Jere T. Humphreys enjoyed a 50-year career as a music education researcher, teacher, speaker, and consultant in 32 countries on six continents and in 42 U.S. states and territories. The author of numerous publications, he received three Fulbright Scholar awards, was an academic specialist for the U.S. Department of State and received the Senior Researcher Award from the National Association for Music Education. He was also the editor of the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education and the contributing editor for music education for the Grove Dictionary of American Music. He directed dozens of dissertations and theses internationally, many of them award winners. He also held significant positions and won awards for his local and international community service in civil liberties and other humanitarian concerns. Currently, he is professor emeritus of music in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre and a faculty affiliate emeritus in the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies, both at Arizona State University (ASU), where he taught for 34 years (1987-2021).
Early Career Years
Humphreys grew up on his family’s five-generation cotton farm near Memphis, Tennessee, and became a first-generation college student when he matriculated at the University of Mississippi. After earning a B.M. in music education, he served six years in the U.S. Army National Guard [two years each in Tennessee (signal corps), Mississippi (41st Army Band), and Florida (signal corps); rank of specialist E-5 at time of discharge]; was a band director for four years in the Quitman (Mississippi) Consolidated School District; soloed with high school and community bands; toured Europe during the American Bicentennial as clarinet soloist and assistant director with the 80-member U.S.A. Band (selected high school and college students); taught band, music theory, and futuristics in the Georgia Governors Honors Program; and was a union woodwinds performer. During those early career years, he earned an M.M. in clarinet performance from Florida State University (FSU), where his major teachers were Harry Schmidt (clarinet) and Clifford Madsen (music education). While at FSU he held graduate teaching assistantships in clarinet and music education and taught single reeds and woodwind methods part-time at Valdosta State College (now University) in Georgia. Next, he taught music education, woodwinds, and music theory for two years as an assistant professor at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. He eventually completed a Ph.D. in music education at the University of Michigan, where he studied music and music education history with Allen Britton and Richard Crawford, music education with James Froseth and Paul Lehman, and social science research and statistics at the renowned Institute for Social Research. He also held a graduate teaching assistantship in music education. He then taught music education courses for six years as an assistant to associate professor at West Virginia University (WVU) before moving to ASU in 1987.
Research, Editing, Teaching
The author of almost two hundred published articles, chapters, and reviews, Dr. Humphreys received three research awards from the world’s preeminent professional music education organization, the 100,000+ member Music Educators National Conference (now called MENC: The National Association for Music Education), including the MENC Senior Researcher Award, the highest lifetime research award in the field. He is known for versatility as a scholar, namely his accomplishments in both humanities/historical and social sciences/quantitative research. In the realm of historical research, he received an award for “exceptional contributions to scholarship” from the MENC History Special Research Interest Group for his numerous journal articles and book chapters and his authorship of dozens and editing of hundreds of articles in the Grove Dictionary of American Music. He also did extensive editorial work on journals and books. One example is his chapter on music in compulsory schooling in the U.S., one of 18 chapters on as many countries in a book written under the aegis of the International Society for Music Education, published in two English editions and one Mandarin edition by Peking University Press. He also authored a chapter on music ensembles for a book commemorating the Ithaca College School of Music centennial.
In the realm of social sciences research, he won the national dissertation award from MENC and was named a finalist by the Council for Research in Music Education at the University of Illinois for his (empirical) dissertation. He was the principal author of an extended (empirical) chapter on music ensembles in the first MENC Handbook of Research in Music Education. His expertise in social sciences research is further exemplified by the inclusion of his article on music aptitude testing in Sage Directions in Educational Psychology—an anthology of published works by leading scholars in educational psychology and measurement (e.g., Bruner, Cronbach, Glaser, Nunnally, Piaget, Rogers, Stanley, Robert Thorndike). His co-authored article in the Journal of Research in Music Education on standardizing one of the Gordon music aptitude tests in Greece is cited frequently. These two latter articles on testing now reside in the Edwin E. Gordon Archive. His experience in statistics includes descriptive, survey, and multivariate analysis.
He began by publishing historical studies on scientific thinking in music, including landmark articles on music aptitude testing in which he traced the lack of predictive validity in the first modern tests to ancient Greek beliefs about relationships between sensory acuity and intelligence (and eventually music aptitude). He branched out to study bands, music teacher education, racial and gender and regional issues, and aspects of historiography. He speculated about the place of music and music education in prehistoric societies, identified factors that led to the establishment of music ensembles in schools, and wrote about the rise of American popular music and its sociological roles in society. He investigated a host of other topics, such as mainstreaming, modern conceptions of creativity in music education, occupational identity of music educators (past and present), and the nature and causes of "change" in music education history. Sometimes he employed both historical and statistical methods, such as when he pioneered in the application of inferential statistical analysis in music education historiography (“quanto-history”), which he demonstrated in several published articles, including one on historical MENC membership co-authored with the noted scholar Charles P. Schmidt of Indiana University. He published in nearly all the major English-language research journals related to music education, including the British Journal of Music Education (an invited "Points for Debate" article) and Research Studies in Music Education (Australia).
Dr. Humphreys' research experience and expertise led to extensive work as an editor. As the second editor of the Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, he renamed the former “Bulletin” and expanded its scope by appointing editorial committee members from six countries and publishing foreign articles and reviews. In the process he also achieved gender balance on the committee. Altogether, he served on the editorial committees of 16 national and international education, music education, and music therapy research journals, ranging from the Journal of Research in Music Education, Journal of Research in Music Therapy, Journal of Band Research, and Council for Research in Music Education Bulletin to the International Journal of Research in Music Education, College Music Symposium, Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning (founding member), and Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education. He also sat on editorial committees for research journals published in Australia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey, and he was a contributing editor for Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. His corpus of editorial work also included membership on the Senior Editorial Board and service as the contributing editor for music education for the Grove Dictionary of American Music (Oxford University Press) (2d ed., print and online), a component of the world's leading encyclopedic music dictionary. Finally, he was a section editor, part editor, and author for the Oxford Handbook of Music Education (2012 and 2018 editions).
In addition to editorial work, Dr. Humphreys presented 18 keynote and other major featured speeches, half of them in foreign countries. He presented keynote addresses for the Greek Society for Music Education (Thessaloniki, Lamia, Volos, and Thessaloniki), Suncoast Music Education Symposium (Tampa), Desert Skies Symposium (Tucson), a world music symposium in Illinois (DeKalb), and international music education conferences in Bulgaria (Blagoevgrad) and Egypt (Cairo). He also presented keynotes for the Australian Association for Research in Music Education (Melbourne), various configurations (e.g., societies, special research interest groups) of MENC conferences (St. Augustine, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Washington, DC), and he was the North American keynote/plenary speaker for the 1st North American/8th Latin American International Society for Music Education Conference (Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico). He was also a provocateur speaker at a MayDay Group symposium (Seattle) and a featured speaker for the Ithaca College School of Music centennial.
His early research, editorial, and teaching experiences led to an appointment in 1996 as an Academic Specialist for the U.S. Information Agency (Department of State) in the Republic of Macedonia, where he taught in a new master’s degree program in arts management. In that capacity he taught applied survey research and statistics to arts managers (e.g., of a symphony orchestra, opera company, theater company, museum, radio station) to help facilitate their transition from communism/socialism to partial self-supporting status, a political and economic shift under way in that region following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. His work for the U.S. State Department led to a Fulbright Senior Scholarship to Macedonia in 2002, which in turn led to Fulbright Specialist appointments to Egypt in 2010 and Turkey in 2015.
During those years he was an invited participant/speaker in the Northwestern University Music Education Leadership Seminar (led by Bennett Reimer) (2002), the University of Mississippi Leaders in American Music Education Series (2004), and the Jean Sinor Lecture Series at Indiana University (2011); he presented lectures, advised master’s thesis students, and was interviewed on Radio Nacional Argentina (NPR) during three visits to Buenos Aires, Argentina (2004, 2006, 2008); and held an endowed chair residency at the University of Alabama (2008). He taught classes for undergraduate and graduate students during two summers at the International Summer University at the University of Pristina in Kosovo (2009, 2010), and taught residential graduate courses as a visiting professor at the University of South Florida (spring 2010), Northern Illinois University (summers of 2011, 2012), and the University of Michigan (summer 2013). He taught, presented, consulted, and performed in many countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Macedonia, Malaysia, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States. Among the more than 60 colleges and universities at which he taught, presented, or performed worldwide are Aristotle University, Boston University, Indiana University, Northwestern University, National Academy for Educational Research (Taipei), National Taipei University of Education, Sibelius Academy, University of Arizona, University of California Los Angeles, University of Georgia, University of Helsinki, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Miami, University of Michigan, University of North Texas, University of Utah, and University of Washington. He was a "Returning Speaker" and presented papers at conferences of the International Fulbright Association (Washington, DC, Athens, Washington, DC). For more than a decade he was a (non-resident) instructor and dissertation advisor in the D.M.A. in music education program at Boston University, and he served for seven years in the Native American Educational Leadership Ed.D. program in the ASU College of Education, where he directed dissertations and taught a residential course on quantitative research in the Navajo Nation capital city of Window Rock, Arizona. He was also an honorary visiting professor at European University in Nicosia, Cyprus.
Dissertation and Thesis Advising
Dr. Humphreys enjoyed and arguably excelled at dissertation advising most of all. Altogether, he served as the advisor or co-advisor for 45 doctoral dissertations, two master’s theses, and one undergraduate honors thesis. Most of the dissertations were produced in the ASU School of Music, but six were from Boston University, four were from the ASU College of Education, and there was one each from Aristotle University in Greece, Martin Luther University in Germany (an Iranian student), the University of South Florida, and West Virginia University. He served as the (non-chair) research director for four other dissertations: one each from the ASU College of Education, ASU School of Music (performance), University of Miami, and Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Macedonia. He served as the external reviewer for four dissertations from Australia and sat on dozens of other thesis and dissertation committees in Australia, North and South America, and Eastern and Western Europe.
Several of his advisees were recognized by their respective national organizations or universities, including one national award winner and three finalists by the Council for Research in Music Education (University of Illinois) and a “cum laude” designation for a master’s thesis in Argentina. His doctoral students split nearly evenly between quantitative and historical research modes, with a slight lean toward historical. Most of his former dissertation advisees have achieved prominence as teachers, scholars, performers, conductors, or administrators in K-12, university, or professional settings. One was the founding president of the Greek Society for Music Education, another is a long-time resident conductor with the New York City Ballet, one is vice-president for academic affairs for the South Dakota Board of Regents, one is superintendent of a municipal school system, and one serves as provost and vice-president for academic affairs at Northwestern State University in Louisiana. Several are chairs or directors or supervisors of their departments, one holds an endowed chair, and two are Fulbright Senior Scholars.
Along the way students nominated Humphreys for ASU Parents Association Professor of the Year and for ASU College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teacher of the Year. He was a faculty honors advisor for ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College, a faculty mentor for the ASU Obama Scholars program, and he remains a faculty affiliate emeritus in the ASU Melikian Center: Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies.
Service: Professional and Community
Humphreys' university service included co-founding, co-funding, and administering the William S. English Memorial Scholarship to honor his ASU predecessor and friend, and over two decades as faculty advisor for the ASU Habitat for Humanity Campus Chapter. He served terms as chair of the music education departments at West Virginia University and ASU. Much of his university service involved him in personnel matters, such as chairing numerous faculty search, promotion, tenure, and grievance committees at the school, college, and university levels. At ASU, he sat on the University Curriculum and Academic Programs Committee and the University Governance Grievance Committee, and he chaired the ASU Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the university's highest faculty governance committee.
His professional service outside his own universities included work as an external accreditation evaluator for the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and leadership positions in the College Music Society (Advisory Committee for Music Education), Fulbright Association Arizona Chapter (Board of Directors member and Co-President), Greek Society for Music Education (Scientific Advisor), International Society for Music Education (Financial Advisory Committee), National Association for Music Education (Executive Committees for Society for Research in Music Education and Society for Music Teacher Education, Hall of Fame Board, National Chair for History Special Research Interest Group, Chair for MENC Centennial History Symposium), University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance Alumni Society (Board of Governors), West Virginia Music Educators Association (state conference chair, elected state president-elect), and others. He was also an original signatory to the Action Ideals of the MayDay Group, and he conducted music teacher in-service workshops in several states as well as for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Arizona. Dr. Humphreys’ service to scholarship included collaboration with the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy (consultant); European Union, Greek Ministry of Education, and U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities (member of research teams); and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the U.S. Fulbright Specialist Program, World Learning (reviewer).
The three decades Humphreys spent in the Mid-South region of the U.S. coincided with the emergence and flourishing of the civil rights, anti-war, and women’s movements. These regional and period experiences fueled his interest in issues and concerns that expanded to international dimensions and continue to manifest in his writing, teaching, and service. In the realm of research, Humphreys produced foundational studies on regional, gender, and multicultural representation in music books and curricula. Among these are analyses of understudied issues in music education history such as regional and gender differences in the membership of professional organizations, and frequently cited studies on regional and gender representation disparities in two widely used history of music education books, studies of demographics on editorial committees and among dissertation authors, and a frequently cited study co-authored with Jui-Ching Wang of Northern Illinois University on multicultural and popular music content in a major music teacher education program. In the realm of teaching, a majority (25 of 48, 52%) of his dissertation and thesis advisees are women, and his female colleagues nominated him for ASU Faculty Women's Association Distinguished Mentor of Women. Some of his most visible work occurred outside of academia. One notable example was his eight years on boards of directors for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, for which he was elected vice-president for board nominating and governance, vice-president for personnel, chair of the Bylaws Committee, and member of the Board Executive Committee. Under his guidance the ACLU of Arizona became one of the first state affiliates to meet the ACLU’s national and state board representation goals for equity in race/ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ, and mental and physical handicap status.
Perhaps most notable of his service efforts was the 22 years he spent as a volunteer construction leader for Habitat for Humanity (HFH), where he honed and applied his construction and leadership/teaching skills. He served as a construction house/block (co)leader for 43 builds with HFH Central Arizona and (Habitat-related) Blitz Home Builders and Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Projects, building mostly for minority and/or female homeowners. In 2008 he led a team of 30 volunteers in rehabilitating a house in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi. At Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona (Phoenix), he recruited and trained countless volunteer construction team leaders, many of them women, and over a dozen house leaders, one of them his son, David Humphreys, with whom he co-led half of those builds. He participated in dozens of other HFH projects, including a Global Village build in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Beginning in 2002 he launched an initiative to found HFH Macedonia while in the country for his first Fulbright residency. Toward that end he worked closely with Habitat for Humanity International founding president Millard Fuller, who drove the project to fruition, culminating in 2004 when HFH Macedonia became the 100th Habitat country. Today, the award-winning HFH Macedonia affiliate has assisted more than 6,000 families. In 2014, it awarded Humphreys the Curiste R. Macedonia XIV c. Medallion for service and dedicated its first new building to him, six condominiums in the old industrial city of Veles, Macedonia. He continues as an honorary (fundraising) member of the Board of Directors. Humphreys’ work with Habitat for Humanity is the focus of a book chapter by art professor Shei-Chau Wang entitled “Building Two Houses: A Day with Dr. Humphreys,” in Think Outside the Box: Visual Literacy in the New Century, published in 2005 by the National Taiwan Arts Education Center in Taipei. In 2018, he received a Spirit of Philanthropy Award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals---Greater Arizona Chapter for his work with Habitat for Humanity. He was honored to co-lead the affiliate's women's build in 2019, alongside a female house leader.
For many years Humphreys has been an activist in causes directly related to civil liberties and is a long-time supporter of Planned Parenthood and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Currently, he is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Maricopa County (Arizona) Branch. He also served as an appointed Democratic Precinct Committeeperson in Maricopa County while sitting on the Education Committee for the Maricopa County Democratic Party. In recent years has participated in several local community bands, in women's marches (Phoenix and Atlanta) and LGBTQ events, and he spoke at meetings of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix (on popular music) and the school board for Phoenix Union High School District (against weapons in schools). He maintains lifetime memberships in the alumni associations of his three academic alma maters in addition to the (International) Fulbright Association.
Dr. Humphreys is identified by entries in Alchotron, the Free Social Encyclopedia, Dictionary of International Biography (Cambridge), Dictionary of Music Education, Grove Dictionary of American Music, Wikipedia, and various editions of the Marquis Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Education. His Wikipedia biography appears in the following languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Malay, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. Various of his scholarly works are published in the Arabic, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Chinese (Mandarin), Greek, Macedonian, Spanish, and Turkish languages.
He lives in the South Mountain area of Phoenix with his wife and life mate, Alexandra Houzouri Humphreys, an ASU associate librarian and native of Greece.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jere_Humphreys Updated 08-06-2020
https://isearch.suasu.edu/profile/198: Updated 2-7-2023
