Kurt Reh ’13 always knew he would fit in at St. Lawrence, but he didn’t realize how well his double bass and banjo would fit in, too.

“I’ve definitely become a better musician here,” the Plattsburgh, N.Y., native says, sitting in the instrument-filled living room in the Arts Annex, an on-campus theme house devoted to music. Kurt plays in campus bands such as the Wind Ensemble, Femme Fatale and the Sound Sandbox, and at venues from the Annex porch to the campus Underground and Java Barn.
Kurt has woven his music interests into his academics. “I started thinking about the idea of music in psychology during a Personality Psych class,” Kurt says. He approached Associate Professor of Psychology Cheryl Stuntz about helping him conduct research to bridge the two areas and was awarded a University Fellowship for summer 2012. The music and psychology double major jumped right into his project, “Examining Music Stereotypes: What Music Says about You,” which focused on third-party stereotypes of music listeners.

“People wear band t-shirts, hang posters in their rooms, but why do they do that?” Kurt asks. “Does it influence what others think of them?”

Kurt and Professor Stuntz factored age into their study, interviewing 411 St. Lawrence faculty, staff and students on their perception of hypothetical rap and classical music fans. They found that both the age of the target music fan and the age of the participant had “a significant effect on participants’ opinions of music listeners’ personalities,” and on the third party’s perception of the fan’s drug and alcohol use.

Many St. Lawrence students, including Kurt, take advantage of the opportunity to conduct research alongside their professors on topics they are passionate about. “Working with a mentor one-on-one was helpful in analyzing data, and really added to what I’ve learned in the classroom,” he says.

-Molly Lunn ’12