[CAUT] NASM Standards

[Porritt, David]

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I'm a little confused by this.  Do you have unqualified professors there
at Alabama?  NASM certainly won't accredit schools that have unqualified
teachers.

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dp

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David M. Porritt

dporritt@smu.edu

________________________________

From: caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of
wimblees@aol.com
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 8:31 AM
To: caut@ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] NASM Standards

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Fred, and list

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In general, what you have come up with is very good. I wonder, however,
how far we can go in getting NASM to get schools to hire piano techs
with a certain amount of  qualifications and training. In other words,
can NASM require a school to hire "qualified" professors to teach
certain courses?  If they can, then we can certainly put that statement
in. But if they are not allowed to do that, then we might be asking for
too much.=20

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If you're going to NASM, I would suggest we start with only the
statement, and leave the arguments behind, until they agree to listen to
us. If you bombast them with too much information at first, they might
not look at it at all.=20

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Just a thought

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Wim

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-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Sturm <fssturm@unm.edu>
To: College and University Technicians <caut@ptg.org>
Sent: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:27:12 -0600
Subject: Re: [CAUT] NASM Standards

   The NASM standards manual, which is in the process of being reviewed,
says the following about pianos:

I. Basic Criteria for membership
 10. The institution shall have facilities and equipment adequate to the
needs of its educational program.
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P 57
F. Facilities, Equipment, and Safety
-----
Equipment adequate for the work of the music unit shall be provided as
appropriate to the mission, goals, and objectives, and to the size and
scope of the music unit. Equipment includes grand pianos; upright
pianos; pipe and/or electronic organs; electronic instruments and
equipment; recording equipment; audio and video playback equipment for
libraries, listening rooms, and classrooms; orchestral and band
instruments; computers; supplies; and any necessary audio-visual aids.
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Facilities and equipmen! t shall be adequate to support faculty needs,
all curricular offerings and all students enrolled in them, and be
appropriately specialized for advanced work.
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Budget provisions shall be made for adequate maintenance of the physical
plant and equipment. Acoustical treatments appropriate to music
facilities shall be provided. Music units with goals and objectives that
require constant updating of equipment must demonstrate their capacity
to remain technologically current.


    Pretty slim on the piano front. But the last sentence quoted above
seemed to me to be an opening. Why couldn?t pianos have a similar
sentence or two, with a ?must? statement. So I came up with the
following:

    Pianos must be maintained at a level consistent with artistic needs,
including tuning, regulation, voicing, reconditioning, and rebuilding
and/or replacement as needed. Music units should demo! nstrate that they
have competently trained staff (whether employee or contract) to
maintain their pianos at an adequate level, and that they have in place
a plan for regular, on-going replacement and maintenance of their piano
inventory.
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    I thought we should provide a supporting argument, and take the
opportunity to communicate additional ideas, so I wrote the following
accompanying statement:

            The piano plays a vital role in virtually every music
program, and the quality and condition of pianos affects nearly all
faculty and students on a daily basis. Thus, we believe that the piano
merits specific treatment in the Standards Manual.=20
            In addition to proposing this addition to the language of
the Standards Manual, we would like to offer our assistance in the
accreditation process. For p! urposes of self-study, we would like to
suggest establishing guidelines to assist in evaluating a piano
maintenance program. A very brief but effective guided process would be
a good place to start:
1)   The unit?s lead piano technician should be consulted in the process
of preparing a report.
2)   An inventory should be prepared, listing pianos by make,
model/size, serial number/age, and use. Use should be categorized, at a
minimum, as
a.    Performance
b.    Classroom
c.    Piano faculty studio
d.    Other performance faculty studio
e.    Other faculty studio
f.     Piano major practice room
g.    Other practice room
3)   Each piano should be rated as to its condition, and as to whether
it is of appropriate size and quality for its use. Replacement,
rebuilding, and major service needs should be identified.!=20
4)   The unit should prepare a report indicating what pianos were
purchased, rebuilt, or remanufactured within the past ten years, and
should outline plans for the upcoming ten years, including budget and
source of funds.
5)   A description should be developed outlining the current on-going
maintenance program. Questions to be answered should include, at a
minimum: What is done on a regular basis to the pianos in the inventory
in addition to tuning and emergency repair? How much total time is
allocated per piano for tuning each year? How much time is allocated per
piano for additional work?
6)   The qualifications and experience of the piano technician(s) should
be described.
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      The CAUT committee of the PTG would be willing to work with NASM
in developing a program whereby a piano technician with extensive
college and university experience might form a p! art of the on-site
evaluation team, in complex situations where that seems to be warranted.
We would also volunteer to develop a process whereby we might aid in
examining the portion of the written self-evaluation dealing with
pianos, offering suggestions as to whether programs are adequate,
realistic, and how they might be improved. In general, all programs
should be able to show that they have planned for regular replacement of
instruments, for rebuilding where that is feasible and cost-effective,
and for maintaining instruments at a high performance level ?
particularly performance, piano faculty studio, and piano major practice
room instruments. And they should be staffed (whether on an employee or
contract basis) with an adequately trained technician. At a minimum, we
would recommend that any piano technician in higher education should be
a Registered Piano Technician member of the Piano Technicians Guild,
which means that he or she has passed a series of written, techn! ical
and tuning exams demonstrating a basic level of competence. We (the
College and University Technicians Committee) are in the process of
developing a means by which appropriate additional training can be
identified and quantified.
      We have developed a document, Guidelines for Effective
Institutional Piano Maintenance, which we believe can be very helpful to
institutions in designing a piano maintenance program, and would be a
useful resource in self-study and evaluation as well. It is available in
pdf format at www.ptg.org/caut <http://www.ptg.org/caut>
<http://www.ptg.org/caut>  , and in printed format from www.ptg.org.=20


    I would welcome input on this. I think we have an opportunity we!
cannot afford to pass up, and we need to act quickly, as July 8 is the
stated deadline for submissions.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico


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