About Us

Learn about MENC's mission, history, and purposes and Lebanon Valley College's chapter of MENC.

MENC's Background

MENC: The National Association for Music Education, with nearly 90,000 members, is the largest national association dedicated to the advancement of music education and to professional growth opportunities for its members. It was founded in 1907 when 104 music teachers from sixteen states answered an invitation to take part in a special conference for school music teachers in Keokuk, Iowa.

Forty Years later, the first chapters of MENC's collegiate membership were established in accordance with an authorization from the MENC Board of Directors issued in 1946.

In 1930, progenitors of these chapters were the Music Educators Journal Clubs in which ninety students were enrolled. By 1941, membership expanded to more than a thousand students.

A number of these clubs began to undertake activities beyond the mere distribution of magazines. Some groups held meetings, elected officers, and began to identify themselves as official campus organizations. Some even ventured off campus to attend music education conventions.

Thus, beginning with an enrollment of ninety students in 1930, a foundation was laid for the inauguration of the MENC collegiate membership program in 1946. During the 1947-48 school year, 2,734 students were enrolled as chapter members on 157 campuses. Over the years, collegiate membership has increased to approximately one-fifth of the total MENC membership.

MENC's Purpose

The purpose of MENC collegiate membership is to afford students an opportunity for professional orientation and development while still in school, and to enable students to gain an understanding of:

• the basic truths and principles that underlie the role of music in human life;
• the philosophy and function of the music education profession;
• the professional interests of members involved in the local, state, division, and national levels;
• the music industry's role in support of music education; and
• the knowledge and practices of the professional music educator as facilitated through chapter activity.

About Our Chapter

Lebanon Valley College, Collegiate Chapter 146 of MENC is very involved within the school's music department.  The organization consists of about 50 music education majors, with enrollment increasing year after year.  

MENC provides support to both the music department and music education majors through a variety of avenues.  The chapter sponsors monthly workshops on a variety of topics, which our open to anyone who might be interested.  Workshop topics range from methodology, to new teaching techniques, to résumé and interview preparation.  

One of the chapter's larger projects includes the LVC Middle School Band Festival.  This event for grades six through eight provides a first-time festival band experience for middle-school students.  With LVC students directing, rehearsing, and coordinating the festival, it also provides some hands-on experience for our members.  

Several fundraisers, such as the "Send-a-Carol" fundraiser and the concert carnation sales, help to raise money for resources and materials for our music education majors.   

LVC's chapter of MENC also reaches local schools and the community.  Every year, part of the organization takes a trip to the Renova Center, a facility in Lebanon, PA, which provides twenty-four hour care to the severely retarded, to sing Christmas carols to the patients.  The chapter also holds a poster-drawing contest in conjunction with MENC's Music-In-Our-Schools month.

If you have any further questions regarding our chapter of MENC, please feel free to e-mail one of our officers by visiting the Contacts portion of the website.