For second consecutive year, Portland State University professor nominated for GRAMMY Music Educator Award

Coty Raven Morris is an assistant professor of choir, music education and social justice at Portland State University. When the fall term began three weeks ago, Morris had exciting news she wanted to share with her students before choir rehearsal began. For a second year in a row, Morris had been nominated as a semifinalist for a GRAMMY Music Educator Award, chosen from a pool of more than 2,400 nominees. The winner will be announced during the GRAMMY Awards ceremony in January.

Morris is also the founder of Being Human Together which builds connections between youth, educators and people from marginalized communities, including those who are unhoused, through conversations and choir performances. She joins us to talk about the impact the organization is having, and how her experience in a high school choir carved a path of opportunity out of childhood adversity.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Coty Raven Morris is an assistant professor of choir, music education and social justice at Portland State University. When the fall term began about three weeks ago, Morris had exciting news to share at rehearsal with her students. For the second year in a row, and out of more than 2,400 nominees, Morris is a semifinalist for a Music Educator GRAMMY. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony in January.

Morris is also the founder of Being Human Together, which aims to build connections between youth, educators and people from marginalized communities, including people who are unhoused. Coty Raven Morris, congratulations, and welcome to Think Out Loud.

Coty Raven Morris: Thank you so much. It’s such a joy to be here today.

Miller: You have said that part of your mission is to be a consistent, annoying adult in young people’s lives. What does that mean?

Morris: As someone who grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, I am so proud of the journey that my family has gone on. I’m so proud of the narratives of the people in my life. None of our stories as individuals, let alone mine, are paved with perfection. And in moments of housing insecurity, in moments of fiscal insecurity, it was school that always served as a consistent speaking for me.

When I look back at what has me where I am right now in my career, I like to say that I am the product of consistent, annoying adults.Whether it be someone questioning how my backpack was organized, whether it be having a choir teacher to be accountable to, whether it be the community of people that I had at church, the consistency of those folks – no matter how the delivery was – to just check in to see how I’m doing. What’s the progress? What’s my vision? And do I recognize that my choices now will impact me in the future? That kind of community is what builds people to go where they’re gonna go.

Miller: When you were, I don’t know, 10, 12, 18, were you annoyed by those voices, or even then, did you recognize that the guard rails or words they were using were actually forms of support and love? Were you annoyed by it?

Morris: I think the visceral reaction that I had with my adolescent brain knew that there was love there, because I kept returning. If we reacted to the first reactions that young people have every time when we give them feedback, then no one would go back to school. The teachers would give up, young people would give up. But we understand, at least we hope, that somewhere between, “Oh, man” and “I don’t want …” and all the grumbles that will happen from a young person, is the part where they see, this is someone who’s looking out for me. This is someone who is concerned and they want better for me. And I may not understand exactly why or how, yet. But if I continue to show up, I can see the long game of my growth. If I continue to show up, I can actually see this vision come to life.

Miller: How high are your expectations for your students?

Morris: Pretty high. I think they’re high, but I think they’re high in ways that aren’t necessarily tangible markers. You know, I like to share with my students … We’re going to go to Carnegie Hall in June, and I’m excited about this experience, but our goal is not to make a perfect performance for Carnegie Hall. Our goal is to rehearse every day, like people who are worthy of being on that stage.

If the expectation for me as a young child growing up in New Orleans, growing up in Texas was not, “You must make the Texas All-state choir. You must find yourself out of these particular circumstances.” It was, “What if today you showed up, and you showed up on time? What would happen if, every day, you showed up on time. What would happen if, every day, you had your materials?”

What I tell my students is that our motto is self-section-squad. That’s our three layers. If you remember, Dave, that you’re going to bring your pencil to choir today, you’re going to have your binder. That’s all I need you to do, is to worry about those things.

Miller: That’s “self”?

Morris: That’s self. Don’t forget to eat – that’s self. Take care of yourself. If I can empower every student to first be mindful of themselves, in a world that will tell them that to be selfish is something they should be guilty about, no, no, no. Prioritize your “self health,” prioritize that in all the categories of wellness that we can consider. And if all the altos do that, if all the altos remember the materials, eat breakfast, remember to take a mindful moment in the morning, and the sopranos remember, and the tenors even remember that we have rehearsals today – that’s one of the jokes I like to say – if we all remember, then together, we get a whole squad. We get a whole community of people that first took care of themselves, and thus they have the energy to have room for compassion and empathy.

We don’t have room for compassion and empathy if we’re leaving ourselves on the back burner, and then attempting to extend ourselves to help other people. That’s not how this works. We have to make it a practice to prioritize ourselves, so that we can have something to give from the well for others.

Miller: The sense I get, from reading other things you’ve said, is that there were a lot of teachers in your life who brought you to where you are now, who made you who you are now, who helped you – obviously, it’s you, too. But can you just tell us about one teacher who taught you how to teach?

Morris: Oh, my God, what a booger of a question. One?

Miller: Is the booger, as you say, because it’s one?

Morris: Because it’s one!

Miller: OK, then I will amend it, and let you tell us about more than one, if you want to. But I’m most curious about, not who taught you how to sing, but who taught you how to teach?

Morris: Who taught me how to teach? When I think about Joey Martin, when I think about Dr. Joey Martin at Texas State University … it was the love that he poured, and I’m gonna be frank about Joey. We’re on a first name basis now. But right now, I feel very humbled, and I wanna call him Dr. Martin. He was one of those consistent, annoying adults. There were lessons that Joey Martin taught me that I was angry about for years after I left undergrad. I was sitting with those lessons for a long period of time, because he was right. Because the things that he shared with me, not just about how to engage and teach quick tips to my ensembles about primary vowels, about diphthongs, about different things with diction ...

Miller: The craft.

Morris: The craft. He’s a master of the craft of singing. And there’s so many things I learned from him, not just as a student in college, but as a high school camper at the Texas State choir camp that was formerly known as Hill Country Choral Camp. Yes, he taught me all those quick quips.

But I also remember the moment … It was one of my favorite stories about him. I’m walking in the hallway and he calls out to me. He says, “Coty, come in the office,” and I’m thinking we’re just going to have a cute little lunch. And I go sit down and he asks me how am I doing and what’s going on in my life? I tell him all my financial woes, I tell him all the burdens that I have … and as we say, in Spanish, “que lastima,” all the things that are wrong with me, and I can’t afford all this stuff. And he’s typing on his computer, and I will never forget the moment that he turned around his screen. He had made an Excel sheet of all the classes that I had failed because I didn’t show up. Not because I didn’t know the material, not because I failed the exams, but because I didn’t show up on time, that I had to take an F in that class, because attendance matters.

My ego was so big, I didn’t think I needed to show up for anything. And yet that’s not how the rule book works. I’m going to be a teacher. I have to show up to my job. That was a skill that I needed to practice as a college student. And I wasn’t putting two and two together, that that was a necessary skill, because my ego was in the way. All the practicing of the craft was in the way of the practicing of the human. And Joey revealed to me, that bill that you have for your car, that late rent note, all of those things you’re worried about, are now being paid double in tuition because you didn’t prioritize the right thing at the right time.

I was mad at Joey for a long time, because he was right. And I needed him to tap through that ego and get to the human part, the daily practice part, that keeps me in the classroom, that keeps me available for the lives of future generations of young people to learn those tough lessons. To learn those lessons that people learn in a village, when they learn in a community. And if I didn’t have that consistent village around me, where was I supposed to get that information? Choir, Joey Martin, Dr. Lynn Brinckmeyer, Dr. Patrick Dill, Linda Wyatt, Bart Patterson, David Boisman, my mentor is now Andre Thomas. There’s a multitude of people that I am around now – Marcus Garrett, Reginald Wright – who serve as the consistent village in my life. Peers, colleagues, mentors and more.

Miller: I want to play part of one of the performances that you’ve directed recently. We’re going to hear the combined PSU Rose / Thorns and University Choirs. The piece was actually composed by one of your students, Apollo Fernway. It’s called “Better Days.” What should we know before we hear this?

Morris: I’m in rehearsal and I hear Apollo just playing around on the piano, and it was something about the pattern that he played that pulled me out of the trance of the conversation I was having. I said, “What is that?” And he said, “It’s just something I’m playing around here with.”

It was almost serving as a meditation tune for him, as he was sitting with the trauma and the attacks against trans youth in this world, let alone in this country. And he wrote the text and the tune – “Better days will come, better days will come, my love. Just hold on, it won’t be long.” – as a call to action to a community. Whoever that community may be, that it doesn’t just fall on that marginalized community to do that work. They live this life, that it’s up to all of us to stand up for those who might be judged for being just truly who they are. And so this tune, that was an idea in Apollo’s head, turned into a composition, and we worked together and I helped him edit the piece so that it actually served as one of the closers on our spring concert.

Miller: Let’s have a listen …

[Music and singing]

Miller: That is part of “Better Days” by PSU student, Apollo Fernway.

Coty, when I think about a teacher teaching other teachers, I imagine a succession of ripples in a pond, with lessons just radiating outward. What do you most want your burgeoning educators to take with them and to give to either other educators or their future students?

Morris: The first thing that comes to mind when you ask that question is that they’re never done being students.

Miller: You’re not done being a student?

Morris: You’re not done being a student. I remember being a younger educator, perhaps five or six years into my career, and having a colleague who had 20 years on me, and after seeing me do what I believe was a very successful lesson, they came to me and said, “Coty, you are a master teacher.” And I was so honored that that person shared that with me. It also went to a particular part of my mind of like, “Yeah, I figured it all out!’’

Miller: The ego.

Morris: The ego … there it is. And the continuous journey of our life is to not let ego get in the way of continuous progress. And so now I say with confidence, after learning many life lessons in between, not just about the pedagogy, just the practice, but about being on this planet and being someone that our young people, our students, whoever’s in front of us, of whatever age, can actually connect with. That I can call myself a master teacher, because I’m not done learning.

Miller: What’s something that you recognize that you actually have learned recently from your students or from teaching?

Morris: There was a moment in my class. You know, we’re still at the beginning of the school year here on the West Coast, and I have a wonderful new student – I’ll leave their name out, but they’re a beautiful soprano – and on their first day of choir, they came in and, in their previous singing experiences, with their huge voice, though, they are a soprano, they’ve been put into lower voice parts. That’s sometimes an element, a trick that some educators will do, so that they don’t have to tell that singer to back off. Well, my mindset is, I can voice all of the choir like ordering crayons, and I can have high singers stay in those voice parts and not ask them to diminish their voices.

However, my way of saying that to this brand new student on the first day came with a little bit of a sassy response, a response that would perhaps be reserved for students who knew me longer, and I didn’t know that student like that. So I said that in front of 90 other students in the room, I made a smart alec remark, and then I continued to do the rehearsal and I’m hearing all the singers sing. And in the back of my mind, I hear the following quote: “Every day is the audition.”

And that’s one of my high expectations for my students. It’s not just about singing. Every time I encounter you, if I’m rude to you when I meet you for the first time in a studio, that was my audition with you. It doesn’t matter how many times I’m nominated for a Grammy, it doesn’t matter what my reputation is at my institution. The way that I greet you and meet you for the first time is my audition with you. And suddenly I’m reflecting on my audition with that student for the first time in that room.

So in the same way that I made that remark publicly, I made sure to apologize publicly. And I said, “This was my intention, but the road from intent to impact is paved with verbs, and I’m not happy with my verbs to you.” And I told that soprano, “I’m sorry. And I shouldn’t have said it like that. I hope in time you will forgive me.” I also said it like that because she doesn’t have to receive that apology on the spot. She doesn’t have to receive it in the pressure of the whole room. But it was imperative that I apologize in front of my students, and practice what I preach.

Miller: How is your relationship now?

Morris: Oh, that kid is amazing! They’re awesome. I’m so excited to share all the beautiful things they’re doing as an individual and in the choir.

Miller: Your title includes the term “social justice.” How does social justice manifest itself in the work you do?

Morris: First and foremost, I didn’t leave the high school level because I didn’t want to teach high school kids anymore. I love teaching high school. I love young people. But with the events of our world that came to light in 2020, that came to light in the pandemic, for it was underneath the ground, like weeds begin underneath the soil. I felt called to find myself in a position where I could teach more educators, because if I teach more budding educators, I thus teach exponentially more young people.

So when I personally, as part of my philosophy, think of social justice, I think about being part of a generation of educators and creating a generation of educators that can look at the community through a series of different lenses, including first checking in on their own biases and their own prejudices, which means we have to revisit things in our own journey. And then making sure that with every encounter, whether it be that student that I was referring to with the sassy remark, or whether it be hearing the potential of a song from a student representing a different community … whether it’s knowing that students who look like me, who are also Black people, we are not the same. We are not monoliths. To teach with a social justice lens, is to make sure that all of our pedagogy, and practices, and our connection in the classroom cater to as many people as possible, and that we are ever-evolving people learning about the community and how we can help.

Miller: Can you tell us about Being Human Together?

Morris: Being Human Together is, first and foremost, a philosophy. My mentor, Dinah Minger, another one of those consistent, (she’s not annoying) adults, in Dallas Texas. Dinah reached out to me in October of 2019 about creating a workshop for my peers in Texas, and what we could do to teach them about diversity, equity, inclusion. And perhaps it should come from the “pill” of another Texan – somebody who can talk with a particular grit.

So I’m doing this research while I’m in my masters studies at Michigan State University. And one of the first things I would discover is part of the reason why DEI work is so hard, is all the research is so left-brain dominant. It’s so divorced from actual human experiences. It’s not just passing on the stories of people and practicing saying, “I am hurt, and I just want to share with you why, and I would hope that you listen,” and practicing that empathetic response.

Then I created workshops in which we literally practice talking to each other. I actually did one Saturday, in Seattle, where, as part of the professional development for the Northwest Kodai Organization, we practiced talking out loud: “This is my race, this is my ethnicity, this is my background.” We practiced statements where we said, “I don’t know this yet,” because we only talk about our identity and difficult conversations when lives are on the line.

We don’t practice as a society, talking about our culture, here in these great states and beyond, as casual conversation over the potluck. We don’t celebrate those things as we once did. And when we lose that, then we all become … not a beautiful melting pot, but more like it gets murky, our identity gets murky with each other.

Miller: Well, what role can music play in that? Because that’s your main avenue.

Morris: That’s my main lane. My teaching philosophy is, “It’s my life’s purpose to touch as many lives through the vehicle of music.” When you look at just the structure of any academic institution with a functioning music program, what you’re gonna have is somebody who’s at least attempting to showcase music of different cultures and different languages to their students.

Why not go one step further and use that Spanish piece as an opportunity to teach young people that there are 33 different Hispanic recognized countries in the world, and that they all did not begin like this. And what happened in the realm of governments and politics to give them all a common language, and yet what was lost in the process?

I like to tell my professors at Michigan State, “I’m not anti-canon. I’m not anti-classical music. I’m just pro the whole story.” What could we do to tell the whole story from every angle? That’s the best part. That’s what makes any good TV show good. When you can see it from the different angles of different characters, that’s the timeline of this universe, is looking at life from the different perspectives of different people, with different stakeholders, with different obstacles and with different privileges. And recognizing how they interplay together and how they can all amplify each other.

Miller: Do you still get a chance to just sing for the joy of it without having to worry about teaching, or conducting, or creating future teachers? I imagine that years ago, this began with a deep love for singing and then it turned into a career. Do you still get to do that?

Morris: I strive to, I’ll say that it’s important to me. I’m also a composer. I’m a poet. I love creation. I love improv. I’m a PBS kid. You know, I grew up watching Ms. Frizzle and Wishbone and Barney. And I just thought the idea of being in school and bursting out into song … that’s really what I thought school was going to be like.

Then, I like to share the story of a video of me in a bumblebee costume in undergrad, advocating for music education, and how, when I walked into the classroom, it seemed like that’s not what teaching was. And I realized no one was going to give me permission to be silly bumblebee Coty. No one was going to give me permission to be the teacher with my funky hair, and big hoops, and my cool Jordans, and my fun dress. That’s just who I am. I have to walk boldly into those spaces and carry myself as I am, because that’s what I’m asking my students to do in their own lives. And if I feel like I’m being an impostor, then as I say, students smell frauds. They’ll smell that in me.

So to go back to the question, it’s imperative that I make time to sing on my own. It’s imperative that I continue to tap into the jingle writer that I’ve always been, the person who was writing songs to remember the quadratic formula: [singing] “x is equal to negative b, plus or minus the square root, of b squared minus 4ac, all over 2a …” And I thank Miss Derado, my math teacher for that one, who was a product of music education. And her life’s purpose brought her to teaching young people numbers. Art propels all of us, and it’s imperative that I sing, that we all sing, that we all make music as much as we can.

Miller: Coty Raven Morris, thanks very much.

Morris: Thank you so much for having me today.

Miller: Coty Raven Morris is an assistant professor of choir, music education and social justice at Portland State University, recently named a semifinalist for a GRAMMY Music Educator Award.

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