Paise receives KMEA Teacher of the Year Award

Dr. Michele Paynter Paise, visiting assistant professor of music at Morehead State University, was selected to receive the 2019-20 Kentucky Music Educators Association’s (KMEA) District 8 College/University Teacher of the Year Award.  

The KMEA is an organization consisting of more than 2,000 professional music educators at all levels from kindergarten to the university level dedicated to the cause of music education in Kentucky. Associated with the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), it serves as a voice for Kentucky’s music educators.  

Paise is in her 27th year of teaching music and her third year at Morehead State. Before coming to MSU, she taught at Cumberland University, the University of Idaho and public school music programs in Maryland, Tennessee and Arizona. Paise is a specialist in the Kodály approach to music education and regularly presents choral and elementary workshops across the United States.   

At MSU, she teaches undergraduate courses in elementary music methods courses and foundations of music education, graduate courses in music education and oversees student-teachers. She also serves as the music program coordinator in MSU’s Department of Music, Theatre and Dance.  

“It is a wonderful feeling to be nominated by my peers in music education,” Paise said. “I absolutely love the profession I’ve chosen, and it is a tremendous honor to be awarded for something that gives me so much joy.”  

For more information on MSU’s Department of Music, Theatre and Dance, visit www.moreheadstate.edu/mtd, email mtd@moreheadstate.edu or call 606-783-2473.