U. Endowment to Help Educate Music Teachers
By Amelia Nielson-Stowell Deseret Morning News
A $1.25 million endowment to the University of Utah’s College of Fine Arts will take music students to a different stage: K-6.
Art Works for Kids founder Beverley Taylor Sorenson, wife of multimillionaire James Sorenson, announced the donation, which will endow a permanent chair in the university’s school of music, Thursday. The new faculty member will focus on education of elementary school music teachers.
“This is just a wonderful opportunity for us to expand our efforts in that area,” said U. President Michael Young. Young said he hopes the new artist-scholar will attract more elementary and music education students to the university. “The arts really help us discover who we are. . . . If we can help (schools) find ways, whatever the fiscal position of a school, to keep that as a robust, important part of the curriculum, it makes an enormous difference for the kids.”
The donation is part of a larger Art Works for Kids goal to bring quality arts into all of Utah’s schools. About two- thirds of the U.’s elementary education graduates work in the state. Studies have shown fine arts, particularly at the elementary level, correlate to enhancement in mathematics, reading, writing and language development.
“Part of a whole education includes the arts,” Sorenson said. She founded Art Works for Kids in 1995 to serve as a catalyst in supporting the arts for children through partnerships with universities, school districts, schools, parents and the community. “If we can do that, we will change the behavior, the development intellectually, physically and emotionally of these children.”
Sorenson, a U. alumna herself, was serving as a member of the U.’s College of Fine Arts advisory board when she noticed limited resources for giving future teachers a solid art education. She also saw a lack of legislative funding for such programs in the state’s schools.
And instead of training education students from a teaching standpoint, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Presidential Endowed Chair for Elementary Music Education takes a unique approach and trains aspiring teachers from a musical angle.
The idea is something Young hopes to utilize with future faculty positions.
“A big part of this is going to focus on the music rather than taking someone who is interested in teaching and teach them music,” he said. “That’s an important part of the difference here.”
The new faculty member, to be hired immediately, will also work to promote school art programs. He or she will be charged with developing well-rounded teachers and music teaching specialists.
“We believe the best teacher comes from people who have an intimate knowledge in the creative arts process,” said Elaine Harding, executive director of Art Works for Kids. “We take the soul out of education when we remove the arts.”
Currently, the arts group is finishing a pilot program to develop and fund arts education programs in Salt Lake, Davis, Granite and Uintah school districts. For the 2005-2006 school year, they provided a special 1-to-1 matching grant to assist recipients in funding and supporting art systems.
“This has given children a different way of learning,” Sorenson said. The great- grandmother took the issue to heart after seeing her own grandson struggle in school 10 years ago. “It’s very inspirational for me.”
E-mail: astowell@desnews.com