Global Network for Higher Music, Dance and Performing Arts Education

Professor Lenora Helm Hammonds’ activities and initiatives to afford NCCU students access to global education and cultural arts partnerships facilitated North Carolina Central University to be invited as one of two U.S.-based universities in the GLOMUS global network of 23 international universities.

Professor Hammonds is on the steering committee of the GLOMUS conferences. For each bi-annual event, the GLOMUS Camp, she convenes an NCCU cohort. Past NCCU cohorts have included a faculty-led student study abroad trip for 10 days in Natal, Brazil, for the 2017 GLOMUS Camp ("Bridging Cultures through Collaboration and Co-Creation") and a separate cohort to Batumi, Georgia, (Eastern Europe) for 10 days in September 2019 ("Global Dialogues, Sustainability and Artistic Interventions"). 

The 2022 GLOMUS Camp is slated for Aarhus, Denmark. Each camp has a theme, and the 2022 theme is "Movement, Music and Migration." Upon the students' return, they present research at the NCCU Graduate and Undergraduate Research Symposium. Students reporting on GLOMUS have won first and/or second place at this event, as well as other awards.

Each GLOMUS Camp takes place at a new international locale each year. NCCU consistently sends a student-faculty cohort for the 10-day international conference. Students and faculty have called the GLOMUS Camp experience “life-changing,” reporting it as a highly stimulating academic and professional development career experience. In short, a GLOMUS Camp is an international research conference comprising symposia, workshops and performances.

At each GLOMUS camp, NCCU student scholars are invited to engage and learn with international peers. The conference is a great opportunity to expose our students to a unique collaborative research and study-abroad experience with peers and faculty from more than 23 international partner universities. Our students present research, perform and attend workshops and symposia, and participate in a culminating "world orchestra" of about 100 performing artists and humanities scholars.

The students invited to the conference have all taken NCCU COIL courses taught by Professor Hammonds, MUSL 1300 OL (the Composing in a Global Network class), or GLST 1000 OL (Global Structures, Inequality, Culture and Power). Thus, the GLOMUS Camp experience provides a culmination of the course content, online experiences with international peers and a real-world experience of cultural immersion. The theme and focus of the conferences incorporate a wide range of international music subjects, depending on the location of the conference. 

Attendance at the conferences by the NCCU cohorts has resulted in discussions for MoU cultural arts partnerships and visits by international student prospects and visiting faculty scholars. The GLOMUS relationship has gleaned a signed MoU between NCCU and Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, Denmark, and student study abroad exchanges. Associate Professor Baron Tymas, Assistant Professor Thomas Taylor and Associate Professor Lenora Hammonds have each become integral to the planning and ongoing virtual activities in the GLOMUS network. 

The GLOMUS network is a value-driven non-profit community where students' artistic and human development is at the center.  Core values for the GLOMUS network are intercultural dialogue and artistic interaction, with a focus on contributing to positive social development, both locally and globally. The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals are therefore close to the DNA of the GLOMUS network. The network wants to contribute to reducing inequality, making quality education available throughout the world, supporting gender equality and increasing global health and well-being through art and culture. 

Learn more at www.glomus.net.