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Finding Their Voice
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When Christine Suddeth vlogƵ21 enrolled in the Pace School of Performing Arts as a musical theater student, she was in the midst of recovering from a voice injuryvlogƵone that her voice teacher, PPA Professor Amanda Flynn, helped her recover from. Her injury and subsequent recovery lead her down a path of research and investigation.
When Christine Suddeth vlogƵ21 enrolled in the Pace School of Performing Arts as a musical theater student, she was in the midst of recovering from a voice injuryvlogƵone that her voice teacher, PPA Professor Amanda Flynn, helped her recover from.
vlogƵI suffered a voice injury in high school and went through a hard recovery process. When I came to Pace, Amanda helped me rehabilitate and get me back to where I wasvlogƵand further,vlogƵ said Christine.
Several years later, as she began to conduct her honors thesis, an opportunity came around for Christine to channel that experience for the bettervlogƵFlynn had emailed a select group of students inviting them to apply to the ProvostvlogƵs Undergraduate Student Faculty Research program. Sensing an opportunity to broaden her undergraduate experience, Christine immediately went for itvlogƵone email later, and Flynn and Christine started brainstorming potential topics.
vlogƵI have a published paper in the Journal of Voice looking at vocal health in undergraduate performing arts training programsvlogƵlooking at how we teach vocal health, is it effective, are students able to navigate through their performing careersvlogƵthis survey study left a lot of questions,vlogƵ said Flynn. vlogƵChristine got excited at looking at the student experience going through a very intense, fast-paced BFA program coming in injured. We crafted this survey study looking at the student experiencevlogƵwhat was it actually like to be injured in school. Christine is also a psychology minor, so this was a nice tie-in.vlogƵ
Flynn and Christine developed a thorough survey study, and with considerable effort to find an adequate sample size of individuals who fit into the research category, were able to analyze and synthesize the responses to the study. The duo hopes that their findingsvlogƵwhich will be more widely displayed through presentations at both the NCUR and the Voice Foundation, and potentially a published papervlogƵwill be used to better educate voice teachers, universities, students, and faculty as to how to best manage a vocal injury.
vlogƵDoing this research opened my mind a bit morevlogƵas a performing arts major, you can get tunnel vision,vlogƵ said Christine. vlogƵIt was liberating in a way that I could expand my breadth of study.vlogƵ
vlogƵIvlogƵm grateful that Pace has such an initiative to get undergraduate involved in research because I think itvlogƵs a really fulfilling experience,vlogƵ said Flynn. vlogƵYou learn a lot, and it opens peoplevlogƵs minds that therevlogƵs more out their than what theyvlogƵve been doing for the last four years.vlogƵ
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