Message from the President
Greetings from the Maryville College campus!
The Maryville College Concert Choir is a wonderful advertisement for this College. When members took their tour this past spring, I knew their performances would produce accolades by letter and e-mail, and so they did. The Choir, under the direction of Stacey Wilner, has grown to its largest size in a quarter century and hasn't sounded better since the legendary Harry Harter directed it. Maryville has long been known for its music education.
Music was on of the seven original liberal arts. Contrary to the widely shared assumption, none of the other areas of human creativity known as "the arts" was included by the ancient Greeks or Romans in that seven. No painting or drawing. No sculpture or ceramics. No dance or drama. And music was there, in fact, as one of the quadrivium, the four mathematical arts. Its educational value lay in the mathematical ratios that define musical sounds.
That doesn't mean, I hasten to emphasize, that a sound curriculum at a liberal arts college of the 21st century ignores all the fine arts except for music. Quite the contrary. FOCUS readers are invited to see in this issue what a gifted professional artist and educator, Dr. Carl Gombert, has to say about the matter. "Why study the arts?" he asks us - then provides a most persuasive answer. I particularly like Dr. Gombert's observation that "the arts provide the principal means by which a society enculturates the young." That surely makes the arts a fitting instrument for educators at a liberal arts college like Maryville.
We take pride in the many MC graduates who have gone on to enjoy careers in the arts. Brothers Jim Laster '56 and Harold Laster '65 are music educators. Delores Ziegler '74 and John Wesley Wright '87 are vocal artists. Tillman Crane '78 is a photographer, and Kevin Ragsdale '93 is a filmmaker. You will find more details about these and other artist alumni in this issue of FOCUS.
We take satisfaction as well in knowing that many other alumni who studied the arts here at Maryville College have careers outside the arts, but have lives that are richer and deeper because of what they learned in choir and in art history and painting and printmaking and sculpture classes during their time at Maryville. If I may use an example from our own family, our son Paul graduated from Maryville with an art major in 2000. He has a career as a computer specialist with a company that provides Web-based learning modules for the healthcare industry, but he spends hours outside of work fashioning ornamental knives that are true works of art. His art enriches his life.
Almost continually, the work of painters, sculptors, photographers, musicians, vocalist, thespians and other artists are on exhibit or on stage here at Maryville College. I invite you to campus for any and all of our fine arts-related events. You will be enriched by the experience.
