Four years ago, I came to Grove City College as a music business major and after one semester, I switched to the Department of Entrepreneurship. For me, it was a great switch. I have really thrived in the entrepreneurship program here. However, my original reason for switching was not because I had dreams of starting my own business one day, it was because the music business program was lacking. I would learn a lot of great things about music and learn a good bit about business but there did not seem to be any classes to help me learn about the music industry itself. As it turns out, I was not the only one who noticed this issue. But the difference between me and Cedric Lewis is that he actually planned on doing something about it.
Professor Lewis is an entertainment attorney from Florida who taught music business at Full Sail University. He came to Grove City five years ago and has been teaching at the College ever since. He came to teach a business law class and in his second year here, he discovered that we had a music business major. He did some research and discovered it was not very industry specific. Once word got around that he was an entertainment attorney, students began to think he was here to revamp the program. That expectation began to become a reality and that year, he gave the College a proposal to revamp the whole program but it was too extensive. So he started small with an intro to the business of music class and still has a plan to rebuild the program to better fit his original plan. He added a second class, music marketing, last year for juniors and seniors. Because it is Grove City, he gets to focus on the music industry as well as the Christian music industry. He has a desire to build true Christians up to go into a tough and sometimes dark industry; working with labels in marketing, accounting, administration and more.
Even though professor Lewis has been largely successful in his goals with the program thus far, he has faced a few setbacks. Getting the word out for his new classes has been difficult. Grove City College has a huge network of alumni that are in the industry. Getting in touch with those alumni has helped but the current students need to learn more about it. As the program gains traction and more students begin taking these classes, this problem should wane.
Professor Lewis still wants to add a class to teach music software like Protools and Logic, a critical listening class to help students develop an ear for different types and styles of music, and a class to learn other industry related topics such as event planning or video production. When asked about expanding the program, he responded by saying, “the wonderful thing about Grovers is that you’re resilient and hard workers so I can expand the program faster than expected.” He wants music business majors to graduate being proud of their degree and has high hopes for the future of the music business program.
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