Dr. Tiffanie Waldron is an Assistant Professor of Music Education at the University of Illinois Chicago. She has taught general music in public, private, and charter schools and has been involved in after-school community programs across Southeast Michigan. As part of her graduate assistantship at the University of Michigan, she supervised student teachers and taught courses on vocal methods and elementary music. Tiffanie was the Music Director of Ypsilanti First Congregational United Church of Christ for the past thirteen years.
Tiffanie’s primary research interest is the experiences of music teachers of color. Her dissertation, Finding ‘Sunshine in the Music’ Classroom: Black Music Teachers and their Experiences with Racial Microaggressions in Predominantly White P–12 Schools, looked at the experiences, responses, and coping strategies of Black music teachers.
Other research interests include vocal pedagogy, classroom management practices, and the representation of Black and Brown students within P–12 music curricula. Tiffanie has presented her research at various researcher and practitioner conferences regionally, nationally, and internationally, including the Illinois Music Education Conference, NAfME National Biennial Music Research and Teacher Education Conference, American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, the Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE) Conference, and the International Symposium on the Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME).
Tiffanie holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education from the University of Michigan, where she also received a Master of Music in Music Education. She also holds a Master of Education (Marygrove College) and Bachelor of Music Education (Eastern Michigan University). In addition to teaching, Tiffanie has extensive professional performance experience, having been a vocalist in the chorus in over thirty opera productions with the Detroit Opera (formerly Michigan Opera Theatre).
Publications:
McCarthy, M., Grier, S., & Waldron, T. (2025). Sounding the silences of African American music education history: A bibliographic guide to research literature from the twentieth century. Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/15366006251369108