JUDY BOWERS, current holder of the Emy-Lou Biedenharn Chair in Music Education at the University of Louisiana Monroe, is known for creating community learning partnerships that focus on teacher preparation goals. Bowers plans to address professional development at ULM for undergraduate music majors, contribute to creation of a summer graduate music program for teachers, and create partnerships with public schools for shared projects and undergraduate field experiences. She accepted this position after 27 years of teaching undergraduate/graduate courses in choral music education at Florida State University. Bowers has received multiple Excellence in Teaching awards at FSU, and has been awarded the Wayne Hugoboom Distinguished Service Award from the state ACDA Chapter of Florida. As a choral educator, she is an active conductor of all-state and honor choirs across the United States and Canada, and in 2014 conducted the East Africa Middle School Choral Festival in Tanzania. Bowers frequently presents workshops and clinics for teachers, and her research interests include developmental choral groups and community learning partnerships; the most recent partnership paired university glee club singers with women in the Gadsden Correctional Facility (MTC Glee, a Prison Choir) for shared rehearsals and a concert each semester. Bowers has professional research publications in JRME and CRME, and has contributed multiple chapters to textbooks devoted to middle school choral topics. Professor Bowers holds music degrees from Louisiana State University (Ph.D.) and Texas Tech University (B.M.E.). In June 2014, Judy Bowers was named a Lowell Mason National Music Education Fellow and was inducted into this society by the National Association for Music Education in Washington D.C.
