Laura Franklin is Professor of Music and Chair of Fine and Performing Arts at Saint Louis University, where she has served since July 2015. Under her leadership, the Fine and Performing Arts has experienced unprecedented growth and progress. Some measures of success include the increase of student enrollment across all program areas; the increase of fundraising by 77%; and expanded grant funded revenue from less than $20,000 per year to over $1.1 million in FY18. The Department has also made significant strides in facilities improvements in music and theatre studio, practice and rehearsal spaces; made significant capital investments in equipment for studio art, music and theatre; and successfully advocated for the long-term lease of a theatre in the Grand Center Arts District, adjacent to SLU’s mid-town campus, for theatre productions and music performances. In addition, she has led the institution through a successful NASAD reaccreditation process; facilitated curriculum advances in all program areas, including the addition of minors in dance and arts management; and fostered a number of community partnerships, including those with Grand Center Arts District, Metro Theatre Company, The Black Rep, the Bach Society of St. Louis, Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis Symphony, and others.
Franklin is an active percussionist, maintaining a performance schedule as a chamber and orchestral musician, in addition to being a solo marimbist. A well-known percussion pedagogue, she is a founding member of the National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy (NCPP), and has served on the Board of Advisors for NCPP since 2001. In addition to performance and pedagogy activities, Franklin has performed many roles in service to the arts. She is a former board member of the National Association of Schools of Music, having served as Chair of Region 7, representing North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia and Puerto Rico. She is also a former president of the North Carolina Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society (PAS), and a former chair of the PAS Research Committee. Franklin is currently serving as Chair of ICFAD’s Career Development Committee.
Prior to this position, Laura Franklin was Professor of Music and Chair of the Fine Arts Division at Brevard College, where she had served since 1998, completing two successful NASM accreditations during her tenure there.
Franklin earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Master of Music in Performance and the Master of Music in Musicology from the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Bachelor of Music in Performance from Texas Tech University.
