Apart from vague references to Hillsdale as an undergrad at Grove City College, Derek Stauff was unfamiliar with the school until he met his wife, Marielle ‘05, in graduate school at Indiana University.
As the new musicologist, however, Stauff fit into the campus community immediately.
According to his students, Stauff exudes enthusiasm and shares his abundance of knowledge freely. Though he presents a challenge to even the most academic Hillsdale students, his expertise collaborates well with the rest of the music department.
“I think he expects a lot,” senior Grace Hertz said. “I think he’s going to have high standards, but I think that’s good because it forces us to step up a notch and do our research well. He expects us to act as a developing musicologist even though we’re not.”
Being in two of his classes, Hertz has seen two slightly different styles of teaching. The 300-level music history class of about 12 people is more lecture oriented, while the 400-level Keyboard Works class takes place in his office for a more intimate and research-based discussion.
Senior Taylor Flowers, a 400-level class student, said he’s most excited about the research paper.
“He’s really pushing us to engage in higher learning,” Flowers said. “It’s more than mere description, more into analysis and argumentation. He’s asking us to pose an argumentative thesis, which is just a more academic way of thinking about it; it’s more professional than a lot of research papers that Hillsdale students write.”
Stauff began piano lessons as a five-year-old and continued through high school, despite stretches of disinterest during his childhood. He established a curiosity for the organ during high school and developed during college. He made the most of the opportunities his small liberal arts school offered, including playing the organ during church services nearby.
“I went to graduate school first for organ and then after I went into musicology,” Stauff said. “I liked history better than theory because I thought history could often explain things that will get you into grad school. [Music history] was my favorite class because it was hard and potentially confusing, but it helped explain a lot about music, and I learned a lot about types of music that I had no idea about before, especially the older portion of the class.”
He ultimately decided to hone in on 17th Century music, partly because it was less popular and partly because he appreciated the societal and musical upheavals of the era.
Now, at Hillsdale, he’s finally able to “settle down and have a normal life, rather than the graduate school existence.”
In addition to teaching, he’s advising the Camarata and adjusting to life as a Hillsdale professor.
“At some point you realize that when you’re a professor, you’re not a student anymore, and you can’t go to dances and do eight million things on campus,” Stauff said.
When asked what he does with his free time, he responded, “Am I allowed to tell you my wife and I are going to a brewery tonight?”
