CAUT in KC

[Bdshull@aol.com]

My name is Bill Shull, and I have been a contract university technician for 15
years at the University of  Redlands and 10 years at La Sierra University.  I
attended the CAUT forum discussions through 1989. I would like to see us
address the following in KC:

1.  GUIDELINES revision:  With this discussion and other input the committee
members might seek,  the committee could bring some proposals to the
convention so that in the next year the guidelines could be revised and
brought to the PTG for approval in 2000.  I think a couple of areas could be
important:

  a.  a Section geared to music dept/school of music which uses contract
technicians.   I have a draft copy from 1989 which included a section like
that;  I wonder what the issues were which caused its exclusion, and would
like to help with its development if the inclusion of a section like this
seems helpful.

b.  NASM - most of us may work for schools who are NASM accredited (the stats
would be interesting).  This organization does not make recommendations for
piano maintenance, inventory, etc., but it does look at the inventory and
evaluates whether the music curriculum can be supported by the current
inventory and condition.  As piano technicians we are able to help our schools
with NASM certification.  We might do well to have established a dialogue with
NASM.  They could articulate for us what they are looking for, and we could
address the various ways this might be achieved.   This may seem redundant to
what we are already doing, but the approach may be valuable.  It might result
in a section in the GUIDELINES (this could help our music depts/schools to
obtain a better maintenance budget from their schools).

2.  A SEMINAR ON THE PIANO AND ITS MAINTENANCE:    I am convinced that the
college tech should be providing at least an annual 2-4 hour presentation on
the piano and its maintenance to all music students.    This should be more
than an hour presentation, but could be limited to 2 - 3 hours and be
successful if well written and presented in an organized fashion.   The KC
session might include a recommended list of essential topics for us to cover
in such a class, strategies on presenting the class (team teaching, demo
approaches, etc) as well as the brochures, handouts or the like which the
technician might be able to use.  I have presented a class like this several
times on invitation but have not arrived at an approach I am happy with;
still, the students rave and wonder why this isn't in the regular curriculum
at my school.