Collegiate Sunday.

To encourage members to participate in the Collegiate Chapters sessions during the MTNA National Conference, MTNA is offering all programming except the Forum on "Collegiate Sunday."

Collegiate members will be well represented in several sessions. Many wonderful proposals were received for consideration, and two were chosen for the upcoming conference. Both sessions were proposed, written and submitted by collegiate chapter members. This is the second year collegiate chapter sessions will be presented by collegiate chapter members.

The Arizona State University collegiate chapter will present the first session on Sunday morning: Why Did I Decide to Do This? Being a Graduate Student, Teaching Assistant and Private Teacher/Six graduate students will present the session that focuses on the demands and stresses graduate students with teaching assistantships face as they work toward their degrees. Topics will include differences between bachelor and master degree demands, how to set priorities and balance the new demands, as well as the benefits of having teaching assistantships while being full-time students. Six students will present the session, including chapter president, Kassandra Jenkins. Their chapter advisor is Janice Meyer Thompson, NCTM.

A second session will be given by the University of Michigan collegiate chapter, tided Putting the "Play" Back into Playing the Piano: A Survey of Effective Games for Private and Class Piano Instruction. The capacity to learn and retain concepts and perform with confidence greatly increases when students are having fun. The cognitive and developmental groundwork for the use of games in education will be briefly discussed before presenting a wide variety of games for beginning and intermediate students. Video clips of lessons and classes will show the excitement of games in action. In addition to classifying the games according to the skills and concepts presented, the presenters will highlight the approaches on which each game is based. Attendees will receive a guide to the games, listing details for the use of each game, such as the difficulty level and pedagogical approach. Presenters will be Veena Kulkarni, Sonoko Kambara, Aya Higuchi, Marnie van Weelden, Pei-Ming Lee, Polina Khatsko, Christina Thayer and Daniela Flonta. Their advisor is John Ellis.

A third session focusing on young teachers will be presented by Lori Rhoden, NCTM, titled Common Challenges for Dung Piano Teachers. The purpose of this session is to recognize some of the common traits of teachers with limited teaching experience, and to provide strategies to help inexperienced teachers.

A Collegiate Chapters Reception will be held Sunday afternoon, March 28, 2004. This is an opportunity for all collegiate students to meet and socialize with one another. A highlight at the reception this year will be the opportunity for students to meet Guy Duckworth, a well-known pioneer in piano pedagogy. All collegiate members and collegiate chapter advisors are invited to attend this reception. The Collegiate Chapter of the Year Award will be announced at this reception as well.

Finally, the Collegiate Chapters Forum will meet Monday morning, March 29. Students will have the opportunity to meet as a group and make observations and suggestions about how they would like to see collegiate chapters proceed through the twenty-first century.

Collegiate Chapters Task Force

The Collegiate Chapter Advisory Committee was formed early in this biennium to begin planning for the direction of collegiate members. This committee will assume additional responsibilities as a Task Force to 1) develop a strategy to increase the number of collegiate chapters and collegiate members, 2) develop a strategy to enhance and support the quality of collegiate chapters and 3) recommend appropriate communication activities/internal processes to enhance the connection of the national association to the collegiate chapters and advisors. The members of this committee are Kassandra Jenkins, collegiate member from Arizona State University; Amy Collard, collegiate member from Weber State University (2003 Chapter of the Year); Cynthia Benson, collegiate chapter advisor at Bowling Green State University; Silvia Roederer, collegiate chapter advisor at Western Michigan University; Cheryl Pachak-Brooks, NCTM, Southwest Division president-elect and faculty member at Eastern New Mexico University; and Debra Ronning, NCTM, Eastern Division president and faculty member at Elizabethtown College.

Collegiate Chapters Sessions

Why Did I Decide to Do This? Arizona State University Sunday, March 28, 9:15-10:15 A.M. Convention Center Room 1201

Common Challenges for Young Piano Teachers Lori Rhoden, Ball State University Sunday, March 28, 10:30-11:30 A.M. Convention Center Room 1201

Putting the "Play" Back into Playing the Piano University of Michigan Sunday, March 28, 2:15-3:15 P.M. Convention Center Room 1201

Collegiate Chapters Reception Sunday, March 28, 5:00-6:00 P.M. Convention Center Room 1201

Collegiate Chapters Forum Monday, March 29, 9:15-10:15 A.M. Big Joe Turner A, Marriott Hotel

Carleen Graff, NCTM, is professor of music at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where she teaches applied piano, class piano and piano pedagogy. She has a D.A. degree in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Northern Colorado, an M.A. degree in applied piano from the University of Denver and a B.M.E. degree from Illinois Wesleyan University. She is a member of the MTNA Board of Directors.