Donald Rogers

Emeritus Professor of music and Chair of the Department of Music, Winthrop University

Education:
Ph.D. in Music Education, University of South Carolina (2006)
Master of Music in Music Education, Winthrop University (1975)
Bachelor of Arts in Music Education, UNC Charlotte (1972)

Hometown: Charlotte, N.C.

Dr. Donald Rogers started as a member of the music faculty at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, in 1975 and served as chair of the Department of Music from 1996-2019. Prior to coming to Winthrop, he was a choral music educator in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System. He is past president of the College Division of the South Carolina Music Educators Association, past president and governor for the South Carolina state chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and holds professional memberships in the American Choral Directors Association, the National Association for Music Education/South Carolina Music Educators Association, and the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. He is a Certified Church Musician with the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, and past recipient of an Orpheus Award through Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity. He has been a church choral director for over 50 years and currently serves as Director at Frist Presbyterian Chruch in Rock Hill, SC. 

Don came to UNC Charlotte when the university and the music department were in their infancy. “It was a commuter campus until my senior year. Rowe Arts Building had just been completed in our senior year. There were only four of us music majors in my class, and the music degree did not receive final approval until our senior year!” Still, he says, the education he received at UNC Charlotte, with abundant personal attention to his development, provided a “fine foundation” for his music career. “I owe most of my success as a choral director, singer, and musician to Dr. William Dailey. He encouraged me to seek excellence in choral music and exposed all of us to a wide variety of music. He was truly an inspiration.”

Among his many accomplishments, Don is the founding director of the Summer ST-ARTS Program (Students with Special Talents in the Arts), a three-week comprehensive arts program for 300 artistically gifted and talented middle school students held annually on Winthrop’s campus for 31 years. “We were cited by the SC Department of Education as an exemplary model of how a university has cooperated with its constituent school districts to provide a comprehensive arts program for artistically gifted and talented middle school students.”

Don was named the 2015 Distinguished Alumnus in the Department of Music, the first alum to receive the honor.