Music Education Major Tara Mayernick is Valedictorian
at C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University

Brookville, NY – Tara Mayernick of Shelton, Conn., a music major whose calling is education, is the valedictorian of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University Class of 2006. Mayernick represents a class of 949 undergraduate students and will be the main student speaker at graduation on Sunday, May 14, 2006.

Mayernick, a member of the prestigious Honors Program at C.W. Post, will be awarded the Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree. She is currently student-teaching in the Northport and  East Northport school districts, where she teaches 4th/5th grade band and 9th/10th grade band. In addition, she volunteers with a program called Rainbowtunes, a pre-school music education program for children with special needs operated by the C.W. Post Music Department. It was through Rainbowtunes, Mayernick found her calling as a music teacher.  

“Thanks to Rainbowtunes, I have had a chance to work with exceptional children and have seen firsthand the effect of music on a child’s life,” 21-year-old Mayernick said. “Because of this opportunity, I feel that I have found my calling as a music teacher.”

An accomplished oboist, she performs with a number of campus musical groups, and took up the oboe as a college student to help meet the needs of C.W. Post ensembles. As first treasurer and then president of the C.W. Post chapter of the Music Education National Conference: The National Association for Music Education, she led the creation of an online music education resources database used by students at C.W. Post and at college campuses across the United States and abroad.

The valedictorian is selected by a committee comprised of faculty and administrators. “It’s very humbling,” Mayernick said of her selection. “I was surprised when I was offered the opportunity to be a candidate for valedictorian, and surprised and grateful when I got it.”

“Tara really embodies the qualities that you would want an educator to have,” said Jennifer Scott Miceli, Ph.D., director of music education at C.W. Post. “She’s very modest and soft-spoken and has unquestionable personal integrity. She can pull together the ideas that she learned in her method classes in a very expert fashion and put together a lesson plan that’s sensitive, caring, intuitive about the students’ needs, progressive and in line with the current trends in the profession.”

“What I hope to teach students, beyond a love for music and the competence to create and analyze it, is a love of oneself and the ability to work to one’s own potential,” Mayernick wrote in her valedictory application essay. “If I can do that, then I feel that I will be truly applying the knowledge I have gained as a student at C.W. Post.”

Mayernick will be among more than 2,300 students who will gather on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 14, 2006 for the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University’s 48th commencement exercises. The Campus has awarded more than 92,000 degrees in its 51-year history, through a broad range of undergraduate and graduate programs. The Class of 2006 includes 949 baccalaureate degree candidates, 1,376 master's degree candidates, 16 graduates receiving the Psy.D. in clinical psychology and three receiving the Ph.D. in information studies. This year, C.W. Post’s commencement ceremonies also include graduates from Southampton College and the Southampton Graduate Campus of Long Island University.

Posted: May 5, 2006