‘Multiple Intelligences’ Researcher to Receive Honorary
Degree
An honorary doctor of music degree will be awarded at Commencement
to Howard Gardner, who is best known for his theory of multiple
intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but
a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard
psychometric instruments. Gardner was the keynote speaker for
"Ithaca Conference ’96: Music as Intelligence,"
a conference sponsored by the School of Music in September 1996.
"Howard Gardner has had a huge impact on research in
music education through his theory of multiple intelligences,"
says School of Music dean Arthur Ostrander, who nominated Gardner
for the honorary degree. "It was a great honor to have him
take part in the first conference in the United States devoted
to musical intelligence, and his participation brought elevated
visibility and recognition for this institution."
 A professor
of cognition and education in the Harvard Graduate School of
Education, Gardner also serves as an adjunct professor of psychology
at Harvard and adjunct professor of neurology at the Boston University
School of Medicine. Since 1972 he has been codirector of Harvard
Project Zero, a research group in human cognition that maintains
a special focus on the arts. Most recently, he and his colleagues
have conducted intensive case studies of exemplary creators and
leaders.
Gardner’s 1981 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of
Multiple Intelligences, has turned out to be a seminal work
in the educational community, becoming the framework for many
current strategies that are proving successful in enhancing student
success. In that book Gardner proposed at least seven relatively
autonomous intellectual capacities that individuals employ to
approach problems and create products: linguistic, musical, logical-
mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and
intrapersonal intelligences.
"Although they are not necessarily dependent on each
other, these intelligences seldom operate in isolation,"
says Gardner. "Every normal individual possesses varying
degrees of each of these intelligences, but the ways in which
intelligences combine and blend are as varied as the faces and
the personalities of individuals."
In 1981 Gardner was awarded a MacArthur prize, and in 1990
he became the first American to receive the Grawemeyer Award
in education. He is the author of 18 books, the latest of which
is titled The Disciplined Mind: What All Students Should Understand. |
