Rate My Professor Ron Borczon

Ronald M. Borczon, MT-BC, Professor Emeritus of Music at California State University, Northridge, has advanced music therapy within the Arts and Culture faculty for nearly four decades. He earned a Bachelor of Music in 1978 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1979 from Florida State University, along with a Master of Music in 1981 from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Appointed to the faculty in 1984, Borczon founded CSUN's Music Therapy program that same year in the Department of Music, directing it for 38 years until 2022. He established the Music Therapy Wellness Clinic in 1996 and served as its director until 2022, providing therapeutic services to children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities in the Los Angeles area. Borczon also instructed classical guitar in the department. The program he developed is approved by the American Music Therapy Association and the National Association for Schools of Music, featuring an evidence-based curriculum with didactic and experiential courses on music skills, human development, clinical practice, and music therapy processes. It prepares students to meet professional competencies through rigorous coursework and a six-month internship for board certification.

Borczon's groundbreaking contributions center on music therapy for trauma healing. After the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, he created protocols for school-age children to express and process trauma through music, achieving international recognition. He applied similar interventions following disasters such as the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine High School shooting, September 11 attacks, and Hurricane Katrina. His clinical expertise includes work with adult and adolescent psychiatric clients, developmentally disabled individuals, and disaster victims. Borczon authored two books, Music Therapy: A Fieldwork Primer (2004) and Music Therapy: Group Vignettes (1997), and delivered numerous presentations and papers at national and regional conferences. In 2025, he received the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Music Therapy Association, one of only about 50 such honors. Under his leadership, the CSUN Music Therapy program was ranked the No. 2 most affordable music therapy degree program in the U.S. in 2021 by BestValueSchools.org.