SENIOR PORTFOLIO GUIDELINES

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These guidelines have been pulled from the Music Major Handbook.

As part of your Senior Project, you must prepare a portfolio containing examples of your intellectual and creative work in music while at Grinnell. Your portfolio, a copy of which will remain with the department and be used for departmental assessment and planning, will be a compilation of papers, compositions, recordings of performances and lectures, and concert programs produced for courses taken (including independents and the Senior Project) and public performances presented by you during your Grinnell years. The music faculty will use the portfolio to assess your intellectual and creative growth as a Grinnell music major. You are strongly encouraged to retain a copy of your portfolio to use when you apply for fellowships, graduate school, or employment. The portfolio must be submitted to the department chairperson by the final day of classes in the semester in which you are enrolled for the Senior Project.

The portfolio need not include everything you have produced for your music courses. Decisions as to the final content of the portfolio should be made as a result of discussions between you and your senior project advisor. To make these portfolios useful for assessment purposes, it is necessary that they include examples of both earlier, lower-level work (from courses such as Music 110, 112, and 116) and later, upper-level work (e.g., 200- and 300- level courses, independents, and the Senior Project).

Common to all portfolios should be:

1) one or two song compositions from Music 112
2) a paper from Music 116 or, if you did not take Music 116, an early paper from your first 200-level cultural and historical studies course
3) recordings of a) one of your first solo or small ensemble performances, and b) your strongest solo or small ensemble performance while at Grinnell
4) documentation of your Senior Project (papers, video and/or audio recordings of public lectures and/or recitals, recital programs, composition scores, software applications).

Other examples of your work from upper-level courses are to be included, but these will differ with your emphasis:

Composition and Technology Students must include two further compositions from the following courses: Music 215, 217, 219, 321, 495, or independent study.

Performance Students must include two further recordings of solo performances. Recordings of vocal and instrumental ensemble concerts are acceptable if the student is the featured soloist or conductor. These recordings must also be accompanied by program notes.

Historical and Cultural Studies Students must include two further samples of written work from 200- and 300-level music courses in musicology or ethnomusicology.

Independent Students should consult with their project advisors concerning additional contents that should be included in the portfolio.