Dr. Kimberly Walls enjoys the interactive nature of teaching music education students.

 

 

Dr. Kimberly Walls possesses vivid memories of bright autumn Saturdays when she eagerly awaited the moment to start the show and strike up the band.

 As the drum major for the Auburn University Marching Band during her undergraduate days, she was always out in front when the first notes of "War Eagle'' began whipping a crowded stadium into full frenzy. By the time Walls reached midfield, the rhythm, the melody and the pageantry had created a harmonious cosmic swirl that transformed a patch of grass and painted white lines into something far different.

 "I felt as if the stadium was my oyster," said Walls, who earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in music education at Auburn. After teaching band in Alabama schools, she completed her doctorate in music education at Florida State University.

And now, 13 years after returning to Auburn as a faculty member in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Walls continues to mold a pearl of a music education program. Her care in designing and leading an innovative graduate distance learning program for practicing music education professionals marks hasn't gone unnoticed by the university community.

Auburn University's Graduate School named Walls as the Distinguished Graduate Faculty Lecturer for 2008-09. Walls will deliver her lecture Monday, Oct. 26, at 4 p.m. at the Shelby Center. She was selected for the honor by a panel drawn from the 34 previous winners of the award, sponsored jointly by the Auburn Alumni Association and the AU Graduate School. Recipients, nominated by deans and department heads and chosen by the Graduate Faculty Council on the basis of excellence in research, receive a $2,000 award from the Alumni Association.

Walls earned the honor based on her served as graduate program officer for the Department of Curriculum and Teaching - one of the university's largest graduate programs -- from 2004-08 and the quality of her research. Her areas of emphasis include the application of technology in music classrooms, music perception, general music education and instrumental music education.

Walls has chaired the committees of 96 Auburn graduate students who have completed their degrees.

Not there was ever much doubt about what field Walls would enter. Her Double Springs, Ala., home was filled with all manner of songs. Walls' mother sang in her high school choir, while her father performed in his high school and college bands. She also heard plenty of stories about her great-grandfather, who was a band leader in England.

"It was in my blood,'' Walls said.

It continues to course through her veins as she shares the joy of teaching music with her undergraduate and graduate students. Thus far, she has chaired the committees of 96 Auburn University graduate students who have completed their degrees. Over the course of a career that has taken her from Florida State University to the University of Texas at San Antonio to Auburn, Walls has taught approximately 1,000 preservice elementary teachers how to develop skills in integrating music into children's learning. 

Observing her courses conjures up images of a former drum major while instructing. With her distance education students participating in classes equipped with two-way video streaming, Walls engages and informs them. Walls said her marching band roots help facilitate classroom interaction on camera with students who are logging in from as far away as Idaho and New Jersey.

"As a conductor, you're always used to being in front of groups,'' said Walls, the 2008 winner of the Emily & Gerald Leishuck Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award. "You're used to being on stage.

"In our courses, students have to respond and they have to participate. With the nature of instruction (in distance education), they're required to interact.''

Drs. George Flowers, dean of the Graduate School, and Debbie Shaw (right), vice president for alumni affairs and executive director of the Auburn Alumni Association, honor Dr. Kim Walls after her lecture.

Walls contributes to the body of knowledge in her field through research and service. She is in the midst of serving a two-year term as vice president of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction  (ATMI), an independent professional organization with more than 200 members worldwide. In addition to receiving an appointment to the National Advisory Board of the Technology Institute for Music Educators  , Walls has served as chair of the Music Educators National Conference  Music Teacher Education Special Interest Group and president of the Alabama Music Educators Association's  Higher Education Division.

Much like her days as a drum major, Walls continues to lead. More importantly, she strives to keep her students in step while helping them learn how to engage an audience as musicians/teachers who also conduct research. 

"I really enjoy seeing them become familiar with the field of research and wanting to contribute to it,'' Walls said. "That keeps me inspired. A lot of the professional activity that I do I do because of my students. I want to be a role model for them.''