This semester, the Smith College Music Department made an unprecedented change: it will now allow all students to take performance lessons.
For the past several years, the music department has charged non-major and non-minor students $690 for two semesters of performance lessons. This fee covers the exact cost of 12 lessons, paid to one of the department’s 20-24 performance instructors. The fee has always been waived for Music majors and minors.
The financial aid offered for performance lessons did not eliminate the cost barrier for students and was unsustainable to the department, especially as more students signed up for performance lessons each year. According to Chair of the Music Department Joel Pitchon, “When we began to address the issue of access and provide financial aid across the board to students—and that includes students who are not on financial aid at the college, because this is an additional fee, and that can be burdensome even to students who are paying full tuition—it began to be burdensome to the department.”
Pitchon went on to say, “I think it’s fair to say that this has been a conversation that has been going on for about ten years, the acknowledgement that not eliminating the fee had an impact on issues of equal access. I don’t think there was a philosophical resistance to eliminating the fee. It was just a logistical problem.”
This year, the Music Department brought the problem to the Administration. “We were amazed,” said Pitchon, “considering all the issues around COVID, that there was enough energy to do it now.” The money to pay for performance instructors now comes out of the Music Department’s endowed funds, which exist in the form of a number of distinct funds, and the College’s larger budget. The effort, according to Music Department Administrative Assistant Anna Goudreau, was started by the Music Department and completed “through close partnership with the Provost’s Office, Finance Office, and with the support of Student Financial Services, the Dean of the College, and the VP for Enrollment.” Ultimately, it was brought to President Kathleen McCartney as part of the Equalizing the Student Experience initiative.
The removal of the fee comes alongside other efforts from the Department to make performance lessons more accessible. They have also tried to widen access to performance lessons for students without prior experience playing an instrument. While performance lessons do require an audition, both Pitchon and Goudreau point out that that word is problematic, referring to something more similar to a placement exam. A wider variety of instrument lessons are now being offered, such as the electric guitar. For the spring semester, the Department is planning to offer a group beginner piano skills course to serve as an entry-point to students.
“I think that the Music Department may have had a reputation as being a little bit exclusive,” Pitchon said. “I hope that this will be a little bit of an opening of the doors to more students to seek ways in which they can find support for music in their lives.”
[Image description: One student singing, another playing violin, and a third looking through sheet music. Photo via Smith College]
