Sylvia K. Musik

First generation American Jewish German-Hungarian New Yorker, Sylvia K. Musik (a.k.a. Sylvia Kaufman Musikansky) graduated Hunter College in 1934 with a major in Statistics, then took secretarial work in New York until settling in Philadelphia in the late 1930s. Musik subsequently relocated with her husband to Washington, D.C., where, during the 1950s, she received her Master’s degree from George Washington University, then began teaching at primary schools in the D.C. area. Some time afterward, the Musikansy family pulled up stakes and settled in San Diego, where Sylvia resumed her teaching career at an Escondido Elementary School.

However, in 1962, turning her attention now to adult education, Musik began teaching part-time for Grossmont Junior College (then operating out of the Monte Vista High School campus). She joined the Department’s full-time teaching staff in 1964, and, over the next thirteen years, held a reputation for being one of Grossmont’s most enthusiastic and popular teachers of English and Reading courses.

However, aware of the culture of American youth that dominated campuses like Grossmont’s and drawing from her chilhood experiences with anti-Semitism in New York, Musik turned her attention to the Grossmont's immigrant populations and adult returning students, sponsoring for them Grossmont's first International Students Club. The Club made possible for Musik and her family several home-stay exchanges in India and Iran, as well as destinations such as Japan and Guatemala. Inspired by the success of her work with returning adult students, Musik enrolled in a doctoral program to study reading and human behavior with an emphasis on adult learners. She focused the research in her 1974 doctoral dissertation on reading and self-concept, and subsequently earned her Ph.D. from the San Diego campus of the United States International University. For the remainder of her tenure, Musik put her dissertation to work and dedicated herself to helping adult learners become more confident and fluent readers.

Sylvia K. Musik retired at the end of the spring 1979 semester, but she continued to write and to teach part-time, until, at age 68, she succumbed to cancer in November 1981. In her honor, Musik’s family and the Grossmont College District set up the Sylvia Musik Scholarship, which award $100 each fall to a full-time international student in need, or to a woman returning to college, who maintained a 2.5 GPA. Sylvia's daughter, Carla, states, "For many years I received letters of gratitude from the Sylvia K. Musik Scholarship recipients forwarded to me by the Grossmont College financial aid department.”

• Much gratitude is owed to Sylvia K. Musik’s daughter, Prof. Carla Musik, for consenting to the content of this biography, and for her input and kind assistance. A particular blessing to this project, in fact, was my serendipitous discovery of an assignment she created as part of her University of San Francisco Master’s program: a children’s book written in tribute of her mother, and containing photocopied images, clipping, letters, photographs—all memorializing Sylvia Kaufman Musikansky's life, family, and professional accomplishments. Carla Musik continued her mother’s legacy as a bilingual educator and has taught at Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma State University, Call Calmecac Charter School, and others. My heartfelt thanks to you, Professor Musik, and to your mother.

• Musik, Sylvia Kaufman. The Relation of the Self-Concept to Reading. Dissertation, Ph.D. San Diego, CA: United States International University, 1974.

• Musik, Carla. A Tribute To Sylvia Kaufman Musik. Forestville, CA: Home and Heart/Casa y Corazon Publishing Company, 2002.
• "Musik, Sylvia K." The Gallery, 1970: A Photographic Directory of the Grossmont College Staff. El Cajon, CA: Grossmont Junior College District, 1970. p28.
• _____. The Gallery, 1974: A Photographic Directory of the Grossmont College Staff. El Cajon, CA: Grossmont Junior College District, 1974. p75. 
• Wistarion Yearbook, Class of 1934. New York, NY: Hunter College, 1934. 

• Elizabeth Juul 1964-1968
• Leone Finalle 1964-1972
• Jack Lynch 1964-1983
• Marie W. Sweadner 1964-1985
• Z. Dean Parks 1964-1991 (Governing Board Member, Trustee #4 1992-1993)
• Lloyd Norwood 1965-1977
• Doris Alexander 1965-1981
• Sylvia K. Musik  1965-1981
• Glenda K. Richter 1965-1984 (Chair 1983-1984)
• Dr. Len Pelletieri 1965-1986
• Carol (Duffy) Baker 1968-1991
• Homer Lusk 1969-1996 (Chair 1974-1977, 1978-1983, and 1984-1994)
• Michael A. Evans 1969-2003