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Summit 2015, Austin TX
Monday & Tuesday, March 23-24, 2015

Session 12: Tuesday 3:00 IPO Room
Moderator: Bruce Ronkin

Storm Gloor
Associate Professor
University of Colorado Denver

The Student-run Enterprise as a Learning Experience

The particular focus of this research is centered on so called “student-run enterprises”: record labels, publishing companies, booking agencies, and other entities operated primarily by college students as part of their music or music business degree curriculum. In recent years more and more universities have been adding these types of programming to their offerings as hands-on experiences in which students apply their knowledge in real-world situations. For instance, their creativity and entrepreneurial skills, among other factors, can affect the level of success of an artist, public concert, or a recording. In general, what are the pedagogical goals of these enterprises as college courses? How might the learning outcomes be determined and achieved? How do these compare to other, more traditional, course structures as learning experiences?

With an understanding of those questions in mind, where might there be opportunities to further enhance the learning outcomes of such experiences? Might there be other types of traditional or more contemporary approaches to learning that could further develop the experiences of students in such courses to better prepare them for their career endeavors? The goal of this research has been to compare and contrast the type of learning in student-run enterprises to that of other teaching and course structures, in order to address queries such as these. Such an exploration might yield potential new approaches to improving overall program offerings in order to better prepare students for entry into their career. It might also have relevance in developing more leading-edge curricula that would address the challenges of attracting quality students in an age in which the value of a college degree and higher education as a concept is even being questioned.


Peter Alhadeff
Professor
Berklee College of Music

Itay Shahar Rahat
Manager, Global CRM Solutions,
Warner Music Group

A Behind the Scenes Look at the Music Business Journal

The Music Business Journal, now approaching its tenth year, reaches about nine thousand readers a month and most of them are online. It appears to be the top Google-ranked music business journal in the world. This session, given by Berklee faculty Peter Alhadeff, Director, and the MBJ’s Webmaster, Warner Music Group, Itay Shar Rahat, will explain the MBJ’s backend and its daily operations. The Journal’s Editor and Content Editor will likely be able to attend too.

The topic, of course, has pedagogical and curricular implications. The MBJ is an extra-curricular student organization. It is not for credit. Above all, its modus operandi is experiential. Yet, from the start, it has managed to live up to its ambitious mission statement: “to inform and educate aspiring music professionals, connect them with the industry, and raise the academic level and interest inside and outside the Berklee Community.” The history of the Journal also suggests that if the expectations are clear and there is a tangible outcome to the student’s work, continuity of effort with sustained faculty leadership can produce much learning even without a formal course structure.