Phyllis White

Special Lecturer, Music
What's On Your Playlist? Music Listening and the Self
Introduction to Music

Contact: [email protected]

Phyllis Wolfe White is an internationally recognized composer of educational and sacred choral music for children with more than one hundred published titles and over a million copies sold in twenty-seven countries with the Lorenz Publishing Corporation.  She began her publishing career while she was an undergraduate student at Oakland University.

Dr. White earned her Bachelor of Music in Music Theory, her Master of Music in Music Education and her PhD in Music Education from Oakland University, the first SMTD alum to hold all three degrees. Her pedagogical stance is rooted in social constructivism with research interests in the intersection of online learning and musical understanding.

Professor White’s work designing and teaching popular, innovative courses in collaborative composition and songwriting, music fundamentals, theory for musical theatre majors, musicianship for dancers, and traditional and emergent courses in music listening earned her both Oakland’s 2003 Excellence in Teaching Award and Oakland's 2020 Online Teaching Excellence Award, the first and only faculty member to receive this award twice for her teaching in both face-to-face and online settings.    

The Department of Athletics has repeatedly recognized Dr. White’s contributions toward the success of scholar-athletes. She has partnered with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Department of e-Learning and Instructional Support to empower faculty in their pursuit of online pedagogical best practice.

Currently, she specializes in fully online asynchronous general education music classes including her flagship course What’s On Your Playlist? Music Listening and the Self. Dr. White has inspired over 10,000 students as a Special Lecturer in Music at Oakland since joining the faculty in 1987.