Robert B. Morrison - Co-founder, Quadrant Arts Education Research
Robert B. Morrison has a long history as a supporter of music education and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading advocates for music and arts in education and in society. He is Co-founder of Quadrant Arts Education Research, the nation’s leading arts education research and market intelligence organization. Mr. Morrison’s leadership in research, public policy and advocacy efforts has led to significant advancement in access to music and arts education programs across the nation.
Mr. Morrison has a deep body of research and policy work and is recognized as a pioneer in statewide arts education status and condition research. In California, Mr. Morrison’s report The Sound of Silence: The Unprecedented Decline of Music Education in California Public Schools (2004) was one of the catalysts for a $500 million reinvestment into music and arts education in public schools that has been signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and which has since grown to nearly $1 billion; in Arkansas, Mr. Morrison worked with the Governor to mandate music and arts programs for every child attending public school in state – a policy later replicated by the state of Louisiana; in New Jersey, Mr. Morrison was the managing partner for the groundbreaking New Jersey Arts Education Census Project, completing the first statewide census for arts education in every school building which has been hailed as a model for statewide arts education research. Mr. Morrison is currently leading similar research projects for the states of Wisconsin, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Arizona. These efforts have directly impacted several million students.
Prior to co-founding Quadrant Arts Education Research Mr. Morrison was the founder of Music for All, one of the nation’s largest and most influential music education organizations where he remains Chairman Emeritus. Mr. Morrison helped develop and then served as the CEO of the VH1 Save The Music Foundation where he took a small promotional idea and created a major national brand donating more than $25 million of musical instruments to restore more than 1200 music programs. Previously, Mr. Morrison was a senior executive for the NAMM - International Music Products Association, where he served as Executive Director of the American Music Conference and worked with the late Michael Kamen and Richard Dreyfus to create the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation.
He was a founding member of the National Coalition for Music Education and is recognized for his work to add the arts to our nation’s education goals. He worked closely with leading national arts organizations to promote the development and implementation of the National Standards for Arts Education. He currently serves as the Data Task Force Cochair for SEADAE.
Mr. Morrison’s advocacy work has earned him both an EMMY and a Peabody Award. He recently received an honorary doctorate degree from the State University of New York.
Dr. Pat Cirillo - President, Cypress Research Group; Lead Research Analyst, Quadrant Arts Education Research
Pat has developed her research practice around answering questions and solving business problems using quantitative methods. Pat serves both as a senior project director, working closely with clients on both short- and long-term research projects, and as Cypress' senior statistician, consulting with all research staff on the more complex statistical and sampling issues. Pat serves as a valuable resource to all of Cypress' clients to bring expedient statistical solutions and new ways to derive value from data.
Her expertise in sampling and statistical analysis is grounded in her doctoral coursework and laboratory training in complex neural systems for five years at Syracuse University and Upstate Medical Center at Syracuse. There, Pat developed mathematical models in a wide range of disciplines in addition to the basic life sciences, including management, economics, and communications.
Pat continued working as a statistician for Gordon S. Black Corporation, where she served as a statistical analyst and consultant for all research project staff. During her tenure at Gordon Black, Pat also developed strong information systems skills, developing and maintaining large relational database systems and designing and building desktop network systems. As a Project Manager, Pat's clients included several Fortune 100 companies and she served as the Senior Statistician for a multi-million dollar longitudinal study for the Partnership for a Drug Free America.
At East Ohio Gas, Consolidated Natural Gas' largest subsidiary, Pat worked for senior management to help ensure a smooth transition from a regulated to a deregulated environment. Her work pinpointed areas of operational and public perception weaknesses, and provided analyses for two successful rate cases.
Pat began her career at TRIAD Research Group as the Director of Research. AT TRIAD, her oversight brought state-of-the-art statistical and sampling methodologies to projects. Pat founded Cypress Research Group in 1997, with the goal of marrying strong project management with the highest level scientific principles. Her experience 'on the client side' taught her the demands that her corporate clients face and that research needs to be of the highest quality, on-time, and on-budget. Her staff and network of qualitative and quantitative professional researchers and information system professionals approach each project as a team.
Pat is extremely active in community affairs, holding numerous board and advisory committee seats. She is a member of and frequent speaker at professional association meetings, including the American Statistical Association, the American Society for Quality Control, the American Marketing Association, and Ohio Women in Mathematics. Pat has provided written and verbal testimony to over a dozen state governments and federal government agencies regarding consumer financial education and public education.
Pat holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience and an M.S. in Experimental Psychology & Statistics from Syracuse University. Her undergraduate work was completed in Biology and Psychology at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts.
Project Expertise: Customer Satisfaction (External & Internal), Database Optimization, Employee Studies, Executive Interviews, Multivariate Experimentation, New Product Development, New Product Profitability Analysis, Pricing Strategy, Public Image Analysis, Segmentation Studies, Web Page Evaluation & On-Line Surveys.
Industry Specialties: Arts and Culture, Banking/Finance, Biotechnology, Education/Higher Education, Hi-Tech/Systems, Non-Profit Agencies, Public Policy, Telecommunications, Utilities, Workforce Development
Partial List of Recent Clients: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Museum of Art, The College Board, Community Financial Services Association, Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (Cleveland), Cuyahoga Community College, Eaton Corporation, Ericsson, Inc., Greater Cleveland Growth Association, Intuit, Key Corp, New Jersey Department of Education, QualComm, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, State of Ohio Department of Development, TeamNEO, and Tyco Electronics.
Mike Danforth - Co-founder, Quadrant Arts Education Research
Mike Danforth is a trombonist and former music educator who has been helping companies, educational institutions, and organizations understand the size and nature of K-12 public and private school arts education (music, dance theatre, and most recently visual arts) in the USA since 1993. The hundreds of clients he has worked with include the Educational Theatre Association, Hal Leonard Publishing, Yamaha Corp of America, Disney, Boston University, and the American String Teachers Association. At Quadrant, he leads an in-house research team that has completed nearly 500,000 phone surveys with senior high, junior high, middle and elementary schools on their performing arts classes, programs and teachers in the few years, creating the most comprehensive and up-to-date database of performing arts education in the United States with detailed profiles on the performing arts for more than 120,000 public and private schools. He is a graduate of the School of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He was mentored there in research methodology by his faculty advisor, Dr. Bernard J. Dobroski, Dean Emeritus of the School of Music.
