Located in the town of Grand Junction, Colorado Mesa University offers 68 majors at their tree-lined campus. Founded in 1925, the university underwent four name changes, the most recent occurring in 2011 when the name was changed from Mesa State College to Colorado Mesa State University.
“The moniker ‘university’ more accurately reflected what we have become,” said Dana Nunn, media relations director at CMU.
The university experienced a growth spurt in the past decade. The campus is now twice the size and the university increased academic offerings, added a doctoral program and nearly doubled enrollment.
CMU is still a small university, however, and with less than 10,000 students small class sizes are assured.
The music department also grew during this time.
“We’ve doubled the size of our faculty and doubled the number of music majors,” says Dr. Calvin Hofer, head of the CMU music department. “We’ve also doubled the number of degrees we have.”
The department offers a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education (K-12), Performance Emphasis, Liberal Arts Concentration and Elective Studies in Business.
Dr. Hofer played a big role in creating a robust CMU music department. He is the founder of CMU’s Best of the West Music Festival and the Grand Junction Rockestra, an organization that raises money for the CMU music department scholarship fun.
In a 10-year span, he steered the music department through two accreditations by the National Association of Schools of Music. In 2012, an instrumental rehearsal hall, a classroom and six practice rooms were added and the CMU marching band was created.
This fall there will be 90 students in the music department and 11 full-time faculty members. Music education and music performance are the two most popular degrees and many music teachers in the region are CMU alumni.
Britni Bryan is the music teacher at Fruitvale Elementary School in Grand Junction and a 2012 graduate of the CMU music department. She initially chose to attend CMU because she wanted to be close to family in Montrose.
“I ended up falling in love with it because I felt like the faculty truly wanted to see me and all of my classmates succeed,” she says. “It was incredible to be surrounded by teachers and professors that genuinely cared about their students and wanted us to reach and grow to our full potential.”