TAMIU Music Dept. Prepares Students for Careers as Educators, Touts Steady Job Placement
Since 2013, Texas A&M International University’s (TAMIU) College of Arts and Sciences, department of Fine and Performing Arts has prepared 38 graduates for careers as music educators.
To date, these graduates are now teaching in schools across the state, including Laredo and other cities like Eagle Pass, Humble, Irving, San Antonio, Victoria, and Zapata, to name a few.
Dr. James Moyer, chair of the department of Fine and Performing Arts and associate professor of Music, has noticed a steady shift in the program as students continually pursue a Bachelor of Music Education degree.
“Over the past five years, more students are coming into the Bachelor of Music Education degree than the Bachelor of Music Performance program. This appears to be a result of our very high percentage of job placements with our graduates. We had TAMIU music students placed in six Laredo schools just this summer, at all levels. We now have TAMIU music alums in six of the seven high schools, plus the Vidal M. Treviño School of Communications and Fine Arts. Over 75% of our students are pursuing a Bachelor of Music Education degree,” said Dr. Moyer.
Music Education students are required to complete 131 hours. This includes 29 credit hours through the College of Education, Moyer noted.
Courses required for Music Education majors are applied music lessons, music theory, music history, aural skills, piano class, conducting, music technology, and methods courses that train students how to teach string, wind and percussion instruments, he explained.
Moyer believes that the efforts of the University’s music faculty have paid off – as faculty continue to spend time visiting schools and recruiting future music educators.
“As a department, we have hit 50 auditions for the year, the highest number ever for TAMIU. We have a plethora of recruiting events planned this year, including our annual All-State Clinics in September, a wide slate of concerts, guest artists and the Spring Mariachi Festival,” Moyer observed.
The Department of Fine and Performing Arts is also exploring potential funding opportunities from the National String Project Consortium to become the sixth site in Texas for these initiatives.
This program provides very low-cost string classes to elementary school students while helping build string programs in Laredo, while using University faculty and string students as teachers in the program, Moyer said.
“I am optimistic that our ability to get back in schools to recruit, our continued focus on major events attracting high school students to campus, an increase in summer camps and our high percentage of job placements will translate to steady growth and exposure of the music program at the University,” Moyer reiterated.
TAMIU offers a Bachelor of Music Education and a Bachelor of Music in Performance. Students can also pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Music with a Double Major. A music minor is also available.
For more information on the degrees available through the University’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts, visit http://catalog.tamiu.edu/undergraduate-information/arts-sciences/fine-performing-arts/.
TAMIU’s Fall 2022 Registration is now underway. For detailed registration information, visit https://news.tamiu.edu/fall22.
Classes begin Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Late registration ends Friday, Aug. 26.
University news and information can be found online at tamiu.edu and on TAMIU’s social channels on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
