In 1983, as a part of the Professional Writing and Arranging Department (Professional Writing Division Chair / Ted Pease) I became involved in the very beginning of development with what is now know as the Songwriting Department and the offering of songwriting as a degree program.  Myself, along with Pat Pattison and a core team of other faculty that taught Pop Song Composition (Jon Aldrich, Mike Idhe, Rob Rose and Jon Stevens) started working on a basic syllabus overview. As we got closer to actually creating the full syllabus, several other talented faculty joined the project in the areas of MP&E, Arranging, Vocal Department, Ensemble Department and several administrators.

To implement what was going to be the first ever Songwriting degree in the world, it took a total of 9 semesters and hundreds of hours of non-scheduled, off-campus development by all of the team.  The process was amazing.  The support from the division chair (Ted Pease) guided us through the process of creating an accredited program as well as functioning as the liasion to the administration.