Home
Home
Dear Dean Stepniak and Faculty Evaluation Committee members,
I am grateful for the chance to submit this application for promotion. As the attached CV and sections of the portfolio illuminate, I believe I have not only met but exceeded expectations in teaching, scholarship, and service as defined in the faculty handbook related to promotion to Associate Professor. Because the area of my teaching and scholarship, industry-based sound engineering and music recording software and hardware, may be unfamiliar to other academics within the University, I include below a brief synopsis clarifying the significance of my teaching and scholarly work.
As a teacher, I have been fortunate to consistently receive positive feedback from my students and colleagues to my instruction and contribution to the MPRT curriculum. It has been my pleasure to work with so many gifted and talented students directly and to see the work they have gone on to do with a sense of satisfaction in a career in audio. Beyond being invested in the training of my students as future recording professionals, I have been fortunate to have my teaching recognized through repeated teaching invitations from the recording industry’s leading organizations focused on sound engineering. Specifically, international organizations such as Avid, Apple, and Steinberg have repeatedly approved me to serve as a master teacher in digital audio workstations, as well as a presenter of master classes and training in Avid’s Pro Tools, Sibelius, Apple’s Logic Pro, and Steinberg’s Cubase/Nuendo among others.
Beyond teaching, it has been my privilege to play an increasingly important role in the development of my discipline and related knowledge. My creative scholarship is most easily understood as falling into two larger categories: my role as a sound engineer who has worked with major record labels and multiple major artists on their musical releases (e.g. posthumous release of a Marvin Gaye album), and as an author and presenter within the sound engineering field, presenting at leading international conferences on multiple occasions. Although my CV only highlights scholarship at a national and international level, I have also been grateful to present at regional events organized by my profession. The net result of my involvement in this area of scholarship has been the receipt of ongoing invitations to present at major conferences and to work on significant recording projects. In addition to my scholarly contributions, I am also pleased to have been included on the national list of “15 Outstanding Professors Every Audio Enthusiast Should Know” as listed on an influential website devoted to music recording. At an international audio conference following this publication, multiple respected peers offered congratulations for being so considered.
Within the area of service, I have been grateful for the chance to be of central support, not only to my academic program and school, but also to the university through service on multiple committees, and to the broader community through my involvement in many social and professional projects.
I thank you in advance for reviewing my ePortfolio and for your consideration of this application. I hope that you will see a clear demonstration of forward-thinking and excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service during my years as an Assistant Professor at Shenandoah University.
Sincerely,
Adam Olson
Assistant Professor of Music Production and Recording Technology
Shenandoah University
Shenandoah Conservatory
x7285 (on campus)
540-686-1232
aolson@su.edu
I am grateful for the chance to submit this application for promotion. As the attached CV and sections of the portfolio illuminate, I believe I have not only met but exceeded expectations in teaching, scholarship, and service as defined in the faculty handbook related to promotion to Associate Professor. Because the area of my teaching and scholarship, industry-based sound engineering and music recording software and hardware, may be unfamiliar to other academics within the University, I include below a brief synopsis clarifying the significance of my teaching and scholarly work.
As a teacher, I have been fortunate to consistently receive positive feedback from my students and colleagues to my instruction and contribution to the MPRT curriculum. It has been my pleasure to work with so many gifted and talented students directly and to see the work they have gone on to do with a sense of satisfaction in a career in audio. Beyond being invested in the training of my students as future recording professionals, I have been fortunate to have my teaching recognized through repeated teaching invitations from the recording industry’s leading organizations focused on sound engineering. Specifically, international organizations such as Avid, Apple, and Steinberg have repeatedly approved me to serve as a master teacher in digital audio workstations, as well as a presenter of master classes and training in Avid’s Pro Tools, Sibelius, Apple’s Logic Pro, and Steinberg’s Cubase/Nuendo among others.
Beyond teaching, it has been my privilege to play an increasingly important role in the development of my discipline and related knowledge. My creative scholarship is most easily understood as falling into two larger categories: my role as a sound engineer who has worked with major record labels and multiple major artists on their musical releases (e.g. posthumous release of a Marvin Gaye album), and as an author and presenter within the sound engineering field, presenting at leading international conferences on multiple occasions. Although my CV only highlights scholarship at a national and international level, I have also been grateful to present at regional events organized by my profession. The net result of my involvement in this area of scholarship has been the receipt of ongoing invitations to present at major conferences and to work on significant recording projects. In addition to my scholarly contributions, I am also pleased to have been included on the national list of “15 Outstanding Professors Every Audio Enthusiast Should Know” as listed on an influential website devoted to music recording. At an international audio conference following this publication, multiple respected peers offered congratulations for being so considered.
Within the area of service, I have been grateful for the chance to be of central support, not only to my academic program and school, but also to the university through service on multiple committees, and to the broader community through my involvement in many social and professional projects.
I thank you in advance for reviewing my ePortfolio and for your consideration of this application. I hope that you will see a clear demonstration of forward-thinking and excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service during my years as an Assistant Professor at Shenandoah University.
Sincerely,
Adam Olson
Assistant Professor of Music Production and Recording Technology
Shenandoah University
Shenandoah Conservatory
x7285 (on campus)
540-686-1232
aolson@su.edu
This new site follows the SU ePortfolio Google sites template outline and should hopefully be more clear and easy to read. I have consulted with a couple web professionals to get their input and feedback so I hope that it proves helpful. Every page on the Google ePortfolio site has a direct link to the equivalent page on this new website for convenience and familiarity. Feel free to leave comments on which ever site you prefer to work from (or none at all), I will look through both of them. It is my hope that things will be easier to navigate and allow me to include material in a clearer and more condensed space where possible.
Benefits of the new website:
1. Cleaner look and feel while maintaining the familiar layout and structure of the Google website.
2. Back and Next buttons so you don’t have to remember where you are and what page to click next (just click next).
3. Clickable up and down arrows for page navigation on the right side.
4. Cleaner videos that play within the page and avoid launching another window taking you from the website.
5. Information in several of the videos that gives further information about the work without cluttering the page with too much detail up front.
6. Folding tabs that can be expanded all at once or individually to help you see a hierarchical structure much quicker.
7. Pictures within pictures in cases where people might be interested in seeing more image related content without filling up the page or making a separate PDF to open.
8. Pages within pages clickable by a button icon where content is large and deserves it's own subpage.
9. More than one option to leave comments at the bottom of the page. You can log-in with Google, Twitter, Facebook, Disqus or post as a guest.
10. Image, icon and color consistency in the headers of sections for visual feedback of location.
11. Embedded PDF files viewable within the page as well as links to separate fullscreen view of each PDF shown.
12. Inline interactive CV with clickable links and TOC, in addition to the included PDF.
13. Fully scalable to mobile devices and large displays with site navigation shrinking to an open from side navigation to allow more content to be displayed on the screen at once (shrink your window to see). Oh no thirteen how unlucky, maybe I should add another number just to be safe.
Benefits of the new website:
1. Cleaner look and feel while maintaining the familiar layout and structure of the Google website.
2. Back and Next buttons so you don’t have to remember where you are and what page to click next (just click next).
3. Clickable up and down arrows for page navigation on the right side.
4. Cleaner videos that play within the page and avoid launching another window taking you from the website.
5. Information in several of the videos that gives further information about the work without cluttering the page with too much detail up front.
6. Folding tabs that can be expanded all at once or individually to help you see a hierarchical structure much quicker.
7. Pictures within pictures in cases where people might be interested in seeing more image related content without filling up the page or making a separate PDF to open.
8. Pages within pages clickable by a button icon where content is large and deserves it's own subpage.
9. More than one option to leave comments at the bottom of the page. You can log-in with Google, Twitter, Facebook, Disqus or post as a guest.
10. Image, icon and color consistency in the headers of sections for visual feedback of location.
11. Embedded PDF files viewable within the page as well as links to separate fullscreen view of each PDF shown.
12. Inline interactive CV with clickable links and TOC, in addition to the included PDF.
13. Fully scalable to mobile devices and large displays with site navigation shrinking to an open from side navigation to allow more content to be displayed on the screen at once (shrink your window to see). Oh no thirteen how unlucky, maybe I should add another number just to be safe.
