A Tale As Old As Time: Josh Glasner, Boyertown Class of 2007 Alum

by Donna Jorgensen*

It is a tale as old as time: children are born and raised in communities where they discover things about themselves and life in general. The lessons learned shape who they become and how they chart their life’s journeys.

Some things are ever the same and some things are surprises; some things are extremely predictable and some are not. Not all of the lessons and experiences are positive, and some lead to disappointment. Others are transformational moments that teach and shape the individual.

What an incredible joy it was for me to be a part of the search committee tasked with hiring faculty for the Delaware Valley University Speech-Language Pathology graduate program and to discover that I had an unexpected connection to one candidate in particular. I was overjoyed when Dr. Joshua Glasner accepted a position to join the Delaware Valley faculty.

Our paths had not crossed in Boyertown because Josh’s arrival at Boyertown Area Senior High (BASH) came years after I left to begin my career in higher education, so it was revelatory to hear the stories that paint the picture of Josh’s journey from years ago in Boyertown to now.

When Dr. Joshua Glasner, 2007 graduate of BASH, was growing up in Boyertown, his experiences were much like most other kids growing up there and in small towns everywhere.

It was in Boyertown that he found his voice and developed his deep commitment to helping others to find theirs. Josh’s life journey took him away from Boyertown, but he is nearly back home now. Humble and unassuming in spite of very impressive personal and professional credentials, Josh was thoughtful in responding to my request that he share some of what he learned growing up in Boyertown and how it has helped him to become who he is today.

Some of what he remembers about those years is that he found himself in a community where people helped one another to grow and thrive and that there was love in the community. He affirms that this was HIS experience and acknowledges that perhaps others did not have the good fortune to experience Boyertown from that perspective. This memory of his hometown, he says, is the “guiding light that has helped me to keep in mind the humanity of others despite any perceived or real differences.”

Josh says he was not one of those kids who “wanted to leave Boyertown, per se.” Unlike some, it was not his primary goal to get out of the town where he grew up. This is because he knows that his time in Boyertown provided him with a compass of sorts. His life was not always filled with idyllic moments, he reveals, but the experiences and the people who were part of them have shaped who he has become and where he sees himself going.

He offers this advice to those who are growing up in Boyertown now: “Take advantage of all of the opportunities that growing up with people who care about you and your success affords. Beyond that, I encourage everyone to explore the world outside of what’s right in front of them.”

Before he reached Boyertown Junior High West, Josh thought he wanted to be a physicist even though he smiles and acknowledges that he didn’t really know what that entailed. But then, in 7th grade, he found his passion for music while singing in choir and musicals, and remembers fondly participating in the musical Oklahoma. From that point on, he knew that music would play an important part in his life.

Like many high school singers, he says he probably entertained the possibility of “making it” on Broadway, but his true passion became teaching. At first, he thought it would be as a high school choir director; then he thought that he wanted to perform before he became a university voice teacher. He remembers well a conversation with voice teacher Tammy Black (while raking leaves of all things) in which she encouraged him to take a serious look at a vocal pedagogy major and career. He had no idea what that meant at the time, but he would most definitely find out. Music remains at the heart of all that he is and does.

One does not harbor dreams without influential people along the way to nurture them. Josh specifically cites Tammy, Francine, and Dick Black as three individuals were “monumental in helping me to get where I am today in so many ways.” Dan Kershetsky and Teri Hoffman, as well as other music educators in the Boyertown Area School District, also gave him ways to express himself during his adolescence.

Not all of the influential educators in his memory were in the music department, however, and Josh cites Mrs. Lesley Misko as an educator whom he had for AP English. It was in her class he came to understand what became the AP class’s motto: “Grades don’t matter. It’s about whether you choose to drive the tractor.” You will need to find someone from that class to fully explain the reference to the Steinbeck novel, Grapes of Wrath, where the banks pay farmers to drive their tractors to plow over the land of their neighbors, but the key learning that ‘grades don’t matter’ became a foundational part of his teaching philosophy. 

As a BASH senior, Josh captivated audiences in the role of Beast in the school production of "Beauty and the Beast."

Another of the Boyertown experiences that is most memorable for Josh was his role as the Beast in the 2007 BASH production of Beauty and the Beast. As children, perhaps everyone is caught up in dreams of the happily ever after promised in fairy tales. Young Prince Adam, the character who is cursed to live as a Beast because of his selfishness, learns that his “happily ever after” can come only when he can transform his life.

Josh says, “Portraying the Beast in high school during an incredible, trying, and transitional period of my life was itself transformational. It really gave me the opportunity to play with what it might be like to take the reins of my own life and to take a more active role in choosing who I want to be and how I want to treat people around me.”

Choosing who he wants to be first took Josh to the University of Delaware, where he pursued a Bachelor of Music degree. He followed that a with Master of Music degree from Westminster Choir College, with a focus on Vocal Pedagogy and Performance (Pedagogy Emphasis). Josh further pursued his passion for music and completed a Ph.D. in Voice Performance at New York University. He studied an interdisciplinary curriculum that combined vocal pedagogy, voice performance, music technology, and speech-language pathology, completing a dissertation titled: The Development of the Operatic Voice during the 20th Century: An Analysis of the Effect of Early Recording Technology. Clearly, the good advice from Tammy Black has served Josh well.

Utilizing all of his acquired knowledge and skill, Josh has pursued a career that has taken him around the world where he has met people from all walks of life. He has taught voice performance, voice pedagogy, and music-related courses at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa, New York University, and Coastal Carolina University. He also serves as a summer faculty member for the Westminster Choir College Summer Voice Pedagogy Institute.

The good advice from Mrs. Black has served Josh well. Fifteen years after high school graduation, Josh says that the AP English class motto has become a tenet of his teaching philosophy. “It is more important to grow, to ask questions, and to challenge the status quo than to simply earn a grade or specific accolade in school (or elsewhere). Learning is exemplified by more than just grades, and I’ve found that my students have appreciated that perspective.”  

Dr. Joshua Glasner working with one of his students in the Voice lab.

While teaching is a keystone of Josh’s career, it isn’t everything. His multi-disciplinary research involves topics including historical recording technology, treatment efficacy, room acoustics, and singing voice science. Perhaps that leaning towards a career in science never really went away!

In 2021, he participated in the prestigious National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern Program at Georgia Southern University. His many conference presentations, invited guest lectures and forums, master classes, and scholarly papers published in peer-reviewed journals demonstrate his commitment to learning and the sharing of his knowledge and skills. They are a testament to his passion, demonstrating that his “voice” is, and will continue to be, a force in the academic arena. Pretty darn impressive for a “Beast” from Boyertown.

Outside of academia, Josh has served as Director of Music Ministries at Reformation Evangelical Lutheran Church in Exeter, PA and Bethesda United Methodist Church in Middletown, DE. According to his website, joshuaglasner.com, he is “passionate about breaking down barriers that traditionally separate academia and the general public, frequently working with secondary school music programs, church choirs and various groups around the United States to teach singers of all ages and backgrounds how to use evidence-based tasks to improve their singing and speaking.”

Spend even a few minutes with Josh, and you will feel his energy and see how that passion continues to motivate him and drive his career choices. In addition to his teaching, he “is constantly looking for ways to give back to the community.” During his time in New York City, he volunteered with local young adult music groups and individuals as a voice teacher, vocal coach, and vocal consultant. As if all of that were not enough to keep him busy, Josh has continued to perform, primarily in operatic roles.

In July 2022, as an add-on to attending and presenting at the NATS Conference in Chicago with some of his singing teacher colleagues, avid Phillies fan Josh sang the National Anthem at Wrigley Field when the Cubs played the Boston Red Sox.

That all ties nicely to his revelation that he once took biostatistics coursework to master regression analysis so that he could win his fantasy baseball league. That knowledge and skill will be a plus when he is teaching is Research Methods courses.

Now Josh is back in this region, having recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Speech-Language Pathology at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, PA. He has been instrumental in guiding program development and in the accreditation process. In the program, he will be teaching Research Methods, Speech and Hearing Science, Instrumentation, and Introduction to Audiology. When asked about how all of his various knowledge and skills have led him to this point and a return to the east coast and closer to “home” in Boyertown from Iowa, he has this to say: “I am excited to be transitioning my career from academic music to speech-language pathology. Truth be told, some of my closest professional mentors have taken a similar path from professional singing to speech-language pathology, so the connection seems almost second nature to me. Most people will tell you that SLP is more than just voice—and they are absolutely right—but I think there is so much overlap between the disciplines in terms of foundational education.”

Always eager to continue his own education, Josh is also working towards his own clinical credentials in speech-language pathology so that he can demonstrate even more fully exactly what the connection is between those things that he cares deeply about. In his new position, he is dedicated to contributing to a culture of graduate-level research and to helping students to present and publish nationally and internationally.

On a more personal level, Josh and his fiancé are excited to have achieved one of their dreams-- living in or near a major city --as they are living in Center City Philadelphia with ready access to the Big Apple as well. They share their space with their puppy, Ashe, and all are “loving it and being closer to family.” Now that they have settled into their new home, this avid Phillies and Eagles fan has been cheering for both teams. Josh notes with conviction that their winning ways coincided with his taking up residence in Center City.

Taking time to pursue another of his interests— cooking-- two of his recent culinary triumphs included preparing an octopus dinner and a pig’s head terrine. He has also been experimenting with creating fermented hot sauce. His latest creation is Fermented Pumpkin and Ghost Pepper hot sauce. In chatting, we joked that he could probably find a research project on the effects of fermented hot sauce on vocal performance. Perhaps there is a cook-off in the future between Josh and his mentor Francine Black, Boyertown’s answer to Julia Child and an extraordinary chef in her own right. That would be a delightful reunion.

Returning to more serious thoughts, Josh has additional advice for kids who are now growing up in Boyertown and other communities like it. He believes that they should seek out opportunities to learn from other perspectives and lived experience, as they are really important. “Don’t burn bridges,” he cautions. “My friends from Boyertown know that my path at the end of high school was a bit tricky. I remember a community who lifted a kid up when he needed it. Most importantly, one thing that stayed with me from my time in Boyertown is a sense of altruism, and I think becoming an SLP lends itself quite well to making sure that my life is devoted to helping other people—giving people voice if you will.”

Joshua Glasner, potential physicist; Joshua Glasner, Beast; Joshua Glasner, performer, teacher, scholar and researcher, has chosen his next road, settling in to applying his talent, energy, and passion for the power of the human voice and his commitment to teaching and learning to the Delaware Valley University Speech-Language Pathology program. For the first time, he says, he is not singularly focused on a particular career path, and he is taking life as it comes now. There are, he proclaims, “so many possibilities.”

Watch out world! The Beast is back, fully transformed into Joshua Glasner, Ph.D. with dreams and goals and a unique skill set that had its genesis back in Boyertown. They are coming to fruition in exciting new ways as he begins the next stage of his life’s journey. Delaware Valley University is fortunate to have this highly talented and motivated educator on the faculty. Things are most definitely going DelVal’s way as Josh joins the faculty, and to quote one of Josh's favorite shows, Oklahoma, “I’ve got a beautiful feelin’; Ev’rythin’s going [his] way,” too. Welcome home, Josh.

[* Donna Jorgensen was an English teacher at Boyertown Area Senior High (BASH) from 1975-2000. With her then newly earned Doctor of Education in Reading/Language Arts, she left to pursue a dream of preparing future teachers of English at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. During those years at BASH, in addition to teaching English classes including favorites, Honors 10thgrade Oral Communications, Advanced Grammar, American Lit. and Mythology, and World Literature and Research Paper, she directed many junior and senior class plays, assisted with musicals, oversaw the production of children’s theatre and competition theatre with New Theatre Ensemble, advised the Mock Trial team, was the advisor for the wrestling cheerleaders, and was class advisor to the Classes of ’81 and ’84. After a fourteen-year career at Rowan that included two years as Associate Dean and Interim Dean of the College of Education, retirement beckoned. For two years she happily taught American English Grammar at Rowan, and, failing retirement, returned to teaching at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, PA in 2016. There she teaches dissertation design and writing courses in the doctoral program and has primary responsibility for chairing dissertation committees. After 50+ years as an educator, she cherishes the memories of all the individual moments, all the students, all the colleagues, all the families that are a part of the fabric of her 25 years at BASH. They have never been forgotten and are the solid foundation on which everything else in her professional life were built.]

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