The UW-Eau Claire music therapy program has a new pool of potential ideas to choose from in the hopes of keeping the major available to students.

At the Nov. 1 Chancellor’s Roundtable discussion, Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich and Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Steve Tallant announced their plans to request possible solutions concerning the music therapy program from members of the music and theatre arts department faculty. Tallant said the faculty should receive a memo requesting their input early this week. He said he decided to do so after a meeting with the department faculty Oct. 29.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the faculty’s voice had not been heard,” Tallant said. “We’ll listen to concern and options as they see it.”

Tallant said he did not have any details about what would be in the memo yet. The faculty would have until January to respond to the memo, he said.

Associate professor of music Gretchen Peters said she was at the meeting with Tallant on Oct. 29. Peters said she is happy to see the university ask for input from the department’s faculty.

“Music therapy would be in our department if it is maintained, so our opinion is crucial,” Peters said.

Peters said she could not say what possible solutions the faculty might offer until receiving the memo from Tallant.

Sophomore Arica Hoppe, a music therapy major who attended the Nov. 1 discussion, also said it is good to see the university involving the faculty in the decision-making process. But she added she believes they are putting too much pressure on the faculty to solve the problem.

“Forcing (the faculty) to satisfy everyone is a huge task, something they would have to take on in addition to providing their students with an education,” Hoppe said.

At the Roundtable discussion, Levin-Stankevich said the data the university has shows a low placement of graduates from the program. Showing a need for the degree would help the program’s chances of staying at UW-Eau Claire, he added.

“If there’s a demand, then of course (we’ll keep the program),” Levin-Stankevich said.

But Hoppe said there is a market for music therapy graduates, notably among Veterans Affairs hospitals with returning soldiers from the Middle East who have post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Our country needs music therapists and we need universities to give us the education that allow us to do this,” she said.

Peters also expressed concern about the loss of services music therapy graduates could provide to society.

“My sense of loss, if the degree is eliminated, is … based on the purpose of this degree, which is to serve people in great need, those in hospitals, nursing homes and jails.”