FROM THE DESK OF THE DEAN

In these early weeks of the new administration in Washington, D.C., and in light of the biennial Indiana legislative session, we are closely monitoring the rapidly changing landscape and the impact on higher education. As always, we are collaborating with our university colleagues to review executive orders and other actions. Our goal is to ensure that our responses are fully compliant with legal requirements and consistently aligned with our mission, values, and priorities as an educational institution committed to nurturing the artists and scholars of tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have just returned from Southeast Asia, where I met with alumni and donors, taught at the Southeast Asian Music Leadership Initiative (SEAMLI) at Mahidol University, and met with colleagues from partner institutions around the globe at the Southeast Asian Directors of Music (SEADOM) Congress at Princess Galyani Vadhana Conservatory of Music, both in Bangkok. It was clearer to me than ever that with the shifting geopolitical situation around the globe, music has not stopped having the power to connect and inspire us and has soft power to affect enormous change within our local regions and beyond. I remain inspired to ensure that Jacobs remains a welcoming, global community for all students that develops opportunities for graduates to thrive in whatever part of the globe they inhabit. We are well positioned to continue to be a school that is a global leader in that context.

I am pleased to provide you with some updates from the Jacobs School of Music.

Admissions

We had another very strong admissions year: applications were up ~3% year over year. Of the more than 3,000 who applied, out-of-state undergraduate applications increased by 4%, while applications from Canada increased by ~10%, and applications from Mexico more than doubled. We saw declines, however, in applications from China and Taiwan, which decreased by 8% and 25%, respectively. Meanwhile, the median high school grade point average (GPA) of applicants was 3.95, up from 3.94 last year, and the average SAT score of applicants this year was 1,356, up from 1,336 last year. The deadline for deposits from graduate students is April 15, and the deadline for undergraduate student deposits is May 1. We remain hopeful that this will be another very strong class.

Executive Associate Dean Announcement

I am thrilled to announce that Brenda Brenner, professor of music (music education) has agreed to serve as the next Eugene O’Brien Bicentennial Executive Associate Dean of the Jacobs School of Music. She previously served as the executive associate dean (interim) from 2020 to 2022 and again from May 2024 until present. She specializes in string music education, teaching applied violin and courses in violin and string pedagogy.

Brenner earned a B.M. and a B.M.E. from Wichita State University and an M.M. and a D.M.A. in violin performance from the Eastman School of Music. In addition to her appointment to the Jacobs Music Education Department, she serves as codirector of the IU String Academy, a position she has held since 1993. Her String Academy students have been featured in concerts in major venues throughout the United States and have presented tours throughout Europe, Asia, and South America.

As director of the Fairview Project—a program in which every first and second grader in an underserved school is taught violin as part of the curriculum—she is researching the cognitive, academic, and social outcomes of early instrumental music instruction.

An active performer of chamber music throughout the United States, Brenner partners with pianist Kenneth Huber and her husband, organist Christopher Young. She also teaches and conducts at the IU Summer String Academy and is assistant director of the IU Retreat for Professional Violinists and Violists.

Additionally, she is an active international clinician, with recent appearances at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, American String Teachers Association National Conferences, and Music Educators Conferences throughout the United States. She is president of the American String Teachers Association.

Please join me in congratulating Brenda on her new (and finally permanent) position!

Finance

This is the time of year when we are developing projections for the next budgetary cycle and preparing to file a balanced budget for the next fiscal year. Our strategic resource management encompasses both increasing revenue and decreasing expenses. We will increase our reliance on IU Foundation accounts, launch two new degree programs projected to be revenue positive within two years, increase revenue generation from IU Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater by increasing rentals of space and assets, develop a plan to maximize online and summer tuition revenue opportunities, and scrutinize our use of the general fund for scholarship support.

All of this will be coupled with a reduction through attrition of some teaching FTE, greater cost containment for spending, and closures to some underperforming programs and centers in the years ahead. We remain vigilant in ensuring that our financial position is strong as we leverage the school’s resources to increase opportunities for those within the community to flourish in their creative and scholarly work.

Curriculum Taskforce

In accordance with the JSOM Strategic Plan, the Instructional Policy Committee has charged a subcommittee with examining all aspects of the common curriculum in Jacobs’ undergraduate degrees and making proposals for potential revision. The yearlong process is now underway and will run through the end of the fall 2025 semester. This task force is charged with addressing the philosophical and practical aspects of each question below in imagining a modern core music curriculum.

What skills do today’s music students need?
How do we meet students where they are after high school and effectively move them to where we want them to be?
What opportunities related to service learning, experiential learning, internships, and capstones will best prepare students for their future goals?
How do we incorporate flexibility in meeting existing degree requirements?
How might we incorporate microcredentials as components of the core curriculum to develop interdisciplinary opportunities?
How do we ensure students’ career opportunities and goals are being addressed both in and alongside the curriculum?

This task force is cochaired by professors Kyle Adams and Jason Bergman and contains representation from a wide variety of Jacobs instructional areas. It is charged with producing a report to the faculty that will propose pathways for curricular restructuring. We anticipate this will be a multiyear process for the school that will culminate in a more contemporary and streamlined curriculum for students in the future.

Jacobs Productions

Jacobs Productions is our new umbrella title to gather the school’s various content streams into one place. Aside from live-streamed and recorded music, these streams include interviews, videos, archival material, and compositions. To help audiences find this family of content, we will now feature Jacobs Productions.

LIVE@jacobs
The venerable IUMusicLive! has a new name and look. LIVE@jacobs will still feature all the content IUMusicLive! always has but will now highlight that it is housed and led at Jacobs.

MADE@jacobs
This title is for recordings that will be distributed through the Naxos Records partnership. Akin to a record label, MADE@jacobs will unify the name and look of music distributed through the Naxos alliance.

NEW@jacobs
A way to unify—on the web, social media, YouTube, and in print—all aspects of New Music produced at Jacobs. Whether written, recorded, or arranged here, contemporary music is an essential part of Jacobs’ work and now has a place to be featured.

VAULT@jacobs
A new title to feature the joint products made with WFIU/WTIU that include archival audio and video material.

TALK@jacobs
Conversations at or about Jacobs, including interviews, excerpts, and podcasts, TALK@jacobs tells the story of our work through the people who do it. Backstories, our interviews with guest artists, is now a part of this series.

Additional information may be found on the Jacobs Productions website.

New Steinway Piano Acquisition

We experienced a magical Philharmonic concert recently featuring our newly delivered Steinway D. The acquisition of this gorgeous new instrument for the Musical Arts Center was made possible by the vision of Georgina Joshi and Louise E. Addicott Joshi and the generosity of the Georgina Joshi Foundation. Congratulations to Yujun Cao, the winner of the Scriabin Piano Concerto Competition, who performed Scriabin’s Piano Concerto in F-Sharp Minor to mark the instrument’s debut. Communications posted a very sweet video about the piano on social media this weekend, which you can check out on our Youtube and Instagram.

Jacobs Fight Song

Last summer at the university deans’ retreat, the Jacobs School of Music was challenged to create a “fight song” as a friendly competition with the Kelley School of Business. Composed by Ari Fisher and orchestrated by Alex Tedrow , both Jacobs alumni, “Sound off the Carillon” was premiered by the Jacobs School of Music Symphonic Band conducted by Eric Smedley on February 18 in the Musical Arts Center. Jonathan Elmore, tenor, sang the premiere performance. The song was selected by a group of Jacobs leadership after a competition for current composition students and alumni held in the fall 2024 semester. You may watch the performance here.

Abra K. Bush

David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean

musdean@iu.edu

812-855-4460