Gene Ann Behrens appointed to leadership role with World Federation of Music Therapy

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Professor Gene Ann Behrens

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (08/22/2011)(readMedia)-- The World Federation of Music Therapy recently elected Professor Gene Ann Behrens to serve as Chair of the Global Crises Intervention Commission. This unique response unit of the Word Federation of Music Therapy organization supports the needs of music therapists affected by or responding to crises-natural and human-made-across the world that result in trauma stress. The Global Crises Intervention Commission facilitates communication, coordinates services and training among music therapists, and maintains a collection of materials and resources to use during current or ongoing disasters and traumatic situations.

Behrens had served as a regional liaison for the Federation prior to her election to the Commission. She also has served actively with the mid-Atlantic region of the American Music Therapy Association in various roles.

Behrens teaches and supervises music therapy students while directing the music therapy program in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts of Elizabethtown College where she has taught since 1998. She earned her bachelor's degree in music therapy at Michigan State University, a master's and an educational specialist degree at Kent State University and a doctoral degree in music therapy at University of Kansas. Behrens has worked as a music therapist for 36 years.

Behrens maintains an avid interest in research design and statistics, as well as her research topics of music therapy, trauma and emotional coping skills. In 2008 she spent a little more than two months in Bethlehem in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territory working as a music therapist with children traumatized by the ongoing conflict. In 2010, Behrens was invited to present at a NATO Security workshop in Ankara, Turkey on music therapy and trauma. She has published in several journals and proceedings; is an active presenter at regional, national, and international conferences; and is an avid photographer.

Elizabethtown College, in south-central Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Through personal attention, creative inspiration and academic challenge, Elizabethtown College students are encouraged to expand their intellectual curiosity and are given the opportunity to become a bigger part of the world through experiential learning-research, internships and study abroad. Elizabethtown College's overall commitment to Educate for Service is fulfilled as students are taught intellectually, socially, aesthetically and ethically for lives of service and leadership.

Visit www.etown.edu for more information about Elizabethtown College.