Cole D. Swanson, PhD

In my approach to teaching, I aspire to the model set out by Don McCormick and Michael Kahn in their article “Barn Raising: Collaborative Group Processes in Seminars” (1982), which proposes a shift away from classroom paradigms of argumentation and intellectual combat, toward a belief in the transformative power of inclusionary conversation. Older models of education have been premised on the notion that intellectual strength is achieved through combative interrogative rigor; I believe that nuance, clarity of thought, and the courage to speak up in an increasingly noisy world are vastly more valuable and humanistic qualities, and that the pursuit of those goals is much more satisfying for student and instructor alike. 

In fact, intellectual rigor and excellence are only possible when the wellbeing of an academic community and its members is prioritized, rooted in a robust commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion that values the lived experiences of all involved. Transforming classrooms into brave spaces for authentic, student-led conversation is the key to advancing academic success in every sector of campus life and to propelling students toward a life of service and growth. I approach musical pedagogy as the opportunity to put that commitment into action, and to support students in their intellectual pursuits through equity-driven policies and diverse curricula. My approach to the classroom emphasizes and explicitly encourages three key components of an equity-driven classroom environment. 

First, I propose creativity in the formulation of student perspectives by being open to a vast network of connections and associations to the material at hand, including those that at first surprise or even astonish us. Students are asked in advance of our next session to explore examples of music, film, or any other artistic product that they feel relates to the material at hand and to informally share their discoveries with the class, briefly explaining the connection and – more importantly – why they found it meaningful. The topic at hand is not theirs to “present” or “defend,” but instead belongs to the whole seminar as an avenue for meaningful connection that can either lead to another student’s chosen example or back to the material that I plan to guide them through. As such, I expect students to demonstrate a collaborative spirit toward their colleagues by being open to such connections and encouraging in their reactions to them. We center the reflections and opinions of our colleagues alongside course materials and resources, recognizing that both provide opportunities for meaningful reflection and intellectual growth. In honoring lived experience as something that informs effective and ethical scholarship, students are able to envision their own artistic or intellectual contributions as being in conversation with the works we study and critique.

Finally, I openly propose courage in the practice of listening and speaking publicly, a task that comes much easier to some than to others and thus must be fostered by a collegial and supportive atmosphere. The approach that I’ve outlined above has the added benefit of allowing students who are shy, speak English as a second language, or who have a disability accommodation to feel more secure in their contributions to a discussion-based seminar by preparing something to share ahead-of-time, rather than using “cold calling” or instructor intervention to direct conversation towards them. In line with this, I dedicate time in our first meeting to demystifying the frequently ambiguous portion of the grading rubric labeled “classroom participation,” including reading aloud for their benefit the portion of my syllabus that states “Your willingness to be mindful and present is ultimately more valuable than immediate mastery or understanding of the concepts we will discuss.” To ensure this, I offer my students choices in how to demonstrate their engagement with the material beyond verbal sharing, such as submitting a written reflection that they can choose to allow me to share in class, while also retaining their anonymity if they wish. This approach proves to be especially valuable when discussing works or topics that have the potential to trigger personal or cultural traumas. A crucial component of honoring the lived experience of my students is supporting the choice they make in how they choose to engage with the material at hand, as well as allowing them flexibility in how they ensure their own emotional and mental wellbeing.

Additionally, demonstrating active self-reflection and compassionate listening encourages students to participate in reflexive conversations about music and identity. I acknowledge and draw on my experiences as a white man who studies and practices both Western Art Music and Black music traditions, in turn asking them to consider their engagement with music (including listening to, creating, purchasing, and studying it) as political and ethical encounters that raise complex questions and opportunities for critique and self-awareness. By identifying and sitting with these issues, students develop practices of both verbal and written self-reflection that contribute to their growth as informed members of an intellectual community. As such, our reflections benefit from a mindfulness of campus and community events as much as they do from an engagement with class material. Indeed, my experience as a white man fundamentally shapes my approach to collaboration in educational and artistic pursuits, as well as an acute awareness of how my identity impacts classroom dynamics. Instead of turning away from the complexities inherent to this aspect of my identity, open acknowledgement offers an opportunity to demonstrate an ongoing practice of self-awareness and holistic humility, without resorting to self-centering white fragility.

Incorporating these values and practices into the courses I teach are essential not only for creating an equitable classroom environment, but for ensuring the excellence that I expect of myself and my students. In designing my seminar “Scoring Digital Hollywood,” I organized the first unit around influential films that are visible to students in popular cultural discourse as well as in scholarly publications, with the consequence being that the first unit features mostly white and male filmmakers and composers. But rather than limiting our study to a reductive canonical framework, I highlight this lack of diversity as a point of departure for a broad conversation about the prejudicial and discriminatory history of Hollywood cinema, the impact this had on the development of film style, and the ways in which the American film industry has changed over time. Our conversations allow us to incorporate these often ignored or obscured realities as part of a comprehensive historical awareness, an approach to filmic and musical analysis that includes diverse perspectives from the outset. Rather than marginalizing discussion about race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, and socioeconomic status to the films later in the course that explicitly focus on these themes, this approach encourages thoughtful engagement that translates into creative and meaningful individual research.

My classroom teaching lends itself to an interdisciplinary approach and an emphasis on courses that feature diverse perspectives. As mentioned, “Scoring Digital Hollywood” focuses on film scoring of the present but frequently turns towards the past to assess how forms of exclusion and inequality have led to present situations. In the future, I would love to a teach a course specifically on the history of African American music in Hollywood film, chronicling that history of oppression while giving due attention to trailblazing artists and the conventions that they drew upon. As an inaugural fellow in Duke’s Black Music and the Soul of America Humanities Lab, I compiled a catalog of resources and media texts to demonstrate the influence of Black artists and traditions in Hollywood that would translate naturally to rich seminar or lecture format. This course would center Black music within a larger dialectic around cinematic practices, recognizing injustice while retaining a focus on rigorous analysis, historical awareness, and creative interpretation. Likewise, my syllabus for a proposed jazz course is focused on untangling the many contradictions and historical assumptions latent to both the popular and scholarly discourse around jazz. This includes discussing the reality that while jazz is fundamentally an art form centered around the ideals of freedom and collaboration, it was also used as a tool of economic exploitation, misogyny, homophobia, political propaganda, and colorism. Student exploration of these topics allows them to diversify their own conceptions of jazz through encounters with previously unheralded and obscured figures and their work, including the artists of today. In teaching general music and music history courses for both majors and non-majors, I seek to deconstruct the hierarchies latent to the divisions that abound in the field (western vs. non-western, classical vs. popular) toward an approach that focuses on the particularity of different traditions, emphasizing the conditions that contributed to the formulation of those hierarchies in the first place.