November 20, 2020
By Sylvia Sherman, CMC Program Director
Last month, CMC made 29 grants to faculty members to support their equipment and technology needs for online teaching. CMC faculty have been amazingly resilient and learned how to cater their teaching to distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic, however some teachers have experienced difficulties related to their equipment and technology access. For this reason, CMC sought support to fund faculty needs. Happily, with support from the MOCA Foundation, CMC was able to develop the Faculty Technology Grants program. CMC faculty identified their greatest needs– ranging from new laptops, to better cameras and microphones, to software applications to support teaching.
“Thank you! This will be a big help for my teaching and music creation in today’s new age.” Larry Dunn, guitar and songwriting teacher – (Grant supported technology to create video tutorials for students.)
Equipment purchased with these grants will support the music education of CMC students. Improvements include, cameras to better see the hands of piano teachers, upgrading and/or replacing ailing laptops and operating systems, supporting the recording of video tutorials and playback loops, and software to make collaborative digital recordings with group classes.
“I am double-delighted to hear this news. Thank you. It’s a great feeling to get so much support. I hope my CMC teaching career outlives many more laptops!” Jono Kornfeld, piano, music theory, and guitar teacher (Grant supported a new laptop to keep up with needs of online teaching.)
The CMC faculty technology grant is the fourth grant made to faculty since shelter-in-place began. Earlier this year, CMC awarded 57 faculty with creative stimulus grants to support their creative process during the pandemic. Seven faculty partnership grants were made to support collaboration between faculty to enrich their work at CMC and four faculty Shenson grants are being made to support faculty digital performances in Winter/Spring 2021. CMC grants recognize the enormous efforts faculty members have made to provide high-quality musical education to their students. This support aims to provide CMC faculty with the tools needed for them to be inspired and effective during these difficult times.
“Hello, gosh, this is wonderful news!! Much appreciation of you all and this organization.” Beth Wilmurt, Children’s Chorus, Older Adult Choirs, and voice teacher (Grant supported an electric keyboard to use for accompaniment.)