Courses

ICE-125 The Mind: The Creative Entrepreneur Mindset illuminates the harmonious intersection of artistry and entrepreneurship. This course ventures beyond traditional entrepreneurial principles, immersing students into a realm where creativity isn't just an advantage, but the very essence of innovative business endeavors. It underscores an artist’s core abilities—such as improvisation, listening, collaborating, and experimenting—as invaluable tools in the entrepreneurial arsenal. Through a blend of theoretical exploration and experiential learning, students will understand how to seamlessly weave artistic skills into the fabric of business strategy and innovation. By the course's end, students will not only appreciate the parallels between the worlds of art and business but will also be adept at harnessing their unique artistic talents to navigate and thrive in the entrepreneurial landscape.

ICE-225 The Blueprint: Foundations of Entrepreneurship invites students into the vibrant world of entrepreneurial thinking and practice. This course lays the foundation for understanding the intricacies of launching and operating successful startups, delving deep into essential business vocabulary, frameworks, and strategic theories. With an emphasis on real-world application, students will gain insights into the theoretical aspects and learn to craft foundational business plans using the Business Model Canvas. By course's end, students will be well-versed in the language and strategies of the entrepreneurial landscape and poised to transform their future creative ideas into tangible business ventures. 

ICE-345 The Startup Lab 1 immerses students in the early stages of entrepreneurial venture creation. This course emphasizes ideation, concept development, and prototyping, with the objective of turning abstract ideas into something tangible. Students will learn to harness creativity through ideation exercises, assess feasibility and market desirability, and develop a low-fidelity prototype or MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The class will culminate in an informal presentation where students share their concepts and receive peer feedback, laying the groundwork for developing a strategy and professional pitching in the subsequent course, ICE-445 The Startup Lab 2.

This introductory course is designed with the whole musician in mind and seeks to assist each participant to foster skills to enhance overall wellness creativity, and performance. Each two-hour class offers didactic information, interactive learning, and explicit skill building in conceptual and practical areas scientifically demonstrated to support the craft of creativity and wellness. These areas include balance, mindfulness, and mind-body science. Substantive threads from each of these areas will be woven through the texture of each individual class to support recognition of the interconnections that exist among them as a whole. All of this information will be used to help each student create a solid foundation of awareness as a musician.

A hands-on course designed to provide practical skills for incorporating technology into the practice of music therapy. Topics will include MIDI, digital sound, adaptive technology, music composition/performance software, and the internet. Students will use technology to develop original music activities and present them to the class.

Through a combination of literature review, field research, reflective writing, and regular meetings with an on-site supervisor, students will deepen their understanding of professional arts in public health practice. Course requirements will include a minimum of 15 hours of supervised practicum experience in a public health setting with an established community partner (healthcare, forensics, residential settings, community centers, etc.).

Arts-based health research applies the scientific method to obtain a better understanding of the arts’ effects on the health and well-being of individuals and communities. This course is an introductory exploration of purpose and methods of various research designs within the arts and health landscape. Emphases will be placed on demonstrating ability to understand, interpret, evaluate and apply research; navigate research databases, and the role of research in product/program development.

This course is an overview of music therapy theory, research, and clinical practice in working with older adults to maintain quality of life throughout the aging process. Emphases will be placed on the role of music-based experiences across domains of functioning, from wellness to disease management. This includes examining the impact of music therapy methods within the treatment and management of diseases and disorders prevalent throughout the aging process. 

Innovative solutions require cross-disciplinary approaches. This course empowers students of all backgrounds to confront contemporary health challenges through curiosity, creativity, and strategy. Using the Impact Thinking Model, this course will provide participants with a well-rounded understanding of the fundamentals of clinical problem-solving to human-centered product design within the music and health space. Students will gain foundational knowledge, skills necessary to apply that knowledge to solutions in a practical context, and interface with leading experts within the music and health ecosystem.

The social, educational, economic, and aesthetic benefits of the arts for communities are well documented. This course provides foundational tools for students looking to develop arts-based community programs that incorporate collaborative, socially engaged and active arts-based experiences to impact the overall quality of life of a given community group. Students will be led through the program development process—from clearly defining a mission to establishing partnerships to tracking program outcomes to ensure impact, effectiveness, sustainability, and replication.

This course is designed to teach students about contemporary developments in community music therapy. This includes the acknowledgement of the value of human connectedness in music making, the scope and practice of community music therapy, musiking as a concept and how music therapy fits into the broader sociopolitical context and systems that the client interacts with within an ecology that is connected and interdependent.

This course offers supervision for the preparation and implementation of an approved project within the Music Therapy department. Projects may originate from coursework with emphases on gaining advanced clinical, research, or theoretical knowledge with the discipline. It is expected that this project demonstrates what the student has learned throughout their coursework, showcasing areas of special interest that further the discipline’s understanding of the subject area in some way. Students will be expected to develop a project timeline, self-evaluation criteria for assessment of their project, and gain an understanding of current and future advances in music therapy as they relate to the project and the student’s broader career aspirations. Lastly, when appropriate, students will be expected to submit to present on their work at a regional or national professional music therapy conference. Please note this course can vary in credits from 1-4.