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14 ACUMEN • SPRING 2021 whose interests may not necessarily include being part of one of Lehigh’s performance ensembles. “I think we have done very well in providing music opportunities for Lehigh students,” Lee says. “That is a strength of Lehigh. That’s what attracts students here. And I think our music department has done extremely well in building up opportunities, but more importantly pedagogical quality and artistic performance standards out of these ensembles. “I think we can continue to draw on the strength that we have developed in the past 40 years and build on it. To balance it with the scholarship side, the academic side, so that we can play a more inte- gral and a more central role in enhancing liberal arts education in the college and the university.” Lee is interested in not only collaborating with the other arts departments on curriculum, but also potentially with colleagues in the humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, or engineering. “I would say that the focus then would be on training students through music on how to think criti- cally and how to be able to apply such critical skills and make them transferable to the other subjects or other areas of studies that they are engaged in,” Lee says. At the same time, Lee is also looking to make parts of the music curriculum less restrictive. The tradi- tional curriculum for pathways such as performance or music composition are “very specific and very structured” in terms of what courses are required. “So, what about a student who wants to conduct a jazz ensemble or play in a jazz ensemble, but compose jazz music? How can we accommodate these students?” Lee asks. The whole department has been working on revising the curriculum for the past three years. “We have to focus on strengths. But to the extent that we can broaden our curriculum such that a diverse group of students — with different upbringing, with different musical background or knowledge — can come in and find a place for themselves and say, ‘Hey, I can also do a B.A. in music. It could be a double major, which is wonderful.’ And that’s the goal of our new curriculum, that it provides that room without lowering, without minimizing, the rigor of the musical training.” Theatre: Shining Light on a ‘Hidden Gem’ Kashi Johnson was a computer science engineering major when she first set foot on Lehigh’s campus as a student in the late 1980s. She graduated in 1993 as a theatre major. “Lehigh is where I fell in love with theatre,” Johnson says. After earning her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh, Johnson returned to her alma mater in 1999 as a visiting professor, and the following year, was hired as a 28-year-old faculty member. Her appoint- ment as chair of the department in 2019 represented a truly noteworthy achievement in a field where Black women comprise just 3 percent of all full-time faculty nationwide, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. “There aren’t many Black women who are academic chairs in the country right now, much less heading up a theatre program,” Johnson says. “I am a testament to “None of us buys into the widely circulated idea that we’ve been hearing in the national media over the past several months that remote education is a dimin- ished education,” he says. “We do not believe that that’s what we or other departments are offering. What we’re offering is simply a different platform for instruction.” Another common myth is that a liberal arts education — and the arts in particular — does not provide a path forward for students. “We are working very aggressively to give them the tools they need to move out ahead either to graduate school or professional practice,” Sawicki says. And students certainly do not believe the myth. “Our enrollments this semester are up almost 20 percent from where they were last fall,” he says. “I don’t know if that’s a blip, but it’s certainly not a sign that in this new environment the arts are any less important. If anything, it’s a sign of the opposite. “What I see on the ground, first teaching in the department and now as chair, is that College of Arts and Sciences students are driven first of all by the desire to find meaning and a sense of purpose in all that they do,” he says. “It’s what motivates their choices, their deci- sions, about what to study and what to pursue after they graduate, as well as their desire to create and to design — to be a maker — which is itself a core process that is full of meaning and purpose. And I think that’s why Lehigh students are so attracted to the arts. I think that’s what our department does well. We provide a structured, exploratory space in which you can find meaning and find purpose through making. I think that’s part of our role in the university and the College of Arts and Sciences.” Music: Listening and Learning In almost all the classes he teaches, Tong Soon Lee intro- duces his students to Korean percussion and Javanese gamelan music, which features a set of gong chimes that produce five or seven different tones. What they learn has every bit as much to do with life as music. One person playing a single gong is fairly easy. But when eight to 10 students must play different instruments together, the resulting cacophony makes them quickly realize how difficult it is. “There’s no notation. You have to listen to people,” says Lee, a professor, scholar, and ethnomusicologist in addition to department chair. “And the thing I always remind them is that in order to play well, you have to know your role — the role that you play in the entire ensemble band. And within 20-30 minutes, they find themselves making music with each other. It actu- ally works — once you start listening to each other.” An accomplished pianist and someone with no expe- rience playing a musical instrument find themselves on equal footing. “This sort of music can be very egalitarian,” Lee says. “It doesn’t exclude anyone. You may know a lot about music, you may not know anything about music, but you sit together. There’s no hierarchy there, there’s no advantages or disadvantages. You learn together and you listen together and you can make it together.” Lee is exploring how to make the Department of Music more egalitarian, more open to students