[CAUT] NASM Standards

[Scott Thile]

Hello All,

The NASM reaccredidation process can be a great opportunity for your
music department. We went through the process recently, and had
excellent results. It was a huge advantage for me to be proactive in
this process. 

I had the opportunity to help our chair conduct the evaluation team's
initial tour of our facilities. They arrived on a Sunday evening and we
spent a couple of hours with them on the initial tour. The tour included
my shop with a D in the rebuilding process. They seemed to really enjoy
that. 

As a result of the NASM reaccredidation process and attentive follow up
by our Chair and Dean we received funding for badly needed replacements
for our Keyboard lab (16 CLP 115s and 2 CVP 201s), 10 new P-22s, and a
commitment to funding additional grand rebuild projects on an ongoing
basis. Not to mention additional support and commitment on a couple of
critical positions, more scholarship dollars, and additional equipment
and maintenance funding.

And the best part for me.... I think because the evaluation team was
apparently impressed with the importance of my position and mentioned
this directly to our Dean, I received a large merit raise each of the
last two years, and also have some relief from extra duties so I can
concentrate on piano priorities.

And to think I was about to develop a bad attitude and complain when I
had to come in on Sunday evening for the tour, and spend a bunch of time
preparing reports and getting things into shape! Yikes! Sure glad I
pulled it together.... 

In terms of making the most of this process: be prepared, offer to help,
have a good attitude and include a good description of your position in
the self evaluation report and any follow ups. Be sure to document any
inventory or budget needs from your perspective. I also casually handed
an outline of some of this information to the evaluation team at the end
of our tour ;)

Chairs and Deans know that reaccredidation is a prime opportunity to
move critical funding requests up in priority with upper administrators
and those holding the check books. 

A stressful time, to be sure, but also very productive.

Have a good summer,
Scott

Scott E. Thile
Piano-Instrument Tech
---------------------
mailto:scott.thile@murraystate.edu
Department of Music
Murray State University, Murray, KY
http://campus.murraystate.edu/staff/scott.thile/index.html