Travis Higa is currently Assistant Director of Bands at The University of Southern Mississippi.

What opportunities would you recommend students take advantage of during their time at MSU?

Take the time that you have in school to practice and study as much as you can. Take every opportunity to learn from your friends, colleagues, and professors. Embrace all performing opportunities that MSU has to offer. I have found that MSU provided a model of how ensembles should operate as university ensembles or professional organizations. I am grateful to have lived these experiences and model my teaching and expectations to reflect my experiences at MSU. 

What skills have proved to be most beneficial in your current position?

In any position that I’ve held, I found that being respectful, a hard worker, and a team player have allowed me to be successful.

Coty Raven Morris is currently Director of Choirs at Crosby High School and Founder of “Being Human Together".

What educational experiences have been most valuable to you as a professional?

Dr. Marcie Ray’s history classes were part of the required history component, and I made sure that both of my semesters were with her. Her ability to teach history from a lens of the people -  not just what the great scholars want us to remember – but its function in society. As someone who’s hated history in the past, it just locked for me and explained way more than just music, and it did exactly what music and art education does: it propels students out of the classroom. Her teaching is some of the best teaching I have seen in my life, and I look to her as one of the best mentors I’ve ever had. Ever. Also, watching David Rayl be able to think at light speed on his feet the way that he does and still actually connect to humans, and his conducting and his teaching made me want to perform for him.

How have you adapted in your career and life to the extreme current events?

I’ve adapted through a lot of self-awareness, journaling. People are in need of community, and it’s hard to form community when you are apart and detached from society. Even the little things - something as simple as wearing a mask gives people an excuse about look each other in the eye or almost humanizes other people. So how do we can make human connection? I’ve been doing things with my students like temperature checks with the kids who come in my classroom (we are learning face-to-face in Texas). I physically take their temperature before they enter, but then they have to do a temperature check where they tell me how they’re doing and where they are on a scale of 1 to 10, with the thumbs up gauge, or with a color. I’m consistently adding to my daily necessities. It’s difficult, and it takes extra time. I’m an optimistic person, but I’m optimistic realist, and we were never meant to learn like this (behind screens). If we are, then we’re take advantage of every moment that we’re not, and if I am on a screen, then I don’t want to waste the kids’ time. I’m trying to get a little bit more concise, thinking about what I say versus what I type, when I record, and connecting with students individually as much as possible.

How have you been managing your mental health throughout the past few months?

In addition to a lot of journaling, therapy is everything. I’m so grateful that I have a therapist I can meet with remotely. That actually started with while in grad school prior to COVID. Despite my personality, energy, and the fact that I’m so extroverted and connect with people, I am not exempt from mental health, and I think a lot of people treat mental health the way that some people treat the dentist or the doctor. They only go when it’s necessary versus going for a checkup - everyone is in need for a check-in on their mental health, especially when your entire world is turned upside down, in this civil unrest, during a global pandemic, and when people haven’t been in school (not only receiving proper education but not practicing executive functioning skills and not practicing community). People need therapy - if you’re not ready for that, I highly encourage that you find counsel in someone else and you begin a dialogue and you write and you document everything that is occurring in your head throughout your day. Notice patterns - that was very revealing to me.