Students in Kelly Morgan's Stage Movement: Combat course, a workshop-oriented course. utilize the basic techniques of movement that emphasize developing their potential for effective physicalization of a character on stage. Learn more about our Theater Concentration here.

What is your educational background?

• My Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees are from the New England Conservatory of Music in piano performance.  After teaching at the Walnut Hill School for Performing Arts and the Saint Mark’s School, I decided to return to school myself and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in music education from Boston University.

How long have you been teaching at Fitchburg State University?

• I have been teaching at Fitchburg State University since 1986; first as an adjunct professor and then as a full time professor in 1989.  I have taught courses in music history and music theory as well as interdisciplinary courses and applied instruction in piano and voice. 

What is your educational background?

• I got my bachelor’s in Music and Philosophy from a small Quaker-affiliated liberal arts school, called Earlham College. I then went straight into a master’s program in Choral Conducting at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Then, after working for several years in Massachusetts, directing college choirs, community choirs, children’s choirs, and working in public radio, I went back to school to get my doctorate in Conducting at the University of Connecticut.

How long have you been teaching at Fitchburg State University?

• I’ve been teaching at Fitchburg State since Fall 2016 - it seems like yesterday, and also so long ago!

Fitchburg State has long embraced the importance of supporting the city beyond the borders of campus, and this summer that included some fresh paint and a lot of artistic expression.

Several Falcons played key roles in the design and creation of a series of major public art murals that were unveiled this summer. The Community Mural Institute led the effort, which supported 12 artists in the design and creation of pieces on large public facades in the heart of the city.

Mark St. Laurent gives a lesson in voice as part of our Community Music Program this afternoon in the Band Room of our Conlon Fine Arts Center. The Community Music Program offers year-round programs (individual & group lessons, cello choir, chamber music fest) to the public.

The Fitchburg State University Center for Professional Studies' Advanced Placement Summer Institutes (APSI) first week is in full swing. The APSI are designed to support all aspects of AP courses, including AP methodology, curriculum, class assignments and examinations as well as providing strategies for teaching AP courses. Art & Design Educators spent the week long program in a combination of lecture, projects, and discussion to improve their teaching skills. 

Two of our Music Department faculty, Jane Fiske (piano) and Amy McGlothlin (saxophone), rehearsed in our Kent Recital Hall this afternoon for an upcoming concert. The concert is part of the Old Deerfield Village Summer Concert Series and will take place on July 31  at 3 p.m. Learn more about the concert series, and how to attend, here.

Our Office of Student Development Student Orientation Leaders, who are on campus preparing for orientation sessions for our newest Falcons, The Class of 2026, were given a presentation by Jonathan Harvey, Hildur Schilling, and Amy McGlothlin of our Music Department as part of the days training sessions and activities. The presentation stressed the importance of music in student's lives and what Fitchburg State University has to offer. Dr. Harvey noted that a recent study showed that over 70,000,000 Americans participate in a music ensemble - roughly the same number involved on some athletic endeavor.

The reception was the last meeting of Professor Kisha Tracy's Writing II class this semester, in which attendees celebrated the Heritages of Change exhibition, and heard from current students about their new mini-exhibitions that will be exhibited next spring. This is also a reception to thank you for those who helped with the exhibit in any way - from the students in my Spring 2021 Writing II class who contributed their work to the Deans' Anti-Racism fund to the coordinators at each of the sites who helped make them all happen, to other Writing II instructors who asked for tours, and, if our Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area (ALFA) mentors who felt comfortable visiting in person.

Phi Sigma Sigma held their Scoop and Jump for Jimmy fundraiser on the quad today. There was ice cream, and lemonade, and an obstacle course available for a small donation with all proceeds going to The Jimmy Fund. Thanks to a generous donation by Dr. Catherine Buell, Director of the Honors Program, students from the Francis Drake School in Leomisnter MA got to enjoy the obstacle course. Those students, and students from the Longjo School in Fitchburg, MA, were on campus for a collaborative project called Students and Social Justice. FSU honors students and Dr. Danette Day worked on the project along with  The Friends of the Abolitionist Park, and The Forge Theatre Lab. The students got to work off some energy before boarding a bus back to their school, and our students had a great experience, a win, win!