Paul Hamel

Paul Hamel was one in a select group of Adventist musicians to have a building named for him, an honor earned at Andrews University by virtue of a distinguished career at that school. For nearly a half-century, he provided crucial leadership at critical moments for not only the music program but also for other aspects of campus life as well.

Hamel was born in Kintyre, North Dakota, on August 8, 1919, the second of four sons born to Irene Flentie and Mahlon Glen (M.G.) Hamel. He was raised in a musical family where both parents were involved in music, his father as a band director, and mother as a talented amateur musician who played both organ and accordion. All of the children were given music

Paul started playing clarinet in grade school at the Bethel Academy, now Wisconsin Academy, band, which his father directed. By the time he graduated from the academy and attended Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, he was an accomplished performer, having played in a city band from the age of eight.

He completed a two-year elementary education program at Emmanuel Missionary College and had started to teach in Beloit, Wisconsin, when WW II began. Following service as a medical corps sergeant and a military bandsman playing clarinet in several different bands in the U.S. and England, he returned to EMC, where he served as a band assistant while completing a degree.

Following graduation in 1948, he was hired to direct the college band. Under his leadership, band concerts became popular and well-attended events. He subsequently completed a master\'s degree at Vandercook College of Music in 1951 and a D.Mus.Ed. at the Chicago Musical College, now the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in 1955.

Hamel became music department chair in 1957. Two years later, the Seventh day Adventist Seminary, which had been located in Washington, D.C., was moved to the college. Within four years, EMC\'s academic program expanded to include graduate study in several areas, including music.

Under Hamel\'s leadership, the department grew from a small college faculty and limited undergraduate degree offerings, to an expanded and distinguished university faculty working in a flourishing program offering graduate work to large numbers of students. From 1960 to 1964 during the first years of the college\'s transformation into a university, he also served as Director of Admissions for the summer session. During those busy years he continued to serve as band director until 1967.

Hamel’s career at what was then known as Emmanuel Missionary College began in that pivotal time at the end of the World War II. When he arrived as an assistant in the band program, he joined a parade of previous directors at EMC such as Louis Thorpe, Williard (Bill) Shadel, and John J. Hafner, men who would emerge as pioneers in the beginnings of Adventist college concert bands. While Hamel would continue their work in that area for the next 24 years, he would ultimately make a more far-reaching contribution.

Returning veterans and the money that came with them led to a rapid expansion in Adventist colleges - and concerns about the quality and diversity of what they were offering. Those concerns, coupled with the demands of a quickly changing and increasingly more sophisticated society, made it imperative that these music programs improve to meet higher expectations and more challenging standards.

Prior to the war, traditional expectations in most Adventist colleges were that the music department was to provide worship music, to entertain, and to be an effective tool for recruiting students. After the war, however, within the context of increasingly higher academic standards on SDA campuses, those older expectations had to expand beyond the worship, entertainment and recruitment mindset if music programs were to survive and achieve respectability within the academic community.

By the time he completed his work at Andrews University, he would have witnessed, participated in, and been a major player in creating the needed transformation in music programs in Adventist higher education. The result is a legacy in the arts that music chairs today struggle to preserve amid society’s ever-increasing emphasis on technology.

Hamel’s concern for the integrity of the Andrews graduate program was evident in the quality of what was offered, the wide variety of high-profile workshops and guest teachers he brought to the campus, and his willingness to work with students in arranging lessons with noted off-campus teachers or performers.

Music graduates over a period of many years appreciated Hamel’s leadership as chair of the music program at Andrews. His example in personal integrity, vision of what might be, and efforts in making real his dreams for music at Andrews stand as an inspiration and a challenge for today’s and tomorrow\'s music leaders, teachers, and music programs.

He authored numerous journal articles and two books: The Christian and His Music, 1973, and Ellen White and Music, He also produced a book of instrumental arrangements for the Singing Youth songbook

By the time Hamel retired in 1981, he was a highly respected member of the AU faculty, having transformed the music program, been acting Dean of the School of Graduate Studies on several occasions, and started the AU Honors Program. He was awarded the AU Presidential Citation in 1963, honored with the AU yearbook dedication in 1964, and given the John Nevins An

Even in his retirement, Hamel continued to work on behalf of the university, serving for two terms as president of the alumni association. In 2000, he was named an honored alumnus for his many contributions to his alma mater and for his untiring work on behalf of the university.

He was living in Berrien Springs, when he died on July 5, 2021, at age 101. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Beatrice Nelson Hamel, and survived by his second wife, Esther Hensel Hamel; sons, Carl, Gary, Loren, Lowell; brother, Lyle, 18 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

Sources: World War II, draft card for Paul Hamel, October 16,1940; 1920 and 1930 U.S. Federal Census Records, Ancestry.com; Interviews with Paul and Lyle Hamel in March and April 2010; Lyle Hamel, Strike Up the Band, unpublished autobiography which describes his and Paul’s early years; Ongoing conversations with Paul Hamel from 1966, when I was a student in the graduate program, to 1995 when the music building was named for him. At his request I was invited to speak at the ceremony on behalf of all AU music program graduates; Dan Shultz, “Paul Hamel, IAMA Notes, Winter/Spring 2006, 18; Dan Shultz, “Music at Andrews University” IAMA Notes, Winter/Spring 2006, 13-17; Personal Knowledge; “Paul Hamel Celebrates 100 years!” IAMA Online Notes, 4 Paul Hamel obituary, Andrews University Focus, Summer 2021, 29.

When Andrews University honored Paul Hamel in June 1995 by naming its music building after him, Dan Shultz was invited to speak on behalf of AU graduates at Hamel\'s request. The following comments are edited excerpts from the tribute given at that ceremony.

Paul Hamel, like Carl Engel at Union College, Noah Paulin at Pacific Union College, and Harold A. Miller and J. Mabel Wood at Southern College, has earned the honor of having a music building named after him by virtue of a long and distinguished career at one institution. He, like four of those five persons, served as a chairman, providing crucial leadership at critical moments for the music program at Andrews University.

In Hamel\'s experience, those moments were in the thirty-five year period of unprecedented growth following the Second World War, a global conflict that, in retrospect, appears to have been the dividing line between the old and the new for many aspects of American life.

Prior to the war, traditional expectations in most Adventist colleges were that the music department was to provide worship music, to entertain, and to be an effective tool for recruiting students. After the war, however, within the context of increasingly higher academic standards on our campuses, those older expectations had to expand beyond the worship, entertainment and recruitment mindset if music programs were to survive and achieve respectability within the academic community.

Hamel\'s career at what was then known as Emmanuel Missionary College began at that pivotal time at the end of the war. When he arrived as an assistant in the band program, he joined a parade of previous directors at EMC such as Louis Thorpe, Williard (Bill) Shadel, and John J. Hafner, men who would emerge as pioneers in the beginnings of Adventist college concert bands. While Hamel would continue their work in that area, he would ultimately make a more far-reaching contribution.

When Hamel became music department chairman in 1955, EMC was a small regional college with a four-teacher music department and a program that offered one degree. By the time he retired in 1981, he had done the following:

Hamel\'s concern for the integrity of the Andrews graduate program was evident in the quality of what was offered, the wide variety of high profile workshops and guest teachers he brought to the campus, and his willingness to work with students in arranging lessons with noted off-campus teachers or performers.

Music graduates over a period of many years have appreciated Hamel\'s leadership as chair of the music program at Andrews. His example in personal integrity, vision of what might be, and efforts in making real his dreams for music at Andrews stand as an inspiration and a challenge for today\'s and tomorrow\'s music leaders, teachers, and music programs.