Karin Nolan

Dr. Karin Nolan is the Director of the Office of Field Experience and an Associate Professor of Practice in Music Education at The University of Arizona, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music and music education, including student teaching, learning environments, secondary teaching methods, quantitative/qualitative research methods, guitar and songwriting, and careers in music. She currently serves as the elected College of Fine Arts representative in the Faculty Senate, the elected chair and music education representative of the Faculty Advisory Committee in the School of Music, and the elected career track representative in the Dean's Advisory Committee. She also serves as the College of Fine Arts representative in both the University of Arizona Professional Preparation Board and the Professional Preparation Program Coordinators committee.

Dr. Nolan's primary passion at the University is to help students build the foundation for a successful career in the music industry and the field of education. Whether it is mentoring education students through their field experiences and student teaching internship, helping students develop quality teaching portfolios and philosophies of education, guiding general education students through learning guitar and writing original songs, exposing graduate students to the foundations of behavioral research in the arts, collaborating with students on their graduate committees, or helping students with the foundations of branding and digital marketing, Nolan enjoys integrating highly-individualized experiential learning and learner-centered instructional techniques. She is sensitive to the need for Social Emotional Learning within the K-12 music curricula and trauma-informed instruction in the K-20 environment.

Nolan enjoys and seeks out community collaborations, often partnering with non-profit institutions and school districts around the state to assist them with their musical needs and outreach. She previously partnered with faculty from the School of Speech and Hearing Sciences for their "Music & Health" seminar, dedicated to research in vocal and hearing health of musicians and music educators. Nolan worked closely for years with the Tucson Desert Song Festival's education outreach, helping to put together the yearly K-12 Songwriting Competition. In the past she has also written educational outreach curricula and materials for numerous arts organizations, including Arizona Opera, Arizona Theater Company, Tucson Museum of Art, and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. She is a former music director of the Sonora Winds, a Tucson-based community wind ensemble.

She received her PhD in Music Education with an emphasis in Educational Psychology in 2009 from The University of Arizona. Prior to joining the faculty at the U of A College of Fine Arts and the School of Music in 2011, Nolan enjoyed a rewarding career teaching K-12 general music, band, orchestra, and choir in Tucson-area public schools for a decade. She retired her private studio after many years, where she taught all ages of students on euphonium, trombone, tuba, bassoon, piano, and clarinet.

Her research includes topics related to student learning environment and music teacher health. Her research related to music teachers' physical and mental health has helped shape her teaching techniques and has led to a further awareness of the need for teaching health and balance to music educators and professional musicians.

Also interested in the cognitive link between music and other areas of the curriculum, Nolan has a book published through Rowman and Littlefield Education and the National Association for Music Education, entitled Musi-Matics and is currently publishing a second arts-integration book for teachers, entitled Reading, Writing, and Rhythm Sticks. Her articles and research studies have been published in Journal of String Research, General Music Today, Edutopia, Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, Cadenza Music News, Arizona Music News, Teaching Music, The National Association for Music Education, Music Educators Journal, and Dreambox Learning.

She enjoys traveling to state, national, and international conferences to present her research and network with music professionals and educators around the globe.