CIMTR Public Research Webinar: Women in Academia

We would be delighted to have you join us for our next webinar on 8th March.

What is the significance of International Women’s Day for the arts therapies professions, within which women have always been visible, and some would say, more than equal? In the UK for example, 4/5ths of the membership of the British Association of Music Therapy (BAMT) identify as women and there is no shortage of women in leadership positions, not least as demonstrated by the prevalence of women on the teaching staff of postgraduate training courses(Langford et al., 2020). However the very existence of arts therapies and women within academia should not be taken for granted. Substantial recognition is due to key women, some of whom are speaking here today, who with very little research base as back up, courageously established and developed contemporary arts therapies praxis as a subject area for study and training, and were influential in the spread of the diploma and degree courses that exist today across the world in many middle-higher income nations. Their contribution has been inestimable. Furthermore, research and developments in practice by women of colour has always been a part of this history, although the visible demographic within arts therapies and academia has hitherto been largely populated by white women. Change towards a widespread consciousness and acknowledgement of white privilege is slow. These themes of intersectionality, agency, power imbalance, economics, justice and recognition are all too briefly implied here, but central to recent feminist writing in arts therapies, with the aim of interrogating and shedding new light upon situated practice, and professional issues for all.

This Round Table seminar, hosted by Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research (CIMTR), has been conceived as a celebration and a taking stock of the position of women as arts therapists within academia through a series of personal reflections. We will be welcoming seven women, who as practitioner researchers in music therapy and dramatherapy from across 4 continents have worked at the forefront of their individual discipline, some for over 40 years. They will speak on a range of topics in relation to gender, cultural diversity and their experiences of working within the context of academic organisations, including both the influence and absence of men, together with issues pertaining to gaps in research and women’s health.

Presentations will be followed by a series of replies from members of CIMTR, and questions.

Panel Chair:
Dr. Rachel Darnley-Smith, PhD, LGSM (MT), FHEA, Freelance Music Therapist and Researcher, London UK.

Panel Members:

• Professor Emerita Denise Grocke, AO, PhD, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music,University of Melbourne, Australia.
• Dr. Ditty Dokter, PhD, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK and Codarts University of the Arts, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
• Dr. Sumathy Sundar, Director, Chennai School of Music Therapy, India, Fellow of the IMC University of Applied Sciences, Austria.
• Professor Cheryl Dileo, PhD, MT-BC., Laura H Carnell Professor of Music Therapy Emerita and Founder: The Arts and Quality of Life Research Center, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA.
• Assistant Professor Inge Nygaard Pedersen, Dipl. Music Therapist. GIM Fellower. Aalborg University.
• DK Professor Gro Trondalen, PhD, SET, MA-MT, Fellow of AMI Centre for Research in Music and Health (CREMAH), Norwegian Academy of Music, Norway.
• Professor Helen Odell-Miller OBE, PhD, Professor of Music Therapy, Director Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research , PI for Homeside international RCT trial (JPND/Alzheimer's UK), Anglia Ruskin University
  
  
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