Candidate Danielle Gaudry

California State University, East Bay
Director of Bands and Coordinator of Instrumental Music

Involvement with CBDNA

Since I began my position at Cal State East Bay in 2013, I have participated in CBDNA conferences and activities. I have attended every Western/Northwestern divisional conference: 2014 (in Reno, NV), 2016 (in Reno, NV), 2018 (at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, CA), and 2022 (at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA) – the 2020 conference was cancelled due to COVID-19.  In both 2014 and 2018 I brought students to participate in the Intercollegiate Band, but I presented at all the others I attended. At the 2016 conference, I co-presented a session called “Cultivating Success in the Small University Program,” in 2020 I was scheduled to present “An Introduction to Laban Movement Theory,” and in 2022 I co-presented a session entitled “Beyond the Pandemic: Triumphs and Tools for a New Era.” While I did attend the national conference in 2013, I was not able to attend the more recent national conferences due to health and family reasons.

In addition to my conference presentations, in 2021 I was invited to participate in the Working Group tasked with creating the document now called “A CBDNA Guidebook for the Small Collegiate Band Program.” I spent almost all of 2021 interviewing members, collecting information, editing, and co-authoring one of the five chapters of the document. Finally, in summer of 2021, I was asked to take over as editor of the CBDNA Report, which I have been doing this academic year. In this role, I have been striving to bring the report into this modern age of technology in trying change the format and find a better way for the report information to be accessible to our members.

Vision for the Future of CBDNA

The strength of CBDNA lies in each member’s distinct contribution to the organization. Our differences can give us clearer perspective on the past and help shape a vision for the future that includes all of us. I imagine CBDNA as a community that can acknowledge where we have been and where we are in a rapidly changing world. I believe we must continue to address the social issues our society is facing by first accepting the need to grow and change as an organization. While we all recognize that change is hard, it is important for our community to keep challenging the status quo, particularly when we consider what our students are asking of us as artists, educators, and leaders.

I believe that the CBDNA must allow the diversity in our membership to help chart the course of the organization. We have so many different voices that need to be heard and it is our responsibility to hear those voices and truly reflect on what they are saying and asking. There is an important need to invite a variety of voices to serve our organization in different capacities, which can be done by tapping into the willingness of our members. By being inclusive in this manner, we can begin to effect real change in the way that we approach our profession and our jobs through this organization. While I am proud that we have already made strides in acknowledging the differences that exist among us as people and between our programs, there is more work to be done to draw on those differences to strengthen the CBDNA. We can be nimble in our ability to support our members and to be inclusive in ways that we haven’t even considered by continuing to be open-minded and respect the uniqueness that each of us brings to the table, which can in turn allow us to transform this incredible organization.