Price is a strong advocate for inclusive pedagogy
President Caslen and the UofSC Committee on Endowed Chairs and Named Professorships has named Scott Price from the School of Music as a recipient of this year’s Carolina Distinguished Professorship – one of the highest honors awarded by the university to any faculty member. Price strongly advocates for inclusive pedagogy in the piano teaching profession and for further study into how students with autism can reshape the effectiveness of our teaching for all students.
"For more than 20 years, Scott Price has been a preeminent faculty member in the School of Music. He is a uniquely skilled teacher, performer, author and leader in his field at the university, in the community and nationally. Under his guidance, and largely based upon his efforts, the Piano Pedagogy masters and doctoral programs have emerged as the most prestigious in the country. Dr. Price is able to provide not only-world class instruction and mentorship to graduate students from all over the world, but he also models superior teaching, solo piano performance skills, and a distinctive ability to assist students of every kind and at every level achieve their potential and to realize the great rewards that come from an intimate involvement with music. We are lucky to have him here," said Tayloe Harding, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, interim.
“My students with autism have taught me four things that guide my teaching and research: that they are gifted teachers and have enormously important things to show us about what is effective or lacking in our teaching, to be continuously humbled in the presence of their unique gifts, that I am here to serve, and to allow myself to be challenged about everything I think and do each moment of the day,” Price says.
Dr. Price joined the university faculty in 1996 as an assistant professor of piano and piano pedagogy. He is a winner of the Bowling Green State University (OH) Outstanding Graduate Alumnus Award, the 2008 Music Teachers National Association Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award, the 2009 Music Teachers National Association Foundation Fellow Award, the 2012 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award for the University of South Carolina, and the 2019 Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy Outstanding Service Recognition Award.
He is the founder and director of the Carolina LifeSong Initiative, a program that provides music experiences and piano lessons for students with autism and other special needs, and teacher training for piano teachers.