’s and Doctorate from the Yale School of Music. She first joined a union as a graduate student violinist in the New Haven Symphony. Harry Jensen, a friend from Northwestern and Professor Emeritus at SUNY New Paltz, informed Carole about an opening here. Although she did not take the position herself, she told a good friend, who would later become her first husband. Together they moved to the area.
Dr. Cowan assumed many roles even before her full-time position in 1990, working initially as an adjunct, a New York City freelancer, the Concertmaster of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and as a member of a string quartet with her first husband and two friends. Many years later, after receiving a tenure-track professorship at SUNY New Paltz, she also remarried and relocated to Newburgh where she and her husband started a chamber series. She has also taught at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado for thirty-five summers.
As a classically trained violinist, Carole has also pursued her jazz interest during sabbaticals and as research. “I teach classes like sight singing/ear training, piano, and keyboard harmony, and a lot of these students are in Jazz Studies. I needed to know how to teach those students, along with the classically trained.” She began teaching the daughter of a jazz faculty member, Vinnie Martucci, and then audited several of his jazz courses during a sabbatical. She continues to study jazz theory and violin and applies the interest to her courses. She finds that improvisation helps with theory and “loosens up” her students.
While Professor Cowan is primarily known as a classically-trained violinist, her early specialty was “contemporary,” moving beyond Impressionist compositions into a more minimalist and atonal style. She also plays viola and continues playing the piano to accompany her students. During graduate school, she briefly studied the cello and later taught recorder in one of her first jobs.
Despite her extensive musical education, the greatest challenge as Music Department Chair is managing the diverse concentrations and programs offered here. Even under each performance concentration (classical, contemporary and jazz), the department must cater to the different instruments each student specializes in, resulting in three times as many adjuncts as tenure-stream professors. The department will often need to hire a musician to provide instruction once a week to just one or two students.
Dr. Cowan was interim head of the graduate Music Therapy program until just recently which was established five years ago by the late Mary Boyle. As Chair there are numerous weekend responsibilities, auditions, concert series, and student reviews for the 120 undergraduate majors and 50 graduate students. Carole simply remarks, “It is complicated.”
Since this is her second three-year stint as Department Chair, Professor Cowan knows how to navigate between student and faculty needs. She holds several subcommittee meetings to engage with the different areas in her department. She frequently sends out e-mails and encourages feedback on all departmental decisions. For the many adjuncts and lecturers unable to attend meetings, she sends out minutes “so they feel involved” and informs her faculty when major issues will be discussed at meetings.
While some academic leaders fail to recognize their limits and get swamped by their work, Professor Cowan knows how to delegate tasks, such as preparing for accreditation, to willing and helpful faculty members. “I end up wearing a lot of hats, trying to hold everything together. It’s become such a huge job.” She enjoys the support from the rest of the faculty and is grateful to them for their dedication. She also is grateful to have a wonderful department secretary, Annette Weeden.
As part of her Department Chair duties, Carole heads Music department committees. In previous years, she chaired central personnel committees for reappointment, tenure, promotion and salary increase. Despite the work load, she greatly enjoyed learning what other faculty members and departments are doing.
Even though enrollments are high and growing, Professor Cowan knows that to remain successful a Music department should be invested in technology. The department has an excellent music computer lab in College Hall for composers and offers courses in recording, computer and electronic music. The department is working toward using social media to recruit students and inform the campus of concerts and other musical events. Carole also recognizes the over-dependence on computers to be a social and physical threat. As a violinist well-adapted to rigid, yet correct, posture, she feels the physically-damaging effects of sitting too long in front of a screen. When she drives home, she plugs books-on-tape into her car to avoid being bombarded with news several times over. “We’re all on information overload.”
In these difficult economic times, a nationwide decline in music and arts education significantly affects higher education and the opportunities available to different socio-economic classes. “The poorer schools don’t have many opportunities for the students, and many students don’t receive private instruction until it’s too late.” As with foreign languages, children need to begin learning to play musical instruments at a very young age. Failure to offer music instruction in primary and secondary public schools seriously disadvantages these students.
Professor Cowan notes that “there is a lot of music that people are hearing, but I don’t feel they have the opportunity to take up singing or an instrument. That’s only happening in affluent families, which is really too bad! All people should have the opportunity to enrich their lives with music.”
Dr. Cowan strongly advocates for music education through her professional and community involvement. The College Youth Symphony, which includes many undergraduates, also reaches out to community members and advanced high school students, whose instrumental ensemble programs were eliminated from their schools. Her concert series in Newburgh also exposes that urban area to a rich musical environment.
Motivating her many efforts is a deep gratitude for the opportunities her music education offered her. Ministers did not earn great wages, but her parents sacrificed to get their children musical training. . Her family had to live from paycheck to paycheck, but music expanded her horizons. “I traveled, playing in festivals all over the world. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if I wasn’t in music. I went to China, Italy, Spain, summer programs here and there. When you perform, you mingle and get to know people on the board of your organizations. In a way, it becomes a classless world.”
With her musical background, Carole Cowan finds herself generally more appreciative of the arts. She likes to visit museums during her free time and discover “things that tie together history and music, synthesize the arts and education.” She also recognizes the underlying mathematical components, not just in music theory, but those in other areas, such as symmetries in visual arts. Most importantly, music offered the gateway to appreciating arts in their entirety. She sums it all up by concluding: “I cannot compartmentalize things. I’m pretty much interested in everything.”
By the time she had to decide among music conservatories for further study, she was being offered substantial scholarships wherever she applied. “I knew it would be hard to become a world-famous violin concert artist, because that would be highly competitive, and I had started a little too late. Besides, it’s a hard life. I thought I would be more successful in chamber music and orchestra positions.”
She pursued her passion for music through extensive education, earning her Bachelors in Music from Northwestern University and both her Master’s and Doctorate from the Yale School of Music. She first joined a union as a graduate student violinist in the New Haven Symphony. Harry Jensen, a friend from Northwestern and Professor Emeritus at SUNY New Paltz, informed Carole about an opening here. Although she did not take the position herself, she told a good friend, who would later become her first husband. Together they moved to the area.
Dr. Cowan assumed many roles even before her full-time position in 1990, working initially as an adjunct, a New York City freelancer, the Concertmaster of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and as a member of a string quartet with her first husband and two friends. Many years later, after receiving a tenure-track professorship at SUNY New Paltz, she also remarried and relocated to Newburgh where she and her husband started a chamber series. She has also taught at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado for thirty-five summers.
As a classically trained violinist, Carole has also pursued her jazz interest during sabbaticals and as research. “I teach classes like sight singing/ear training, piano, and keyboard harmony, and a lot of these students are in Jazz Studies. I needed to know how to teach those students, along with the classically trained.” She began teaching the daughter of a jazz faculty member, Vinnie Martucci, and then audited several of his jazz courses during a sabbatical. She continues to study jazz theory and violin and applies the interest to her courses. She finds that improvisation helps with theory and “loosens up” her students.
While Professor Cowan is primarily known as a classically-trained violinist, her early specialty was “contemporary,” moving beyond Impressionist compositions into a more minimalist and atonal style. She also plays viola and continues playing the piano to accompany her students. During graduate school, she briefly studied the cello and later taught recorder in one of her first jobs.
Despite her extensive musical education, the greatest challenge as Music Department Chair is managing the diverse concentrations and programs offered here. Even under each performance concentration (classical, contemporary and jazz), the department must cater to the different instruments each student specializes in, resulting in three times as many adjuncts as tenure-stream professors. The department will often need to hire a musician to provide instruction once a week to just one or two students.
Dr. Cowan was interim head of the graduate Music Therapy program until just recently which was established five years ago by the late Mary Boyle. As Chair there are numerous weekend responsibilities, auditions, concert series, and student reviews for the 120 undergraduate majors and 50 graduate students. Carole simply remarks, “It is complicated.”
Since this is her second three-year stint as Department Chair, Professor Cowan knows how to navigate between student and faculty needs. She holds several subcommittee meetings to engage with the different areas in her department. She frequently sends out e-mails and encourages feedback on all departmental decisions. For the many adjuncts and lecturers unable to attend meetings, she sends out minutes “so they feel involved” and informs her faculty when major issues will be discussed at meetings.
While some academic leaders fail to recognize their limits and get swamped by their work, Professor Cowan knows how to delegate tasks, such as preparing for accreditation, to willing and helpful faculty members. “I end up wearing a lot of hats, trying to hold everything together. It’s become such a huge job.” She enjoys the support from the rest of the faculty and is grateful to them for their dedication. She also is grateful to have a wonderful department secretary, Annette Weeden.
As part of her Department Chair duties, Carole heads Music department committees. In previous years, she chaired central personnel committees for reappointment, tenure, promotion and salary increase. Despite the work load, she greatly enjoyed learning what other faculty members and departments are doing.
Even though enrollments are high and growing, Professor Cowan knows that to remain successful a Music department should be invested in technology. The department has an excellent music computer lab in College Hall for composers and offers courses in recording, computer and electronic music. The department is working toward using social media to recruit students and inform the campus of concerts and other musical events. Carole also recognizes the over-dependence on computers to be a social and physical threat. As a violinist well-adapted to rigid, yet correct, posture, she feels the physically-damaging effects of sitting too long in front of a screen. When she drives home, she plugs books-on-tape into her car to avoid being bombarded with news several times over. “We’re all on information overload.”
In these difficult economic times, a nationwide decline in music and arts education significantly affects higher education and the opportunities available to different socio-economic classes. “The poorer schools don’t have many opportunities for the students, and many students don’t receive private instruction until it’s too late.” As with foreign languages, children need to begin learning to play musical instruments at a very young age. Failure to offer music instruction in primary and secondary public schools seriously disadvantages these students.
Professor Cowan notes that “there is a lot of music that people are hearing, but I don’t feel they have the opportunity to take up singing or an instrument. That’s only happening in affluent families, which is really too bad! All people should have the opportunity to enrich their lives with music.”
Dr. Cowan strongly advocates for music education through her professional and community involvement. The College Youth Symphony, which includes many undergraduates, also reaches out to community members and advanced high school students, whose instrumental ensemble programs were eliminated from their schools. Her concert series in Newburgh also exposes that urban area to a rich musical environment.
Motivating her many efforts is a deep gratitude for the opportunities her music education offered her. Ministers did not earn great wages, but her parents sacrificed to get their children musical training. . Her family had to live from paycheck to paycheck, but music expanded her horizons. “I traveled, playing in festivals all over the world. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if I wasn’t in music. I went to China, Italy, Spain, summer programs here and there. When you perform, you mingle and get to know people on the board of your organizations. In a way, it becomes a classless world.”
With her musical background, Carole Cowan finds herself generally more appreciative of the arts. She likes to visit museums during her free time and discover “things that tie together history and music, synthesize the arts and education.” She also recognizes the underlying mathematical components, not just in music theory, but those in other areas, such as symmetries in visual arts. Most importantly, music offered the gateway to appreciating arts in their entirety. She sums it all up by concluding: “I cannot compartmentalize things. I’m pretty much interested in everything.”
