The Council for Research in Music Education
Outstanding Dissertation Award
The Outstanding Dissertation Award, sponsored by the Council for Research in Music Education, recognizes excellence in research by doctoral students. Guidelines for nominating dissertations for the academic year 2022 will be posted on this site in late 2023.
Call for Nominations
The Council for Research in Music Education is seeking nominations for the 2022 Outstanding Dissertation Award (ODA), which recognizes excellence in research by doctoral students.
Nominations for the 2022 ODA are due by November 1, 2023.
Please direct questions, comments, or concerns regarding the ODA to Music-ODA@illinois.edu.
Nomination and Review Procedures
The Council for Research in Music Education invites individuals who have served as research advisors, supervisors, or committee members to nominate dissertations in the field of music education that were defended during the 2022 calendar year.
The emphasis of this award is on recognizing doctoral students whose dissertations:
- Advance overarching values of music education, broadly defined;
- Employ rigorous and/or innovative methodologies;
- Integrate research and theory grounded in a variety of intellectual traditions; and
- Offer insightful implications for improving practice or forwarding theoretical constructs.
The process of nomination requires that the nominating faculty member contact the dissertation author, who will be responsible for submitting the relevant documents by the document submission deadline noted below. These documents will be evaluated by a panel drawn from the Council for Research in Music Education.
Nominators should submit a signed letter of support on university letterhead that speaks to the importance of the topic addressed by the dissertation, the use of strong or innovative methodological approaches, sophisticated writing, and overall contribution to the field. Please confirm the year in which the degree was conferred.
There is no limit on the number of nominations that can be submitted by a faculty member or representative institution.
Click here to nominate a dissertation.
Document Submission
Nominees are asked to submit a 10-page summary of the project, exclusive of references, and a sample chapter. If the dissertation follows an alternative format (such as a compilation of completed studies, rather than one study), submit a sample chapter that has not been previously peer reviewed or published.
Submit these documents in PDF form. Name each file with the nominee’s last name first, followed by the type of document, such as Dewey_Summary.pdf or Dewey_Ch3.pdf
Please do not submit full dissertations at this time. If your entire dissertation is not available on ProQuest Dissertations, you may be asked later to submit the entire document for further review.
Due to the widespread availability of most dissertations in electronic formats and the likelihood that studies have been presented at conferences, we are not able to ensure blind review. The documents, then, may include identifying information.
Nominees must submit the required documents no later than November 15, 2023.
Click here to submit documents.
For a brief history of the ODA and list of past recipients,