Professor, bassoonist and pole dance instructor

When one thinks about the life of college professors most people picture them teaching courses, wearing uncomfortable tweed suits or buried under piles of paperwork in offices. Few can see professors scuba diving off the coast of Australia, going on tour or teaching pole fitness.  Professor Paula Brusky has done it all, and then some. 

This is Brusky's first year at UW Oshkosh where she teaches music business.  While here, she has already busied herself helping to design new curriculum for the music business program. 

"I love it here," Brusky said. "The students and faculty have truly made me feel welcome."   

She is also an assistant professor at St. Norbert College in DePere where she teaches bassoon performance.  Originally from Appleton Wis., Brusky graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree and a minor in music business from Northwestern University in New York.  She continued on to get her master's degree in music and another minor in business from Indiana University.

In 2005, Brusky received the Endeavor International Post-Graduate Research Scholarship and began to work toward her Ph. D. at the University of Sydney in Australia.  She received her doctorate in 2009 for bassoon performance and did her dissertation on performance-related musculoskeletal disorders in bassoon players.

While living in Australia for those four years, Brusky did a lot of scuba diving, having clocked well over 8,000 minutes under the sea during the course of more than 200 dives.

"I basically covered the entire eastern coast of Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef several times," she said.

Also in 2009, Brusky founded the Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition.  The BCMCC holds bi-annual online competitions where composers submit their compositions that specifically feature the bassoon.  The whole point of the BCMCC is to encourage composers to write bassoon pieces and to help the instrument gain recognition.  Although the BCMCC is only open to United States composers, Brusky and the other board members are planning on making the competitions an international event.

Brusky is very sought after in the music world and currently travels to colleges around the state as guest lecturer discussing injury prevention for musicians.

"I perform a lot," Brusky said. 

Having just wrapped up a 10-day tour in Texas, she is already preparing for a trip to San Francisco in March.  

On top of her academic life, Brusky owns her own dance studio in Appleton called Aerial Dance, where she teaches pole fitness.  She came across the sport while doing research for her dissertation.  She is very aware of and rejects the connotation pole has here in America, but according to Brusky, "Pole is as popular in Australia as yoga is in America."  Pole fitness is actually considered a sport and will be included in the 2016 Olympics as a trial sport. Brusky said that her students regain self-confidence after learning the techniques.

Back in the classroom, it is pretty clear that Brusky's students think highly of her.  

"She is an amazing professor," Kelsey Fischer, a junior at Oshkosh majoring in music business, said. "She is strict, but she structures her class like how it will be in the real world of music business.  It definitely helps that she has two successful businesses herself as well as an amazing bassoon career."

A professor plays a big part in getting students interested and sticking with a major.  Clearly Brusky is just as excited to be a part of the up-and-coming music business program at Oshkosh as her students are to have her as their teacher.

"Her teaching style requires us to place things in our mind, and remember them for a long period of time, rather than regurgitate our information for an exam and then forget it," Fischer said.  "She is hilarious, and truly cares about the success of her students."