You Can Call This Sergeant “Doctor”

If you were looking for a doctor at Hanscom Air Force Base, you probably would head for the clinic. Very soon, however, you’ll be able to find one in Building 1723, home of the United States Air Force Band of Liberty.

Meet Dr. Amanda Dell.

On March 21, Dell, a Staff Sergeant and clarinetist with the United States Air Force Band of Liberty, will officially be awarded her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. It will be the completion of a 12-year journey and make Dell a member of perhaps the most exclusive club in the Air Force. According to Air Force Personnel Center statistics, she will be one of only 14 enlisted Airmen out of nearly 300,000 to hold such a high degree.

While she might not be able to help you with a stomach ache, Dell can tell you all about the clarinet in the music of 20th century Austrian composer Anton Webern. That was the subject of the 202-page dissertation she finally finished last fall. When it was approved by the CCM faculty in November it marked the last hurdle toward the DMA she began working on in 1993.

“I remember that moment,” Dell said. “It was surreal, a little hard to believe. It had been so long, I felt like such a huge weight had been lifted. It was a good moment. I think I hugged just about everybody in the squadron.”

Dell’s doctoral quest began long before she joined the Air Force in 2000. After earning a Masters in Clarinet performance from Appalachian State University in the spring of 1993, she began work on her DMA that fall at Cincinnati. She figured she’d eventually end up teaching at a college or university.

“That was initially my goal, to teach,” Dell said. “And I also wanted to study more on the clarinet.”

By 1998, she had done the required 90 hours of course work and 3 recitals, passed the music theory and history qualifying exams and the written and oral comprehensive exams. The only thing left was her dissertation. Dell moved to Miami, where her family lived, and spent the next seven months doing research in addition to working as a nanny and performing with local woodwind groups, pit orchestras and symphonies. At that point a military career wasn’t even on the radar screen.

A clarinetist friend of hers, however, had recently joined an Air Force band and kept telling Dell good things about the job and encouraging her to audition. At first she was somewhat hesitant.

“I was a little scared about joining the Air Force,” Dell admitted. “It just seemed so foreign to me. A musician in the military? We are kind of square pegs in a round hole and I was worried about that.”

The more she thought about it, though, the more she liked the idea of performing all the time in the Air Force versus teaching. She finally auditioned at Hanscom in May 2000, was accepted and joined the Band of Liberty later that year.

With her new Air Force career and a busy schedule of rehearsals and concerts, Dell put the dissertation on hold. In the back of her mind, however, she knew she would finish it someday, even if that wouldn’t result in more money or career advancement.

“It was still important to me,” she said, “primarily to have it finished to have that accomplishment. I felt it would round me out as a musician no matter what I did.”
With some prodding from her First Sergeant, SMSgt Stan Holland, Dell resumed work on the project last year.

“I made a few attempts when I first joined the Air Force but I didn’t really start writing it until 2004,” she said. “He (Holland) was the one who started the ball rolling. He just kept bugging me about it.”

Band of Liberty commander Captain Matthew Henry also helped out by allowing Dell to take 30 days personal leave last summer to focus on her research and writing.

Then there was the support she received from her husband and fellow band member, SSgt Dave Dell, who served as an invaluable sounding board.

“Because he is also a musician, his insights were extremely valuable,” Dell said.  “As a husband and dear friend, he did everything possible to accommodate me while I worked at home.  He assumed the majority of the household chores and cooked dinner for me when he wasn’t performing in the evenings.  A fellow doctoral student at CCM told me years ago that statistics show that doctoral students who are married complete their degrees more quickly than their single counterparts.  Now I understand why.”

Dell worked some 260 hours, or almost nine hours a day, on the dissertation during her summer leave. Then, after rejoining the band, she spent an additional 210 after-duty hours between August and October finishing her work.

“It basically just took away my entire social life,” Dell said. “I would just spend entire weekends and late at night working on it and I’m not a night person.”

“It was a very hard project but I think that will make me a better worker overall. It was the most self-discipline I’ve ever used. I think if you want to be good at anything, you have to use self-discipline.”

Dell’s DMA certainly makes her stand out. Air Force wide, only 4% of Airmen have so much as a bachelor’s degree. And even in her highly-educated career field, where the majority of bandsmen have bachelor’s or master’s degrees, Dell is only the third Airman to earn a doctorate. In fact, she now has a higher degree than 90% of the officer corps.

“People are always so shocked that all these people in the band have degrees and aren’t officers,” Dell said. “And then when they find out you have even a higher degree and aren’t an officer, that’s just incomprehensible to them.”

For SSgt Dell, however, it isn’t about being an officer, it’s about doing what she loves. The only officer slots in the band career field are for commander and deputy commander/conductor positions and Dell is much happier playing her clarinet and making music.

Besides performing in the United States Air Force Liberty Pops, she serves as assistant operations representative for that ensemble and is also Noncommissioned Officer in Charge of the New England Winds woodwind quintet. In a typical year, she’ll take part in more than 100 performances for 250,000 people.

While she might decide to teach college after her Air Force career is over, Dell doesn’t have any second thoughts about choosing the military over academia.

“No. I think this is a lot more fun,” she said. “I really enjoy this job. I feel more of a purpose sharing music with so many hundreds of thousands of people every year and putting a good face on the Air Force. I just feel like I’m reaching more people this way as a musical ambassador.”

Sounds like the Air Force was just what the doctor ordered.