11/17/2016
Heather Jones just might trill an aria of joy once she begins that first elementary teaching job after graduation in Fall 2017.
She should be able to impress as well as surprise those schoolchildren on that big day because Jones is a classically trained soprano, and music education is her chief career interest.
Mind you, SUNY Cortland does not offer a degree in music education.
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However, thanks to the College’s possession of a Performing Arts Department and a wide option of humanities courses, Jones now practices under a trained opera singer, Professor David Neal, and blends her voice with the campus choir, the College Singers.
A senior childhood and early childhood education major who is minoring in music and concentrating in humanities, Jones is living out a very long-held dream after taking a detour from higher education.
She grew up in Binghamton and graduated from Central Baptist Christian Academy in 2002. Two years later she achieved an associate’s degree in music education from SUNY Broome.
“I ran into financial struggles and wasn’t able to move on past my associate degree,” Jones said, voicing a common theme among non-traditional students. “I had a break in education.”
Jones then went to work in retail management and auto insurance.
Now she’s 32 and, as with many non-traditional students, her life presently is firmly rooted geographically. Her mother and some favorite young nieces and nephews live in Binghamton, N.Y. So Jones cast her eyes around the fixed radius of colleges located in driving distance.
By now she had let go of her dream to teach music but wanted to become an educator and identified SUNY Cortland as the place to learn how.
“Having a music department here allowed me to be able to have a connection with that, especially to begin the voice training again. This was the school that had the best opportunity for me coming back as an adult.”
She learned that on day one at SUNY Cortland in her first class, Italian 101, where she met Marion Giambattista, a performing arts lecturer who was auditing the course.
“Meeting her the first day at SUNY Cortland was what established the music connection,” Jones said. “I was already enrolled in choir and planned to go that night. That first day when I met Marion she said, ‘Will you come sing for me after class?’
“I basically had an audition for taking voice lessons that day,” Jones said. “I didn’t realize I could do that until then. I sang for her and David (Neal) and another lady in the department and began voice training the next semester. I was glad when that happened on my first day, my first hour of school here.”
The humanities concentration, which Jones describes as having a broad focus, enabled her to study philosophy, the arts and English. But she had another motive.
“It allowed me to take some music along with the requirements of my minor,” Jones said. “I’ve been focused more on taking as much music as possible.”
Jones speaks highly of School of Education faculty.
“There are some phenomenal professors there,” she said. “I really enjoy what I have learned and the program they offer. It is geared not only to benefit you as a future teacher but as an individual now.”
Jones looks forward to her semester of student teaching in Fall 2017 and hopes to be certified to teach first through fifth grades.
“I want to teach in an elementary school and use my music training elsewhere.”
She plans to pursue a master’s degree that involves music certification, which of course will require more music training. That’s music to her ears.
“This has blended my love of music as well as broadened my opportunity so I could not only teach music but younger students on whom I could have much impact,” she said.
While she doesn’t have a family of her own yet, Jones showers attention on her nieces and nephews, including 5, 9, and 11-year-old girls.
“I spend most of my time with them and my mother and other relatives when I am not in school,” she said. “I want to help the future generation of children and have an impact on their lives.”
Jones is one of SUNY Cortland’s approximately 300 undergraduate students who is 24 or older, according to Cheryl Hines, coordinator of student outreach and non-traditional student support.
Nationally, non-trads are defined as students older than 23, students raising children, students working full time, students with prior military experience or students who have an interruption in their education. And they make up an increasingly large segment of campus populations. These students often take unique paths to realize their academic goals and achieve their degrees after overcoming obstacles that traditional, right-out-of-high-school students don’t usually face.
Jones is another reason why SUNY Cortland recognizes and celebrates these dedicated students during Non-Trad Week, which started on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, and runs through Friday, Nov. 18.
Non-Trad Week events include family activities, a specially tailored scholarship session, a free taco bar and a “Non-Trads Rock” T-shirt day, when anyone spotted wearing that signature shirt will win a prize. A full list of activities is available.
The College will be publicly recognizing notable non-trads throughout the week, Hines said. You can nominate someone for recognition.