Penn Provost Wendell Pritchett and Netter Center Director Ira Harkavy have named Carol Muller, Professor of Music, and her partners at West Philadelphia High School as the recipients of the 2021 Provost/Netter Center Faculty-Community Partnership Award.
Muller, who also directs the minor in jazz and popular music studies, is being recognized for her exceptional work on projects that engage Penn graduate and undergraduate students in music, arts, and wellness partnerships with the West Philadelphia/Philadelphia community through Academically Based Community Service (ABCS). She has created high-quality sustainable partnerships over the years with schools and with jazz, gospel, Islamic, and recent African diaspora communities in West Philadelphia. Since 2001, she has taught ABCS courses in ethnomusicology, working closely with many West Philadelphia partners, including Millennium Baptist Church, the Quba Institute, Second Antioch Baptist Church, the Sudanese American community in Cobbs Creek, and West Philadelphia High School. Among other benefits, the collaborative research projects involving Muller, Penn graduate and undergraduate students, and community partners have produced multiple forms of media that tell the stories of the history and evolution of jazz and gospel music in West Philadelphia.