School of Music Director Lyle Merriman has been re-elected to a three-year term on the Graduate Commission of the National Association of Schools of Music.

This is Merriman's second term on the seven-member commission, which applies accreditation and membership standards to graduate programs across the country. About 600 schools belong to the association, each of which is reviewed once every ten years. "We look at the graduate programs and make sure that the degree requirements meet our standards," he said.

Merriman said he hopes his membership earns Penn State's music program national visibility and credibility. "This is the only accrediting agency for schools of music. Consequently, it's a very important one," he said.

School of Music Professor Douglas Miller said "it is obviously a prestigious position to be one of the six or seven people in the country (on the commission)."

"From our standpoint, it certainly reflects well upon Dr. Merriman, and upon our own music program," Miller said.

Merriman said that by reviewing other schools, he gets ideas that can be used at Penn State. "It gives me an opportunity to look at a lot of other graduate programs and see what I think is successful, what isn't so successful," he said. "It just enables me to obtain more experience and more depth, which I can apply to our own program."

Merriman was a professional musician for a number of years, playing clarinet and saxophone in both symphony orchestras and groups that backed up show business acts like the Oak Ridge Boys and Phyllis Diller.

He became Director of the School of Music in 1984, five years after it was officially founded. Miller said that under Merriman's direction, the school has undergone substantial improvement.

"The School of Music has increased in the quantity and quality of our faculty and students, and he's really considered to be the guiding light of that," Miller said.

Merriman has also had four arrangements of music published.

"Something I've done for many years is edit music for use by junior high and high school music students," said Merriman, who was a professor of woodwind literature and clarinet.