Rate My Professor Jeananne Nichols

Jeananne Nichols is the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Music Education at Western Carolina University, where she serves as the music education program coordinator. She holds a DMA from Arizona State University. Prior to her appointment at WCU, Dr. Nichols was Associate Professor of Music Education at the University of Illinois from 2011 to 2022 and Associate Professor of Music and Director of Instrumental Studies at Olivet College from 2004 to 2011. She taught middle and high school band in the Tattnall County schools in Georgia and the Roane County schools in Tennessee. In 1994, she founded the Knoxville Youth Christian Concert Bands, a pioneering effort to provide instrumental music education to homeschooled students in the East Tennessee region.

Dr. Nichols teaches courses in music curriculum and methods at Western Carolina University and advises doctoral research projects in music education for Boston University. Her research interests involve narrative inquiry and other qualitative research designs to highlight the lived experiences of persons whose voices may otherwise be muted in music and music education discourses. Specific projects include participatory music experiences with incarcerated youth, the United States Air Force WAF Band, and the experiences of LGBTQ students in school music. Her work has been published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Research Studies in Music Education, Music Educators Journal, Mountain Lake Reader, and International Journal of Education and the Arts. Key publications include “Rie’s Story, Ryan’s Journey: Music in the Life of a Transgender Student” (Journal of Research in Music Education, 2013), co-editorship of The Sage Handbook of School Music Education (2024), and the chapter “Into the Wild Blue Yonder: A History of the US WAF Band, 1949-1961.” She is a member of the Research Studies in Music Education editorial board and has served as guest editor for two issues of the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. She has presented her research throughout the United States and internationally in Canada, China, France, Greece, Norway, and the United Kingdom.