Long-time faculty member, champion of students Dr. Alicia Massie-Legg to retire at end of 2024-25 academic year
Feb. 20, 2025
For more than two decades, Maryville College’s Dr. Alicia Massie-Legg has marveled at her good fortune.
A senior lecturer in music, she pursued her own education at larger institutions — a bachelor’s in music from Radford University in Virginia, two master’s degrees from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Kentucky in Lexington. All of those schools are at least 10 times the size of MC, which makes impractical the ability of faculty members to offer the sort of one-on-one personal attention that’s made her time here so rewarding.
That, she says, is what she’ll miss the most as she prepares to retire at the end of the current academic year: The students from all walks of life who keep her mind “open and young,” and give her an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those who need something they would have a hard time finding at larger schools.
“In this changing world of college attendance, the larger universities find it difficult to support and mentor students who have special needs such as ADHD, learning disabilities, and high-functioning autism,” Massie-Legg says. “In addition, the approach to teaching has to be, of necessity, more detached due to the sheer numbers of students. In smaller institutions, such as Maryville College, we are able to walk alongside students with different needs, help them obtain a solid education, and enter the job market to become successful adults. I believe strongly that every student who is motivated to obtain a college education should be given a solid chance to do so, regardless of neurodivergence or special needs.
“Not only that, but they should be able to feel joy and confidence and find a place of belonging in the course of that education. While many of our students don’t have special needs, the atmosphere of inclusion and support here at Maryville College offers a great chance to have equal opportunities for preparing for a career. I have always felt privileged, as well as challenged, to help my students find joy in who they are and what they are doing. I have rejoiced with them as they graduate successfully and move on to that next phase of life.
“I have been able to stay in touch with many of our music alumni as their careers have advanced,” she adds. “Working with these students on a more personal level, in private voice lessons as well as smaller classes, has been a joyous experience for me.”
An immediate impression
Massie-Legg and her husband, Bob, moved to East Tennessee in 2001, shortly after she completed her master’s in music history and vocal performance (with an emphasis in vocal pedagogy). Her husband took a faculty position at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and that fall, Massie-Legg began offering private voice lessons to the community. It didn’t take long for her reputation to spread, and when the Maryville College Division of Fine Arts found itself in need of a new voice adjunct the following year, a student mentioned her name.
For her interview, she arranged for a demonstration with one of the division’s students: Dr. Jennifer Olander Anderson ’05, who now serves as one of Massie-Legg’s colleagues and the director of the Lads vocal ensemble. She got the job, and over the next 23 years, she served the College through a period of change that included the demolition of the old Fine Arts Center and the construction of the Clayton Center for the Arts.
“When the Fine Arts Center was demolished for the construction of the Clayton Center buildings, the music department moved to the basement floor of Thaw Hall,” she says. “Then, once the new buildings were complete, we were able to move into them. The new center offered beautiful facilities, nicer offices, and superior performing spaces.”
These days, it’s not unusual to stroll the center’s administrative hallway occupied by divisional offices and hear the loveliness of student voices on the other side of Massie-Legg’s door. During her time at MC — before and after she was offered the role of senior lecturer after completing her Ph.D. in 2015 — she’s taught voice, vocal pedagogy, song literature, diction for singing, the history of Western fine arts music and more.
“I’ve been in a unique position to do exactly what I love,” she says. “Not only do I have the opportunity to work with voice students one-on-one in voice lessons, but I also have the fun of teaching classes in music history for music majors as well as core curriculum classes. My specialty as a musicologist has been music in the United States. In the past five years, I was able to craft classes such as the History of Jazz and the History of Rock and Roll to present to a wider group of students who took them to satisfy core requirements. Those have been particularly fun to teach because these courses open up a new world of music to them.”
Few things bring her greater joy, however, than standing patiently in those individual lessons, eyes closed as her musical mind navigates the notes, octaves, embellishments and nuances of a Scot who’s come to her for vocal education. Teaching them to wield their voices as capably and deftly as the instruments played by their peers is a daunting task, but Massie-Legg’s methods mean she’s remembered fondly by alumni for the ways in which she helped bring out the best in them.
“I have loved every music student with whom I have worked over the years,” she says. “When my students graduate, they take a little piece of my heart with them. While the relationship is a professional one, the intense work together creates a bond between the teacher and student.
“Believe me, the process of vocal training demands great discipline and often leads to moments of discouragement. My goal is to help students rediscover the joy of singing while continuing to work steadily to improve their singing technique.”
“Alicia has worked with students from diverse backgrounds, deepening her understanding of various voice types and learning styles,” adds Stacey Wilner, another senior lecturer in music at MC and director of choral activities. “Her experience has strengthened her adaptability, enabling her to tailor instruction to each student’s needs. Through years of teaching and advising, she has cultivated patience, empathy, and the ability to inspire confidence. Under her guidance, students feel supported and encouraged to develop their healthiest, most authentic voices.”
A treasured educator and colleague
By the same token, her colleagues in the division have learned to count on her as a team player. Whether it’s administrative or creative collaboration, she’s enjoyed the way her work relationships have transformed into personal friendships built on mutual respect and love for song.
“My colleagues in the Division of Fine Arts are wonderful, dedicated teachers who are committed to what they do,” she says. “I’ve enjoyed working with them over the years. Also, I have been so very fortunate to work under division chairs such as Adrienne Schwarte (professor of art and current division chair) and Dr. Bill Swann (professor of music and division chair through the 2023-24 academic year), who have often mentored me.
“And Stacey is a wonderful choir director! She and I have collaborated more often since she has all of my voice students in Concert Choir, Off Kilter, and Lads and Lassies. I have been inexpressibly grateful to her for her advice and expertise during my time here at Maryville College. And I’m especially thankful for our office manager, Deborah Boling, without whom life would have been much more difficult.”
Originally, she planned on pushing her retirement out several years, but after second thoughts, she changed her mind and gave those colleagues notice of her intention to step away at the end of the 2024-25 academic year. Last summer, a tragedy helped reinforce the realization that she had made the right decision.
“My 93-year-old father was on hospice and passed away,” she says. “It was a significant wake-up call for me. I decided that I should retire while my husband and I are healthy enough to be active and enjoy life. I also want to be more available to my family.”
Not that “retirement” looks conventional when it comes to her future plans. Never one to sit idle, she and her husband are discussing a number of ways to spend her previously occupied time, including a cause that’s close to her heart.
“My husband and I have plans to film a series of short videos discussing highly reactive Alpha-Gal Syndrome, which my husband has suffered from since he was bitten by a tick in 2017,” she says, referring to the tick-borne allergy to red meat and other animal products. “We hope to create a series on YouTube that will help others who are dealing with AGS.”
Perseverance, after all, is something with which she’s intimately familiar. She often shares with students, she adds, that her initial college experience was a “dismal failure” — not to elicit sympathy, but to provide encouragement during a time when it’s often needed.
“I entered a huge university at 18 and lacked the tools to cope with the whole experience. I didn’t re-enter college until I was 32, at which point I was able to finish my undergraduate degree in music and then go on to post-graduate education,” she says. “Life is hard and messy. There is seldom a time when we have the luxury of dealing with our problems without having to meet deadlines and responsibilities in our lives and careers. The main thing is to show up and be present, no matter what.
“We have to keep putting one foot in front of the other just to get through to the other side. If we can approach our college education and careers as a journey, a process, rather than an end destination, we are far more likely to succeed.”
Massie-Legg’s career will be celebrated at 7 p.m. Monday, March 24, in the Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts, when numerous Maryville College alumni will perform a recital in her honor. A reception will follow in the Clayton Center lobby, and the recital is free and open to the public.
