Maud Hickey, associate professor of music education, has received a $50,000 "Arts and Culture" program grant from Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust. She will use the grant during the 2010-11 academic year to work with students and faculty at the Nancy B. Jefferson Alternative School, a facility situated within the Cook Country Temporary Juvenile Detention Center.

Hickey's project will comprise guiding the development of an in-school, computer-based music curriculum for students as well as teaching an afterschool computer-based music composition class. Her short term goals are to change the way high needs youth see the world and their place within it and to provide a positive outlet for their social, emotional, and creative energies. Over time, Hickey hopes to show that intensive arts intervention will curb violent behavior in high needs youth and that sustained arts participation will reduce recidivism and promote positive life choices.

Maud Hickey received a PhD from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on children's compositions and improvisations and the use of technology to facilitate these processes. Her most recent work involves at-risk students. Hickey is the author of several book chapters as well as articles in journals such as in Music Educators Journal, General Music Today, Journal of Research in Music Education, and Research Studies in Music Education. She is currently vice president of the International Society for Improvised Music and secretary for the College Music Society.

For more information on the Chicago Community Trust www.cct.org.