Hey all,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m a Master of Music Teaching (MMT) student at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and I was told in class today by the department chair that they have decided to phase out the program. In 2008, Oberlin switched from music education as an undergrad major to the current format, and they’ve made the decision to end the program after the 2017-2018 class. This means that unless you are a rising college senior or a college graduate who is looking to switch from another music field like performance into music education, Oberlin is, for the foreseeable future, off the board for music education.
This is especially disappointing to me given the level of accomplishment Oberlin has achieved throughout the history of American school music. Oberlin was the first school to offer a music school teacher training program and it was also the place where the Suzuki method was first introduced to the United States in the 1950s. Of the two full-time music education faculty, one is retiring next year after my class graduates and the other is staying on, relegated to teaching elective pedagogy classes to undergrads. The three adjunct faculty for the program are going to, as far as I can tell, go back to focusing on their full-time teaching jobs at area schools and the Oberlin Community Music School.
So I suppose if you’re like me, and your goal is to major in performance as an undergrad to get the most chops possible on your instrument and then switch into music education for a master’s degree, look at schools like The Boston Conservatory, Longy School of Music, and Northwestern University Bienen School of Music.