David Dockan & Faith Hall Join LSU Music Education Faculty

We are pleased to welcome David Dockan and Faith Hall as our newest Assistant Professors of Music Education, beginning August 2024!

David Dockan is currently a PhD candidate in music education at the University of Kentucky. His responsibilities include serving as a teaching assistant at the university, where he teaches classes on music in the elementary classroom, rehearses the community music ensembles of New Horizons, and supervises student teachers. He is an active clinician and writer on topics such as informal music learning, hip-hop, Orff Schulwerk, Modern Band, and popular media in the elementary classroom. He was recently published in the Music Educators Journal and invited to present at the International Society for Music Education (ISME) symposium in Helsinki, Finland. Prior to his time at Kentucky, Dockan received his BM from West Virginia University and his MM from Kent State University, and taught for five years in Prince George County Public Schools in Virginia. He is also a certified Orff Schulwerk teacher from the Eastman School of Music.

Faith Hall is a PhD candidate in music education at the University of Missouri. During her time in Columbia, she worked as a graduate teaching assistant with the MU Bands, music education courses, and supervised student teachers. Hall's research has focused on music teacher cognition and occupational identity development. She is currently finishing her dissertation, "Descriptions of Expert Middle School Band Teachers' Decision-Making Processes Before, During, and After Instruction." She has published articles in the Journal of Research in Music Education, the Bulletin of Council of Research in Music Education, Missouri School Music Magazine, and the Florida Music Director. Hall has also presented her research at major conferences, including the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Florida Music Educators Association (FMEA), and Iowa Bandmasters Association (IBA), among others. Before her graduate studies, Hall taught high school band for six years in Arizona and Iowa. She earned her MM from Florida State University (2021) and her BME from the University of Northern Iowa (2013).

"It is an honor to be joining the faculty at Louisiana State University," Dockan said. "Students learn best when they are having fun and when their musical identities are validated. By harnessing the rich tapestry of Louisiana’s culture and popular media, we can ‘let the good times roll’ and foster tomorrow’s talent today."

"I am thrilled to be joining the thriving community at the LSU School of Music as a faculty member," Hall said. "You can spot me decked out in purple and gold and visiting Mike the Tiger at lunchtime!" 

 

About The Program

The Music Education area within the LSU School of Music draws on a long tradition of excellence. The program combines an outstanding faculty of music education specialists with the artistry of performing musicians and conductors, the scholarship of music theorists and historians, a strong liberal arts component, and a consistently high-quality body of undergraduate and graduate students. The undergraduate program emphasizes analytical and musicianship skills, while graduate programs (M.M. and Ph.D.) offer intensive studies in areas such as analysis, performance, set theory and music cognition.