Tracy Richardson, associate professor of music therapy at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, received the American Music Therapy Association Award of Merit during the recent annual AMTA conference.
    The award honors a member of the AMTA who has contributed to the development of the profession in a unique and remarkable way. Richardson, director of music therapy at SMWC since 1995, was acknowledged for her role in developing and directing a unique and successful music therapy graduate program at SMWC that allows music therapists, both women and men, worldwide to pursue graduate study without relocating or giving up jobs. In 2000, Richardson was instrumental in creating and launching the SMWC Master of Arts in Music Therapy program, one of the few graduate music therapy programs in the nation to be offered through distance education.

Richardson and SMWC music therapy faculty colleague Sharon Boyle, along with four undergraduate students and three graduate students, attended the AMTA conference conducted in San Diego, Calif., Nov. 11-15, 2009. Richardson serves as an assembly delegate and is the AMTA Great Lakes Region President-Elect. At the conference, she presented a session entitled, “I Write the Songs: Songwriting In/As Music Therapy.” She placed second in the AMTA songwriting contest with her song “I'm Ready to Sing.”
    Richardson, who is a board-certified music therapist, a credential awarded by the Certification Board for Music Therapists, received her bachelor’s degree in music therapy at SMWC in 1988, her master’s in agency counseling at Indiana State University in 1999, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in counselor education at ISU. She has been a music therapist for 21 years and has worked with people with a variety of physical and mental health issues ranging from cancer to developmental disabilities. She is an active singer/songwriter/performer and in 1997 released a self-titled CD, containing mostly original music. In 2005, she received the Sister Mary Joseph Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award for Service to SMWC.
    Sharon Boyle, SMWC Coordinator of Undergraduate Music Therapy, presented a 5-hour continuing education session at the AMTA conference entitled, “It's Your Health: The Importance of Self-Care to Promote Well-Being in the Music Therapist.” In addition, Boyle serves as state representative for Indiana on the Great Lakes Region Executive Board of the AMTA and is on the editorial board for the peer-reviewed journal, Music Therapy Perspectives. Boyle, an associate professor of music therapy, has been affiliated with SMWC since 2002. She is a board-certified music therapist through the CMBT and has  extensive clinical experience working in both short- and long-term care facilities for nearly fifteen years. In 2008, Boyle received the SMWC Sister Joseph Pomeroy Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship. Boyle has music degrees from East Carolina University and Linfield College. 
    Jennifer Pinson, Morgan May, Julia Lopez-Kaley and Brenda Siefferman are undergraduate/equivalency SMWC music therapy students who attended the conference. Pinson serves as parliamentarian for the AMTA-Great Lakes Region Student Board. Lopez-Kaley and May both served as student representatives on two different national committees during the conference. Current SMWC Master of Arts in Music Therapy students Rachelle Norman, Melinda Kurowski, and Christina Ufer also attended the conference.
    SMWC last year celebrated the 25th anniversary of its music therapy program first approved in 1983 by the National Association of Schools of Music. SMWC, founded in 1840 by Saint Mother Theodore Guerin and the Sisters of Providence, is the oldest Catholic liberal arts college for women in the United States. The SMWC campus-based undergraduate program is for women only. But the SMWC Woods External Degree undergraduate program and multiple graduate programs are available in distance education formats and are open to both male and female students.