Jacqueline Smith

Jacqueline Smith is a Lecturer in Music Education at Boston University. Before coming to BU, she was an Adjunct Faculty in Music and Dance Education at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School, and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she was Visiting Assistant Professor in 2018-2019. Before moving to higher education, she taught instrumental music at the middle school level in Connecticut for twenty years and began her career as a music therapist at the Center for Autism in Philadelphia.

Dr. Smith’s teaching focuses on eliminating barriers to education in the arts for students of all abilities.  She teaches courses in teaching music to students with dis/abilities, curriculum design, history and philosophy of music education, and educational learning theories.  She was the founder and director of the Prism Project, a performing arts program for students with disabilities at the Hartt School Community Division for which she received University of Hartford’s Gordon Clark Ramsey Award for Creative Excellence in Teaching.  An active clinician, she works with practicing music educators throughout the Northeast providing professional development workshops on supporting students with disabilities in music and understanding neurodiversity in the classroom.  Dr. Smith holds a NAfME credential for teaching students with behavioral and emotional special needs and is a member of the International Society for Music Education Commission on Special Music Education and Music Therapy. She has presented at international, national, regional, and state conferences on her research in teaching music to students with autism and learning disabilities. Dr. Smith is published in The International Journal of Music Education, Visions of Research in Music Education, and Arts Education Policy Review.