Boden Sandstrom papers

Boden Sandstrom was accomplished as a musician, librarian, political activist, sound engineer, and ethnomusicologist. Before she came to teach and complete her Ph.D dissertation in Ethnomuiscology at the University of Maryland, Boden earned a BA in English and a minor in Music at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. At the University of Michigan, she completed her Master of Library Science, which led her to first career as a librarian working in Acquisitions at San Jose State University in California, as Head of Circulation at Northeastern University in Boston, and as Reference Librarian and Overseer of the English Literature Collection at the Martin Luther King Library in Washington, D.C. She also worked in the University of Maryland Music Library as an archivist when she first came to the school to earn her Ph.D, from 1995-1997.

Sandstrom established her own sound engineering company “Woman Sound” with the help of her longtime partner Casse Culver, which later became Sandstrom’s own company “City Sound Productions” based in Washington, D.C. Sandstrom is also credited for her role in writing grants to support acquiring and maintaining equipment in the School of Music, as well as raising money for the Technology Lab. She also consulted on audio considerations during the construction of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Sandstrom first encountered ethnomusicology after mixing sound for innumerable ethnic communities in the D.C. area from Chinese New Year’s to Ethiopian weddings. Her prior managerial experience enabled her to transition into managing the ethnomusicology ensembles at Maryland.

She was also involved in governance at the university, serving on the university’s technology and multi-media instruction center committees, the US Student Fulbright Committee, the Honor Review Board of the Office of Judicial Programs, and on the University Senate’s CORE committee. While a member of the University Senate, Sandstrom is noted for introducing the language to include LGTB rights in the University’s strategic plan. Her longstanding undergraduate courses on popular music and identity, including an array of guest performers, drew thousands of undergraduate students for introduction to global popular music and unfamiliar cultures, while also teaching them about the expression of gender and political struggle through music. As an ethnomusicologist, Sandstrom participated as speaker and session chair at scholarly conference and published a number of articles. Sandstrom retired from the School of Music in February 2013.