Sigma Alpha Iota

14 Spring 2025 • sai-national.org SAI Philanries, Inc. By Caitlyn Newlin In the Fall of 2023, I enrolled in an elementary music methods course with a professor who was, at that time, new to our university. In an early meeting with her, I'd said that was the first course I had taken that felt like it was designed for people like me. I had long struggled with academics as a student with hidden disabilities. My collegiate career had been filled with barriers, judgment, and discouragement. That conversation inspired a study about my experiences and quickly grew to include two peers who shared similar experiences. Through engaging in an emancipatory narrative inquiry, we found that our experiences with hidden disabilities were similar. We participated in focus groups (interviews) and maintained a personal journal to reconstruct our experiences as studied and studier. Upon reading and analytically coding our focus group data, we found five emergent themes that summarized our experiences: (1) Locations and Context of "Em"Pathy: Unmet Needs; (2) Temporality of Diagnosis: The Need for Representation; (3) "Seen Yet Not Seen:" Impact on Mental Health; (4) Advocacy: Fearing to Ask for Change Amid the "Unchangeable;" and finally, (5) The Hidden Curriculum: Systemic Issues within Institutional Structures. We decided to apply to the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Research Conference and were overjoyed when our study was selected out of thousands. We presented our work entitled "The education is supposed to fit me. I'm not supposed to fit the education:" Experiences of navigating Undergraduate Music Ed. Coursework with Hidden Disabilities. This was a very special project for my colleagues and I due to its personal nature. We were excited to share our perspectives as preservice music educators with hidden disabilities, and have seen how having them can impact undergraduate studies firsthand. I often felt my voice mattered while participating in this study, a feeling shared by my colleagues. It was truly humbling to have the opportunity to present our hard work to a captive audience. It was even more humbling for SAI Philanthropies, Inc. to make this trip possible with a special project grant. Having SAI's support through my undergraduate experience has been invaluable, and being able to represent our sisterhood on a national level was the opportunity of a lifetime. This conference was nothing short of life-changing for all involved. We received valuable feedback from people who are just as invested in music education as we are. I walked away with ambitions toward Master's and doctoral degrees that I had never considered a possibility and a deep passion for research. I have wanted to spark change in music education across our country for so long, and this project gave me an outlet for that desire. We hope to publish our work in a research journal to reach an even wider audience and inspire the removal of barriers for fellow students with hidden disabilities who wish to pursue music education as a career. From Rose to Research Caitlyn Newlin (second from right), Gamma Iota, with fellow presenters at the NAfME Conference. Caitlyn Newlin (second from right), Gamma Iota, with fellow presenters at the NAfME Conference.

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