Determining Why Before How: Crafting Mission, Vision, and Values Statements to Facilitate Undergraduate Music Theory Curriculum Reimagining

Abstract

The Department of Music Theory at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University recently joined many other institutions across North America in reimagining our undergraduate curriculum. Following practices more commonly found in the nonprofit sector, we began this undertaking by crafting mission, vision, and values statements. These newly articulated ideals for our department then served as a polestar, effectively guiding the rest of the curriculum review and revision. The process we effected created an environment that facilitated creative thinking while simultaneously engendering clear consensus among our colleagues.

In this paper, we—as co-chairs of the committee charged with reviewing the undergraduate music theory curriculum—discuss the steps that we followed in this process, as well as the results. We believe that this way of organizing curriculum review provides a useful framework that other schools can mirror when they reassess their curricula. Thinking critically about why we teach specific topics helped us to clarify exactly what should be required in the new curriculum and what could be optional for the students. As a case study, we present our mission, vision, and values statements, as well as the new curriculum that these led us to create. In so doing, we illustrate how adopting this approach from the nonprofit sector and applying it to curriculum reform guided us in unexpected directions that have been broadly supported within the Department and the Conservatory as a whole.