Wennerstrom-Phillips Music Library Directorship Endowment
Leonard M. Phillips was born in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He received a degree from Hendrix College and two graduate degrees, including the Ph.D. in musicology, from the Indiana University School of Music. After two years in the US Army at the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, he taught in the music department of the University of Central Arkansas for 14 years. After returning to Bloomington, he was employed by the Indiana University Foundation for six years, where he worked with a variety of arts organizations. He was then employed as director of development and director of special programs by the School of Music, from which he retired in 1997. Leonard died in October, 2015.
Mary Wennerstrom Phillips was born in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received three degrees from Indiana University: an undergraduate one in piano and two graduate degrees, including the Ph.D., in music theory. She joined the IU faculty in 1964 as a member of the music theory department and for many years was chair of the department, teaching courses to large numbers of undergraduate and graduate students. Her publications include articles, music editions, and theory texts, particularly anthologies. In the 1990s she was editor of the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and the chair of the Committee of Examiners for the GRE Revised Music Exam. In 2002 she became the Associate Dean for Instruction in the Jacobs School of Music and continued to teach graduate music theory courses until her retirement in January 2016, after almost 52 years on the IU faculty.
Leonard and Mary have contributed to parts of the university that were important in their own education and to departments and organizations with whom they worked while employed at IU. In 1996 they established the Mary Wennerstrom Phillips and Leonard M. Phillips Endowment Fund to help maintain and enhance the IU Jacobs School of Music Library. The fund is used for books, scores, journals, sound and visual materials, and restoration and conservation of library materials. They have also established an undergraduate scholarship for a new piano student and contributed to the Music Theory Fund to help graduate students, as well as establishing an award to a doctoral student to recognize outstanding teaching in music theory.
In 2015 they established this endowment fund for the Wennerstrom-Phillips Music Library Director of the William and Gayle Cook Music Library of the Jacobs School of Music. This Directorship may be used for a salary or salary supplement for the designated holder of the Director of the William and Gayle Cook Music Library, the acquisition of new material or personnel, and other requirements of an active director that would benefit the William and Gayle Cook Music Library. The Jacobs School is forever grateful for the Phillips' generosity and support for the school, library, and students.