Jeffrey M. Cornelius, MUS '72, EDU '86, Professor of Choral Music

David Stone, who was absolutely one of the most wonderful people I’ve known in my life, he had a very strong Boston accent and when he hired me David said, “If I don’t like you, this is a one year job, and if you don’t like me, this is a one year job”. And I like to tell this story because I’ve been here now... this is my 37 th year coming up.

He, working with Dr. Gladfelter, decided to form this college, what was then known as the College of Music, from a small department of music education within the College of Education. Dr. Stone knew how to build a school. He hired the best people from the Philadelphia Orchestra, from the New York Philharmonic, from opera companies, from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. What David recognized right away was that the affiliation with the Philadelphia Orchestra had to be encouraged and it was. And we had, before I got here, Temple had won the Grammy in choral music for its performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra of Orff’s Catulli Carmina, which was the second in that trilogy.

When I got here there was a phrase, people said that it was “Harvard on the Delaware.” I think that no one aspires at Temple to be a Harvard on anything; I think Temple aspires to be a really great Temple because it’s a unique institution. It’s founded on a unique premise from Russell Conwell. You sought out the very best students regardless of their means, and you got them in here, and you turn them into wonderful people in their fields. I’ve had the most wonderful collection of students over the years, gifted people; sometimes very unconventional students who came with great talent and sometimes their backgrounds were not what you would expect academically. So, we would often take a chance with a student some of whom became very famous musicians. I was always gratified to find that Temple was so respected in so well known outside the area, and I felt that we had a significant challenge to bring the school to the attention of Philadelphia.