I’m sitting in the airport, on my way home from the 2024 NAfME Research and Higher Education Conference, reflecting on the experience. I learned a lot, connected with friends and colleagues, and felt intense anger. SO MUCH ANGER.

Given that music teachers in the U.S. are overwhelmingly white, it’s no surprise that the music education professoriate is even whiter. Including grad school, I’m in my fifteenth year (!) in higher education. I’m a tenured full professor. And I’m tired of the gatekeeping and elitism in academia. I feel lucky to be at an institution with a strong union. Because we have a contract that specifies how we will be evaluated for tenure and promotion, I’ve never once had to worry whether I was “doing enough.” I haven’t had colleagues threaten that unless I publish in THAT JOURNAL, write/edit a book, or have X number of first-author/solo-author publications, I won’t be awarded tenure. I’ve never had a colleague tell me that I need to just “play the game” so I can get tenure and THEN be able to speak my mind. I’ve never called out inequitable and/or unfair treatment only to be called “hysterical.” I’ve never had to show up to teach an online graduate class less than a week after giving birth because that’s what was “expected.” I’ve never had to “stop the clock” (e.g., when having a baby, during Covid shutdown, etc.) so I could have more time to build up my tenure dossier and still be told that I should have done more because I “had more time.” All because I have a strong faculty union. (AND am not at an R1. Let’s be real.)

All of these scenarios I’ve heard described by friends/colleagues at other institutions, many of which I heard at the NAfME conference. Beyond that, we pay to travel to professional conferences held at expensive hotel/conference centers and spend upwards of $200+ in registrations fees–EVEN when we’re presenting. Let’s be real: More of us were presenting at this conference than not, which means WE were funding the conference… that WE were doing the work for. And we LOVE it. (The learning and socializing, that is, NOT the costs).

Throughout this conference I’ve heard stories from friends at other institutions that made my skin crawl. Worse yet, here we sit–a bunch of predominantly white academics–with the privilege to pontificate about topics like “occupational identity,” while every single person I saw working at the hotel was Black. The three people working franticly behind the Starbucks counter to get us our lattes and breakfast sandwiches? Black. The lovely gentleman checking to make sure the A/V equipment was working before my presentation? Black. The individuals serving the (overpriced) wine during the Friday evening poster session? Black. Speaking of posters…

Now, I’m guessing that there was indeed some racial/ethnic diversity among the staff working to make this conference run smoothly–and yes, as I was told by a senior (white) scholar, we are helping to bring business to the community–but I felt something snap when I picked up my research poster yesterday at the FedEx in the hotel lobby. Due to my own poor time management skills, I wasn’t able to finish creating my poster for today’s poster session until yesterday morning. Thankfully, the kind gentleman working in the FedEx office told me he could have it ready by 5pm for pickup. Phew! When I returned, I took out my credit card as he rolled up the poster. “Your total is $98.21.” (Disclaimer: I can’t remember the exact number of cents. Full transparency.) What??? I was paying for an almost-$100 piece of paper that would be thrown away less than 24 hours later, and it made me mad. And just so there’s no misunderstanding: I have no problem paying for the convenience of having it printed in the hotel lobby rather than going out into the tail-end of Tropical Storm Helene and walking to another local FedEx. I am grateful. And I have the privilege to be able to do it. While my friends and I were sheltered inside a solidly-constructed hotel, we were in the midst of a declared “state of emergency.” Yet all those people providing our food, towels, A/V equipment, and the like were still showing up to work.

Getting back to posters, I was suddenly appalled by our privilege. Poster sessions are a norm of music teacher education conferences. We have to do them. We need the lines of our CVs. We pay to print big, beautiful posters that display our research so we can talk with a few people about it and then put it on our CV and–if we’re lucky–go on to publish in an academic journal. That will be read primarily by other academics. Because it’s behind a paywall. And music educators in the P-12 trenches barely have time to pee during the school day, let alone read music education research. Now multiply the amount of money for one poster by 50+ posters times FOUR different poster sessions and… that’s a lot of money spent on fancy, expensive paper for this conference.

We pay to print our posters and travel to our conferences, and it is assumed that this is just what we do. And it is assumed that it matters, that we are making a difference. But are we?

Omar Thomas gave the plenary talk, and it was FANTASTIC. The way he shared his story of being a kid growing up and loving band, the masterful rhetorical moves he used to paint a picture (“Indoctrination is a funny thing.”), the way he humanized us music teachers from the outset in the hopes that the ultimate message might land a little softer, that we might be ready to hear it and take it to heart. But apparently some in the audience didn’t agree. I heard that a (white) colleague at another (R1) institution didn’t care for Thomas’s talk, saying “This isn’t anything we aren’t already talking about.” But talk does not equal change. Printing it on a pretty, expensive poster does not bring about change. Accepting that academic conferences in their current iteration are just “part of the game” does not effect change. It only perpetuates the status quo.

Because of the strong faculty union and supportive colleagues at my university, I earned tenure and promotion to full professor without a worry that my work might not be “enough.” And being a tenured full professor comes with privilege. Not only the privilege of knowing that my scholarly work will not get me fired, but the privilege to push back and speak out when others cannot due to fear of repercussion.

I decided to make a donation to Hands On Atlanta, a nonprofit that coordinates volunteers and donations and puts them wherever they are most needed in the community (e.g., food pantries, educational opportunities for local children, etc.). In case anyone else might also want to donate, I made a flyer (below) and pinned it next to my poster. Unfortunately, the QR code didn’t work, plus most of the conference attendees had already left because it was the LAST session of the entire conference. BUT I’m collecting donations on behalf of Hands On Atlanta through Friday, October 4. If, like me, you think the rigamarole of academia often feels gross OR if you just want to do some good in the world, please consider chipping in a few bucks!

Just click here, and you can donate right through my webpage!

We each may not be able to change the whole world–or the whole profession–but we can use whatever privilege we have to make a difference, no matter how small.