The Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology is a unit of the College of Arts and Sciences.
[1] Prior to the establishment (c. 2000) of the parallel Ethnomusicology Institute and the renaming of the paired units as The Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, the name "Folklore Institute" served as the overarching designation for what was already a full-fledged academic department.
Prominent scholars in the history of the Folklore Institute include the following distinguished rank faculty: Stith Thompson, Richard M. Dorson, Linda Dégh, Henry Glassie, Richard Bauman, Beverly J. Stoeltje, and Hasan M.
[5] Over its history, the Folklore Institute has trained very large number of professional folklorists.
A small sample of its prominent alumni includes: Alan Dundes, Michael Owen Jones, Dorthy Noyes, Bill Ivy, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Sabina Magliocco, Regina Bendix, Ronald L. Baker, Simon J. Bronner, Jan Harold Brunvand, Dan Ben-Amos, and Edward D. Ives.