{"id":73510,"date":"2024-12-09T14:58:16","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T21:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=73510"},"modified":"2024-12-09T14:58:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T21:58:16","slug":"megan-carpenter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/megan-carpenter\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate Megan Carpenter: Fighting for inclusivity in music"},"content":{"rendered":"

As drum major of NAU\u2019s Lumberjack Marching Band (LMB), <\/span>Megan Carpente<\/span><\/b>r\u2019s job is to keep the group in lockstep. At football games and other campus events, Carpenter is at the front of the pack, conducting and signaling to her fellow musicians.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But off the field, she\u2019s much more than a metronome.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn LMB, there are students coming in from all different majors, all different cities and states, all different experience levels,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cMy goal as drum major was to make the marching band as welcoming and inclusive as possible so everyone feels valued.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Megan<\/a>
Carpenter “inspires others through kindness,\u201d said Brent Levine, associate director of bands at NAU.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When she first took up the position, Carpenter\u2014a <\/span>Gold Axe Award winner<\/span><\/a> who graduates this month\u2014made it her mission to learn every single band member\u2019s name. (That\u2019s no mean feat, considering LMB is about 200 strong.) She also took time to learn more about her fellow musicians and check up on them periodically, as she would with close friends or family members.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Creating inclusive communities is at the heart of virtually everything Carpenter does. As vice president of membership in NAU\u2019s chapter of Tau Beta Sigma, a band service organization, she promoted diversity and championed women in music through new member recruitment and event organization. And as part of the Kitt School of Music\u2019s ideas committee, she brainstormed ways to help the school better meet the needs of its diverse students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHer leadership style is based on a \u2018service-first\u2019 mindset, and she inspires others through kindness and providing a constant positive example,\u201d said <\/span>Brent Levine<\/span><\/b>, associate director of bands at NAU. \u201cShe is one of those people in the group that others flock to\u2014she is known among our students as a good listener and someone who possesses the ability to bring others together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter said her generous spirit is a natural extension of her gratitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy perspective is, it\u2019s truly amazing to get the opportunities I\u2019ve had at NAU, so I want to take those opportunities and use them to uplift people,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cFundamentally, I am a person who loves helping others. I will do any job if it means I can make someone\u2019s life better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

From the cosmic to the classroom<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

These days, Carpenter\u2019s life revolves around music: She\u2019ll soon graduate with a degree in music education, and in addition to LMB, she\u2019s part of two other NAU performing ensembles.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lumberjack<\/a>
Carpenter (fourth from left) loves the Lumberjack Marching Band for its diversity of students.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her present is light-years away from what her past self imagined.<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up in Peoria, Carpenter excelled at math and loved space. So, when the Lumberjack Scholarship recipient first packed her bags for Flagstaff, she imagined she\u2019d major in astrophysics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, my adviser told me that if I wanted to major in astrophysics, I wouldn\u2019t have the time to be in marching band,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cMusic has always been very important to me, so I said, \u2018never mind\u2019 and dropped the major. At that point, I thought, if I\u2019m changing my whole major just to play music, I should probably go into a field that will let me play music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter auditioned for a spot in the Kitt School of Music and never looked back. Well, except geographically: This semester, she\u2019s back home serving as a student teacher in West Valley public schools as part of her music education degree.\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Megan<\/a>
As vice president of membership for Tau Beta Sigma, a band service organization, Carpenter (front) promoted diversity and championed women in music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Carpenter, the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge to real classroom scenarios has been eye-opening.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned that there are times when kids can surprise you,\u201d she said. \u201cThe other week, I was teaching third graders about a boomwhacker, which is this plastic tube instrument that plays a different note depending on its size. One kid asked, \u2018If they\u2019re made out of the same thing, why do they play different pitches?\u2019 I thought, whoa, that\u2019s such a big question for a third-grader! It showed me that it\u2019s important to give kids opportunities to expand on the knowledge they already have.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Light in darkness<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Although she\u2019s always been a gifted student, Carpenter wasn\u2019t always able to picture a bright future for herself.\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some years in high school and college when I struggled with my mental health,\u201d she confessed. \u201cI didn\u2019t think I was going to make it out the other side.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But thanks to help from a supportive group of friends and mentors and the propulsive force of her passion for music, Carpenter found a way through. Now, there are long-term goals she believes she\u2019ll achieve someday: a career in music education at a middle school or high school, a farm full of rescue dogs, an epic vacation to the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands and maybe even a gig in a professional band.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be the London Philharmonic\u2014just a band where I\u2019m surrounded by really awesome musicians,\u201d Carpenter said. \u201cI could just play one note and I\u2019d be happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As drum major of NAU\u2019s Lumberjack Marching Band (LMB), Megan Carpenter\u2019s job is to keep the group in lockstep. At football games and other campus events, Carpenter is at the front of the pack, conducting and signaling to her fellow musicians.\u202f\u00a0 But off the field, she\u2019s much more than a metronome.\u00a0 \u201cIn LMB, there are…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":73514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}