Chancellor’s Cup awarded to Blair’s Lovensheimer
Jim Lovensheimer, assistant professor of musicology, was surprised to see Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos striding into his American Popular Music class. With a video of James Brown up on the screen behind him in the Sarratt Cinema, Lovensheimer was speechless when Zeppos announced he was here to “give you the Chancellor’s Cup,” and the class broke into applause.
The Chancellor’s Cup is given annually for “the greatest contribution outside the classroom to undergraduate student-faculty relationships in the recent past.” The faculty member’s contribution “shall be one of educational importance, relevant to the central purpose of the University.”
After receiving his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, Lovensheimer joined the Blair School of Music faculty in 2002.
“Jim is very generous with students both individually and collectively, both with classes at Blair and classes outside Blair,” Blair Dean Mark Wait said. “He offers a scintillating class for non-majors and yet creates very sophisticated and elegant classes for music majors.
“He’s terrific,” Wait says. “Blair and Vanderbilt are lucky to have him.”
“[The chancellor] stood there for a long time saying wonderful things, none of which I remember because I was stunned,” Lovensheimer says. “I still don’t think of what I do for students as being outside the parameters of my work. It is a vital part of that work. If the students knew how much I learn from them each semester, and how much I treasure that learning, it might reinvent the student-professor relationship.”