Guidelines addendum/NASM

[Greg Granoff RPT]

Bdshull@aol.com wrote:

> Fred, Scott, list:
>
> A couple years ago I spent some time with my School of Music Director at the
> University of Redlands.  He is an evaluator of like schools for NASM.  He is
> certain that NASM is uninterested in this kind of data.  He says that NASM is
> after academically related information and performance, and while evaluators
> do look at the musical instruments, it is not in any detail.  The kind of
> data from the Guidelines, he felt, is not the kind of data NASM would be
> interested in.   If something stands out good or bad it might get noted, but
> I got the impression the evaluations are fairly subjective.  (major edit)

Bill, et al,
Our music department here at Humboldt just finished its 10 year interval 'self
study' in preparation for NASM accreditation. It's a long and complicated dance,
but I can say from direct experience that your remarks quoted above are correct.
The NASM evaluators look at instrument inventories as part of establishing an
overall picture of resources available to the student; they politely recieve any
information the school wants to stress regarding the condition of the fleet, and
such issues as maintenance and replacement funding.  They essentially take what
is given them in the way of such information in whatever detail is forthcoming
and make recommendations or observations depending on the impact the picture that
is presented makes on them.  In our case, for example, the generally high level
of playability of our aged fleet is something the Department is eager to
promote-- it being that we are rather small and have almost no regular
replacement budget, but yet are a bit unusual in retaining a full time tech.
Accordingly, the NASM report mentions that our well maintained pianos are a
notable asset;  however, this is because individuals in the Department stressed
this in conversation with the evaluators both as they toured the facilities as
well as more focused 'sit down' meetings.  It is certain that the attention given
the subject in the final report would not be there were it not for the push from
our end.
I hope this adds some clarity to the picture.

Greg Granoff