<p>OTOH, most of the applied music teachers at the NYC conservatories are adjunct. They teach at several schools. Sometimes a preferred professor will “have room” for a student at one conservatory, but not at the other. The teachers’ loads are determined by who requests them, and if there are not enough requests, the teachers may be removed from the faculty. The professors/teachers who have administrative responsibilities are more likely to have a full time appointment. </p>
<p>musicprnt: some of the older faculty achieved their tenure and rank before legislators and system presidents laid down edicts about degree requirements. Administrators can control the standards of the faculty by having further requirements for being on the graduate faculty. If a teacher is not accepted onto and/or does not maintain graduate faculty standing, they are not allowed to teach graduate students or serve on graduate committees, even if they are full professors. There are intricacies specific to each school, state, system.</p>
<p>Lorelei-</p>
<p>Differing standards? Bureacratic weirdness? I find that hard to believe <em>lol</em>…yeah, I am sure it varies with a school and maybe within it. My only problem in concept with the DMA is that given all the work it can take to get a doctorate, when teaching performance, how much ‘real world’ experience does the person have? Did that time spent in grad school getting the doctoral degree preclude them from any real performing career? And more importantly, while the might have the mechanics of music down cold, do they really understand what makes for someone to be a great all around musician and performer, and can they shape the person to be that if they themselves have never done it?</p>
<p>There is no good answer to the question, of course, but it is something I have been wondering about with what makes a great teacher and so forth. Someone with a DMA has done a lot in terms of studying with teachers and learning various methods and so forth I would gather (you can tell I am not in music myself, since I can only surmise), so it is an achievement, but the question is, does that make a great teacher? (Any more then does a great performer make for a great teacher, and the answer is not always, some are lousy teachers and some of them are so out there it seems to me, they don’t really know how they play the way they do so how can they teach it? :).</p>