Faculty Biography

Rachel Whitcomb, Assistant Professor


Contact:
(585) 389-5164
rwhitco7@naz.edu


Departmental Responsibilities:
Undergraduate Music Education
Student Teacher Supervision
Graduate Music Education
Council for Professionalism in Music Education


Education:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Ed.D.
Northwestern University, MM
West Chester University, BS


Biography:
Rachel Whitcomb earned her Ed. D. in Music Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was a recipient of the Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Fellowship in Doctoral Studies in Music Education. She has over ten years of experience teaching preschool and elementary general music in New Jersey, Tennessee, and Illinois. Her professional interests have included improvisation in the elementary general music classroom, rubrics as evaluative tools in music instruction, curricular integration, and early childhood music and movement. She recently completed a survey study to determine the nature and extent of improvisational activities occurring in elementary general music classrooms in the state of New York.  Dr. Whitcomb's work has been published in Music Educators Journal, Teaching Music, and numerous state music education journals. She has given presentations at the local, state, regional, and national levels, including the 2006 MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. At Nazareth College, Dr. Whitcomb teaches undergraduate and graduate music education courses and supervises student teachers.