Dr. Christie Kleinmann, associate professor of public relations, won first place in the faculty category of the Fall 2019 Driven to Achieve More Contest organized by Macmillan Learning. The contest invites participants to share what inspires them to achieve more.
Dr. Kleinmann’s submission focused on her approach to empowering students through her teaching and how their work inspires her to achieve more. “As a teacher I learned that while telling someone’s story is powerful, helping others tell their own story is empowering,” she wrote. “I empower my students because their story is more powerful when they learn to tell it themselves.”
Participants in the Achieve More contest submitted a short video or written story with an image to be judged on relevancy, authenticity, organization, creativity and positivity. First place winners were awarded a $500 prize.
When the Moosic City Dairy Dash 5K was canceled due to COVID-19, Belmont University Sport Administration Professors, Drs. Ted Peetz and Adam Pfleegor, still wanted to give the runners the race day feel.
Peetz and Pfleegor wanted to see if they could coordinate the delivery of more than 700 race T-shirts to participants. The two professors sent an email asking for help and their students responded. Within hours, more than a dozen students stepped up and volunteered to hand deliver shirts across middle Tennessee.
“Our Sport Administration students have been partnering with this race for a few years and we wanted to do what we could to help,” explained Peetz. “Because of the current situation, our students are all over the country. I was hoping there would be a few in town who could help execute the plan. I knew our students would come through; it’s the Belmont way.”
Pfleegor added, “Shipping that many T-shirts becomes a huge cost for the charity. In the end, that money doesn’t go to the TN Voices, and the goal has always been to raise as much as we can.
Last week, students traveled through the Nashville Area dropping off shirts and encouraging participants to run the race, even though it is a bit different than in past years. Other students in the program are helping manage the social media portion of the race.
Pfleegor explained, “We hope people will wear their shirts proudly and post their accomplishment. It is for a great cause and we are happy we could do our part to make it a success.”
The Moosic City Dairy Dash has raised more than one million dollars for charity since it began 20 years ago. With the support of its dedicated sponsors and Belmont Sport Administration students, the race is projected to raise more than $125,000 this year, although final tallies are still climbing. The two professors are also asking the Belmont community to show support for the race by doing a “solo run” using the Hashtags #DairyDash2020 and #TNVoicesStrong through the week of April 18-25.
Last week, Belmont University implemented its first-ever virtual Belmont Student Leadership Awards, recognizing the exemplary leadership demonstrated by student leaders and staff across campus. Among the recipients of these awards was Dave Jaeger, licensed marriage and family therapist and mental health counselor for Belmont’s Counseling Services, who received the honor of the Tower Award.
The Tower Award is an award given to a faculty or staff member for outstanding contribution to the campus life experience. The recipient is recognized for being “exceptional at engaging and educating students” through commitment to student development, involvement with student programs and activities and collaboration with the Division of Student Affairs.
“When informed that I would be the recipient of the Tower Award, I immediately thought of myself as someone unworthy of the honor. I work on a wonderful team and often act as a mouthpiece for the incredible work, wisdom and care that this team daily pursues on campus,” shared Jaeger. “I look back at different experiences that I’m sure were reasons for being nominated for this award. I remember those not as leadership opportunities, but simply the daily chances we have to interact with some of the most wonderful, talented and caring college students around. In the words of Johnny Cash to Tom Petty…Each of you at Belmont ‘Are good people to ride the river with.’ I am so thankful to be honored with this award.”
Director of Counseling Services Katherine Cornelius, MSSW, LCSW, said, “We are very excited about Dave receiving the Tower Award. He is so passionate about serving students and goes above and beyond on a regular basis ensuring that each student knows they are worthy of love and acceptance.”
During the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Counseling Services continues to operate remotely to care for students. While office hours remain the same, Counseling Services is corresponding with students in Tennessee via phone, email and videoconferencing therapy. Because of state licensing requirements, they are also offering out-of-state students referrals, consultation and virtual support groups.
“We are more proactive than ever in our outreach efforts,” explained Cornelius. “We’re posting resources on social media and collaborating with campus partners to produce wellness programming for the whole Belmont community.” The Wellness While We Wait video series developed by Counseling Services, University Ministries, Fitness & Recreation and Health Services, has been viewed more than 1,500 times.
To provide support specifically during finals, Counseling Services is partnering with University Ministries and producing a special Wellness While We Wait course on Blackboard focusing on mindfulness and stress management. This course will include daily drop-in sessions of mindfulness from 10 – 10:30 a.m. April 22 – 28. A time to connect and share about stress management will be provided from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. on April 22, 24 and 27.
Dr. Mike Voight was recently an invited presenter, along with Lance Gill from Titleist, at the second annual Nashville Golf Fitness Summit. The topic was “Modern Day Observations of Golf Injury Etiology and Physical Performance.”
With spring right around the corner, this was a timely talk to help golfers prepare for the upcoming golf season and to avoid injury.
Belmont University’s Mary Claire Dismukes, director of the Office of Career and Professional Development, and Dr. Jeremy Fyke, assistant professor of communications studies, were featured in The New Forward, a free online news and practical strategies series designed to help college and university career services staff adapt in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.
Dismukes was a featured presenter in the virtual episode of The New Forward on April 14 titled “Campus Partnership in a Virtual Era” with other special guests from Bellarmine University and Macalester College. The episode was viewed by career services colleagues across the country.
Dr. Jeremy Fyke
Dr. Fyke was featured by the New Forward on LinkedIn, showcasing a video he produced for his consulting business, Jeremy Fyke Leader Development. The video focused on giving tips for developing trust while working remotely.
Beth Hallmark, director of simulation for the College of Health Sciences and Nursing and National League for Nursing (NLN) fellow, recently assisted in facilitating a virtual NLN Town Hall.
This online meeting of NLN experts and nurse educators focused on strategies for online teaching and learning with the recent transition to online courses due to the challenges of COVID-19. Through this virtual meeting, nurse educators were able to engage in discussion regarding how to best continue a sufficient learning experience virtually by asking questions, sharing ideas and offering solutions that have seen results thus far.
The conversation centered on various ways to ensure requirements for graduation were met for students nearing graduation, as well as ways to offer secure testing methods virtually. A large emphasis of the meeting was on creative online teaching and learning strategies. Ideas for teaching students in this ever-evolving situation ranged from tactics to enhance critical thinking to teaching in community to solutions for remote simulation.
With the cancellation of clinical rotations for students, Hallmark has dedicated her time to developing innovative simulation events to continue to meet student’s education needs. Like many, Hallmark is adapting to a dynamic situation to continue preparing the next generation of professional nurses.
Kelsey Maguire, alumna of the School of Nursing’s Class of 2014, presented research with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) Nursing Research Fellowship in January 2020. Maguire works as a registered nurse in the MSKCC Urgent Care Center (UCC), a specialized 24-hour unit dedicated to the treatment of emergent medical issues in patients undergoing treatment for cancer at MSKCC in New York, New York.
Maguire’s study, titled “Frequency of Oncologic Emergency Visits to a Comprehensive Cancer Center Urgent Care Center: A Descriptive Cohort Study,” aims to describe the number and frequency of patient visits to the UCC and identify groups of oncologic patients reporting for emergency care multiple times within a year.
The study was conducted through a Retrospective Chart Review of all patients visiting the unit in 2018 in hopes of filling a gap in the literature describing the utilization of the oncologic Emergency Department. The results of this study hope to inform future work to proactively identify and improve outcomes for patients at high risk for unplanned care.
Next steps for the project include follow-up studies at the institution, as well as applications to present a poster at the Oncology Nursing Society Congress in San Antonio, Texas, and publish the results.
Every year the Jack C. Massey College of Business hosts a Shark Tank-style business plan competition for student entrepreneurs to compete for thousands of dollars in cash prizes. While there was no event this year, the competition continued in an online format for the 13 applicants, 10 finalists and four winners.
Students recorded their pitches and posted them online for the panel of judges to watch and for the community to view and vote for their favorite to win “People’s Choice Award.” All of the videos are on the Belmont entrepreneurship website at https://www.belmontetp.com/businessplancompetition.
First place went to entrepreneurship and accounting major Katie Coens, who won $5,000 for her MatchnPlay venture, an online platform that accelerates the process of booking athletic facilities for sports players and teams.
Coens said she is incredibly thankful to Belmont for having the opportunity to participate in the competition. “There are so many talented entrepreneurs and businesses involved in the competition, as well, many of whom have innovative and successful businesses ahead of them,” she said. “Since we won, we have begun interviewing software development agencies to help us create our product and hope to be launching sometime at the end of this summer. We are thankful for the gift from the program, and those funds will be going towards developmental costs.”
Second Place and $2,000 went to entrepreneurship and music business major Gade Raftery for his concert promotion business, Apogee Promotions. Third Place and the last cash prize of $1,000 was given to international business and management major Anas Saba for his successful startup, Nashville Hidden Gems Food Tours, which offers a curated international food experience down Nolensville Pike through the Air Bnb platform. These two businesses are already operational.
Anas Saba submits his online pitch for his business, Nashville Hidden Gems Food Tours, with a photo of himself leading a tour to local international food stops.
With 795 people voting, Ryan Sheldon earned the most votes and won the People’s Choice Award for his business Pints and Stems, which provides unique and individualized wine and craft beer pairing suggestions to millennials. Sheldon won a membership to the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, an Audible subscription, Entrepreneur Magazine subscription and a productivity clock.
The panel of 5 judges included:
Morgan Dent, Manager, Market Building at Launch Tennessee
Phil Shmerling, SVP at Studio Bank and Founder of InCrowd Capital
Peter Smith, President + CEO of Golden Spiral Marketing
Dan Hogan, Belmont Entrepreneur in Residence and Founder of Medalogix
Arnie Malham, Belmont Entrepreneur in Residence and Founder of BetterBookClub.Com
Students were promised that, when it is safe to return to campus, there will be a photo shoot of them with their giant checks that are iconic to the competition.
Coens presents her pitch for MatchnPlay online.
Coens added that she is thankful to have had the opportunity to be a part of the nationally-ranked Entrepreneurship Program. “What I have enjoyed most about Belmont is the professors and advisors that have taken the time to get to know me, many of whom, don’t just look at you as a student, but as a person they want to help for years to come. In addition to the classes, I have been offered great programs such as: competitions, accelerators and events that pushed me outside of my comfort zone,” she said. “The thing I will miss most is working in the hatchery and getting to talk to so many like-minded individuals who want to collaborate and help each other succeed. As a graduating senior, my time at Belmont has been a blessing and a time of personal growth. Looking back to who I was before college and who I am now, Belmont was the catalyst of my growth as a person and entrepreneur.”
The successful implementation of the virtual 2020 Belmont Student Leadership Awards is just one of the many ways the Belmont community continues to work together to demonstrate its commitment to inclusion, highlight exemplary leadership and provide access to leadership development for all students. Recognizing the efforts of student leaders and staff across campus who have demonstrated exemplary leadership, the virtual event took place through the Belmont Today and Belmont University Instagram accounts all day on April 15.
Thirty-three of Belmont’s offices, centers, departments and all academic colleges participated in nominating 90 student leaders from across campus for various awards.
Associate Dean of Students and Director of Leadership Development Dr. AdriAnne Sternberg said this collaborative effort further proves that leadership is everyone’s business. “No one knew all of the challenges we’d face but charging forward with this event online has helped us be grateful for the past, gives inspiration for the work we are all doing now and hope for future leaders who will come through our doors,” she said. “With or without a leadership position, the nominees and winners of this year’s event have all displayed resilience, one of BOLD’s core leadership competencies, in the brightest way.”
Last year’s Campus-Wide Student Leadership Awards were a huge success with 225 students present on campus celebrating one another’s achievements. Sternberg said this year was even more of a success that “brought out the best in each of us.” The BSLA committee worked relentlessly to provide the best virtual award event possible. In just the first two hours alone, more than 2,000 viewers tuned into the online event to recognize the best that Belmont has to offer.
Sternberg added, “And while we could not physically give hugs and high fives to one another at the end of the awards, we were able to like, share and re-post Belmont transformational leadership stories and accomplishments with the entire world.”
The 2020 Awards are listed below.
Bruin Award:
Christine Allen
Jake Williams
Mattison Chase
Darby Leimer
Julianna Singleton
Haily McGee
Jordan Anderson
Amanda Wood
Alex Moudy
Abigail Momot
Ashley Taylor Gurwell
Tower Award: Dave Jaeger
Emergent Leader Award:
Amando Jimenez
Peter Geoly
Antoinedra Maupin
Maggie Youngs
Geno Ceasario
Aspiring Leader Award:
Vianney Muniz
Molly Suess
Claire Mitchell
Ashley Wearren
Phoebe Connell
Greek President of the Year: Meghan Skinner
Black Student Association was announced the Student Organization of the Year
Chapter of the Year: Alpha Sigma Tau
Greeks of the Year: Ben Rogers and Kailey Shannon
StudentOrganizationAdvisor of the Year: Sue Iliff
Outstanding New Student Organization of the Year: Kite Club
StudentOrganization of the Year: Black Student Association
Dr. Teresa Plummer, PhD, OTR/L, ATP, CEAS, CAPS and associate professor of occupational therapy, has spent the past 10 years modifying ride-on toys for children who have limited access to their environment, as no such device yet existed for children under six years of age. Plummer involved students, alumni and faculty of the Occupational Therapy Department with opportunities to join this endeavor and has been instrumental in the teaching and conducting modifications for more than 260 families at no cost to them.
Dr. Plummer consulted with Permobil, Inc., a global leader in advanced medical technology, to research and test a device for infants called the Explorer Mini. Permobil develops, manufactures and markets wheelchairs, seating, positioning and communication systems for people with disabilities. The company issued an expression of gratitude that stated, “The contribution by Dr. Plummer into the validation of the Explorer Mini was significant and highly appreciated by us, but ever more by all generations of children to come.”
As the lead principal investigator for the Human Factors Validation Study, Dr. Plummer worked with two other university professors in the U.S. The studies represent the largest number of participants and the youngest children ever to be tested in a power mobility device. In the testing, 33 infants ages 6 months to 3 years participated. The study supported literature establishing theoretical rationale for the Explorer Mini and was also used to support Permobil in attaining clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, received on February 27, 2020.
Dr. Plummer presented the study’s findings at the International Seating Symposium in Vancouver, Canada, in early March. Belmont occupational therapy students created a teaching protocol guide as part of their capstone work.
