Ian,

Part of what you are hearing in this thread is not about you and your peers. It's about catters' experiences with other academics in other times and other places. Some of it is boomers saying "Yeah, been there, done that, wasn't impressed."

Traditional musicians have traditionally been meal tickets for academics. The relation between academics and tradition bearers has occasionally been exploitative. Discover somebody, publish a thesis or dissertation and maybe a recording, and move on. Traditional musicians traditionally haven't always gotten a piece of the pie created by such academic activity.

Things seem to be changing. I think that if a traditional musician can get a teaching gig and a steady paycheck at a university these days, more power to him/her. But if it were a traditional musician I cared about I would be at least a bit worried about the impact that gig would have on the musician, the music, and the tradition.

I would want to know what the real price of academic participation is. What's the catch?

What does s/he have to do to get the gig? Just be a wonderful bearer of the tradition? Have some sort of track record? A recording or two? Be a performer to some extent? Popular to some extent? Exhibit additional skills? Be able to play well with others? Know the right people? Be a good politician?

What must s/he do to keep the gig? Just play and teach? Or also engage in some or all the busywork that academics normally do? Committee work? Publications? Community service?

If traditional musicians are brought into the world of academe there must be some sort of selection process. As a student I would want to know exactly what that process is and what the criteria are. If there are hidden agendas, I would want them made public.

In my rather cryptic first contribution to this thread I responded to Fay's original question. The most important result of the program will be that some musicians will be selected and marketed and some won't. That is not a trivial result. That will change the tradition in fundamental, far-reaching, and long lasting ways. It won't be a process of "natural" selection. It will be a process driven by ordinary human beings with ordinary (not always noble) motivations.

If you are going to participate in that process, it behooves you to learn how such processes have actually worked in the past. It is one thing to read the mission statements and know the lofty intentions of various institutions. It is another to research the actual results of the activities of those institutions. A study of the history of the EFDSS might be very informative.

Sound like a great program. Just be sure to read the fine print in the prospectus.