Music therapy majors combine skills in music with training in scientific research and a commitment to serve people. Students follow the music core curriculum, demonstrate skills in three instruments including piano and then add courses in anatomy and physiology, as well as sociology and psychology. After four years of study plus a six-month intensive clinical internship, students receive a bachelor of science degree and qualify to take the national certification exam.

It is one of the most broadly-based liberal arts," mentions program director Kagin. Students are introduced to a broad overview of the field, and then can continue in graduate school for specialization.

Music therapy is now a part of mainstream, complementary medicine. At first limited to state institutions treating special needs populations, it now can be found beneficial at any stage of life - from labor/delivery rooms, to daycare centers and schools, to special needs populations of any age, to hospice treatment for the terminally ill.

In fact, Kagin and others prefer "music medicine" as a more accurate name than music therapy. She teaches a course to University of Minnesota medical students, an elective, that presents extensive bio-medical research on the use of music in medical settings.

In 1983, Cathy Heuckendorf, one of this year's distinguished music therapy alumnae, founded Growing with Music, an early childhood educational music program that contracts with child care providers to offer developmental music activities. It now employs 17 music therapists in 152 programs throughout the metro area and several outstate sites.

Ruthann Ritchie, who finished a music therapy equivalency program in 1996, began work in oncology with hospice patients at North Memorial Hospital. Sandra Holten '82 has created music therapy activities for Parkinson's disease patients at the Struthers Parkinson's Center in Minneapolis. And Annette Turck Peterson received the Employee of the Year award from the Care Providers of Minnesota in 1998.

These alumni have also extended opportunities for internships and practicum experience. Of the more than 30 sites in the metro area where students can work, many are staffed by Augsburg alumni.

Augsburg's program has attracted international students as well. Chiho Okuizumi, a music therapy senior from Yokohama, Japan, chose Augsburg because it offers the combination of a small school environment with the opportunities for internships in the Twin Cities. She has minors in special education and psychology, and plans to seek master's degrees in both music therapy and music performance on the euphonium.

Okuizumi was coordinator of the 25th anniversary celebration at Homecoming. Guests were treated to a performance by distinguished alumna Annette Peterson's senior citizen group at Woodbury Health Care Center.

Guests also heard President William Frame demonstrate his own form of music therapy, used each evening to shed the day's stress - playing and singing blues guitar.