Three Shenandoah Conservatory alumni were selected as 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients. The awardees will be honored at the Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony during Homecoming. The event will be held at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24. Admission is $10. We hope you will come support your fellow classmates and friends as we celebrate their success after graduation. 

2025 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients Representing Shenandoah Conservatory

• Lifetime Achievement: Alice Hammel ’87, ’99 (Bachelor of Music in Music Education, Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education)
• Young Career Achievement: Kerry Devlin ’14, ’17, LPMT, MT-BC (Professional Studies Program for Music Therapy Certification Eligibility, Master of Music Therapy)
• Professional Achievement: Nathaniel Gumbs ’09 (Bachelor of Music in Performance)

Lifetime Achievement: Alice Hammel ’87, ’99

Alice M. Hammel ’87, ’99 earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education from Shenandoah Conservatory. She is a music educator, author and clinician who currently serves as faculty member at the University of Arkansas. With experience teaching instrumental and choral music in public and private schools, she also travels to serve as an in-residence scholar. Her expertise in teaching includes musicianship, pedagogy and special education.

Young Career Achievement: Kerry Devlin ’14, ’17

Kerry Devlin ’14, ’17, LPMT, MT-BC, earned her Professional Studies Program for Music Therapy Certification Eligibility and Master of Music Therapy from Shenandoah Conservatory. She is a senior music therapist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine. Passionate about disability justice, she focuses on inclusion through her clinical and teaching work. Devlin teaches inclusive music education pedagogy at the Peabody Institute and consults on accessible concert design. Her research has been published in Music Therapy Perspectives and Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports.

Professional Achievement: Nathaniel Gumbs ’09

Nathaniel Gumbs ’09 earned a Bachelor of Music in Performance from Shenandoah Conservatory. He is an accomplished concert organist known for his performances at various venues both in the United States and internationally. He serves as the director of chapel music at Yale University where he oversees the music for three worshiping communities: the University Church in Battell Chapel, as well as Marquand Chapel and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale Divinity School. Gumbs currently serves as the director of music at Riverside Church in New York City.

They join Julie Patterson Funkhouser ’14 (Arts and Sciences), selected for the Service to the Community Award, and Jeffery “Jeff” Harding ’81 (Arts and Sciences), selected for the Service to the University Award, as Distinguished Alumni Award recipients this year.

All 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients will be recognized during Shenandoah University’s Homecoming from Thursday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 26.