An Interesting Half Century

Abstract

In 1992 Liz Wing stated that “a central mission of CRME under Colwell’s leadership was to improve the quality of dissertation research” (p. 210). Her statement is part of the story of the founding of the Bulletin in 1963, a project that involved multiple players on the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois but primarily the College of Education. The need for a publication was expressed by members attending a northcentral meeting of the MENC, with Illinois “volunteering” to accept the responsibility for the initial issues. It may have been good luck that Charlie Spohn and Bob Petzold, both north-central MENC members, were already involved in federally funded research. Allen Britton was present and recognized the importance of a journal differing in substantive ways from the Journal of Research in Music Education that he was editing. Spohn and Petzold informed us of the importance to funding agencies of disseminating research findings to a wide audience and were more aware than many of us of the importance of educating future and present researchers through the process of feedback and critique. Thus, the three primary initial purposes of the Bulletin were to disseminate quality research, provide assistance to serious researchers in music education through an emphasis on constructive critique, and to publish “cutting edge” articles by recognized scholars. The overall focus was on improving the quality of research in music education. As the Bulletin was to be distributed free of charge to those who shared this concern for quality, there was no worry about securing a large subscription base. The expectation of those of us attending the meeting in 1962 was that a doctoral dissertation was the first step in developing research competency and that most doctoral recipients would continue their research interests beyond the dissertation. Several Illinois doctoral students of that time did continue their research interests beyond the dissertation: Bennett Reimer, Terry Gates, and Wayne Bowman in philosophy; Bob Smith in early childhood education; Eunice Boardman in concepts; and I in assessment. One avenue for identifying leading scholars was the presence of research centers in music education with a specific focus. The importance of a center may be illustrated by Jack Heller, a prominent researcher in music education, accepted as a post-doctorate fellow at the Ohio State Center. He returned to the University of Connecticut to work