Patrick Vandehey is an Assistant Professor of Music at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. Prior to taking the position at Fox he taught 23 years in the Beaverton School District, 14 years at Aloha High School and 9 years at Westview High School. Mr. Vandehey received his Bachelors of Art and Bachelors of Music from the University of Washington, and a Masters of Teaching Music at Portland State University.
Mr. Vandehey is a Past-President of the Oregon Band Directors Association and serves on the Adjudication Training Board of OBDA. He served for two years as the Band Liaison to the Oregon Schools Activity Association. He has served twice on the Oregon Music Education Association’s Board as Band Chair served on the OMEA Executive board as President in 2005-2006.
In 1993 Mr. Vandehey was the State, Regional and National recipient of the ASBDA- Stanbury Award for Outstanding Young Band Director. In 2000 he was inducted into the Band World Legion of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation. Also in 2000 he was named one of Oregon’s top ten Music Educators by the Oregon Music Educators Association in the Teaching Music Magazine. In 2002 Mr. Vandehey received the Citation of Excellence from the National Band Association. He is a founding member of the Oregon Chapter of Phi Beta Mu, and in 2006 was inducted into the Northwest Bandmaster’s Association. Mr. Vandehey was named the Oregon’s Outstanding Music Educator in 2010 by OMEA.
The Band program at George Fox University has shown significant growth since Mr. Vandehey took over in 2003. In 2007, George Fox was one of three Universities selected to perform at the MENC Northwest Convention. In 2008 the George Fox Symphonic Band was featured at the Oregon Music Educators Association conference. In 2009 the George Fox University Symphonic Band was again a featured group at the MENC Northwest Convention. In 2010 the Symphonic Band was invited to perform at the Western International Band Clinic in Seattle, Washington.
Mr. Vandehey is the coordinator of Music Education at George Fox. Through the development of a comprehensive Music Education program the number of music education majors has grown from five in 2003 to a high of 30 in 2010. Because of his work with the Music Education Curriculum, Mr. Vandehey was invited to be a presenter at the Society of Music Teacher Education at North Carolina University in 2007.
Mr. Vandehey is married to Kristin, his wife of 34 years and has two daughters, both of whom are educators.
Our profession is under duress. An influx of programs such as the national CORE curriculum and STEM in public schools puts serious demands on school curriculum leaving little room for music and the arts. The recession, though improving, has left in its wake many programs decimated by budget cuts. Site based management has left music educators feeling they have no voice when school principals go about their business of running the school with little or no regard to the arts curriculum. These issues have contributed to a growing problem of a drop in the enrollment of music students in many of our Universities, especially in Music Education. There is a perception that Music Education is too risky a vocation. Too often this perception is planted by the Music Educators themselves.
NAfME can do a great deal in righting the ship. We need to continue to work to ensure that music educators are well educated on national education issues that directly affect them. That the arts and music in particular are part of every core curriculum discussion both locally and nationally. Music Educators need to be supplied with the best resources in the way of conference speakers, sessions, performing groups, music, and mentoring to help them be the most effective teachers they can possibly be. Perhaps the most effective thing NAfME can do is to help the Music Educator remember why they came into the profession in the first place. It was to provide children with one of the most basic of human needs, music. They need to remember the joy and excitement they first felt when entering this profession. They need to gain the vital skill of separating the political battle from the artistic pursuit of teaching our children to be music makers. They need to simply enjoy teaching again.
