Douglas Murray, professor of English, recently participated in an Improvisation Competition sponsored by the University of Michigan Department of Music. Judges from the United States and Germany awarded him 3rd place and a cash award.
The competition took place on October 2 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. JASNA News (the newsletter of the Jane Austen Society of North America) published his review of the American premiere of Jonathan Dove’s opera Mansfield Park.
Belmont’s Bunch Library completed its annual Food4Fines event on Monday, November 21. Each fall, the library takes food donations for Second Harvest Food Bank in the place of overdue fine money, and this year, the library collected 365 items, representing a total of $730 in fine forgiveness. In total, including the donations that were provided to the library, Second Harvest received more than 400 items before Thanksgiving.
Second Harvest Food Bank is a non-profit organization founded in 1978. They work together with other non-profit agencies, corporate sponsors, and individuals to fight hunger issues in Middle and West Tennessee. For more information on the organization or to find out how you can help visit: https://secondharvestmidtn.org/
Dr. Marilyn Thompson Odom, chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical, Social and Administrative Sciences in the Belmont University College of Pharmacy, was recently elected as the secretary of the biological sciences section of the American Association of the Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). Odom has been a member of the AACP since 2009, previously serving positions that placed her in charge of reviewing the New Investigator Awards, the Student-Led Community Engagement Awards and abstracts for the AACP’s annual meetings. In her new position within the biological sciences section, Dr. Odom will serve as the college’s faculty delegate at the annual AACP meeting.
Dean of Belmont’s College of Pharmacy Dr. Phil Johnston said, “We are so proud of Dr. Odom and all of our pharmacy faculty. This is verification that we are acknowledged as leaders in the profession and in the academy. We celebrate the election of Dr. Odom into this important post.”
Founded in 1900, the AACP is the national organization representing pharmacy education in the United States. The mission of the AACP is to lead and partner with its members in advancing pharmacy education, research, scholarship, practice and service to improve societal health. The AACP is comprised of all accredited colleges and schools with pharmacy degree programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, including more than 6,400 faculty members, 62,500 students enrolled in professional programs and 5,100 individuals pursuing graduate study.
Dr. Steve Murphree, professor of biology and entomologist, participated in many community events this semester. Events included an insect presentation to 40 preschool children at the Montessori Centre in Nashville, an insect ecology presentation to 75 4th graders at Fall-Hamilton Enhanced Option School, a forensic entomology presentation to 25 McGavock High School seniors in Brad Tracy’s criminal justice class, an insect presentation to 18 preschoolers at Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet School in Nashville, several insect presentations to Brownie Girl Scout Troops in Brentwood and Bellevue and an insect presentation to Mid-Cumberland Head Start’s preschool classes in Lebanon.
Murphree also hosted an Explorations in Animal Behavior laboratory for 10 home schooled students as part of Belmont’s Home School Science Discoveries program. At the Historic Sam Davis Home and Plantation’s Fall Festival in October he offered a Life & Limb: Civil War Medicine exhibit. At the Historic Sam Davis Home & Plantation, he gave a Life & Limb: Civil War Medicine talk to two middle school field trip classes.
Lori McGrew, professor of Biology, took six students to the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience which drew more than 30,000 neuroscientists from around the world to San Diego, California. The students, Austin Demaagd, Curt Brown, Mohamed Darwish, John Longenecker, Stephane Morin and Sam Zacovic, presented their research at the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Poster Session.
Their poster, “Assessment of Anxiety and Working Memory in Danio Rerio Following Treatment with Sodium Chloride, Apomorphine, Isoflurane, Ethanol, and Piracetam,” detailed the findings generated during the Belmont Summer Scholars Program. During the program, McGrew led a group of students through research utilizing Danio rerio (zebrafish) as a model organism that focused on assessment of anxiety or memory in the fish.
In addition to discussing their own work, students had the opportunity to meet other neuroscientists and learn about the latest discoveries and techniques. Other zebrafish researchers shared data about changes in neurotransmitters that result from socialization and social structure, using fractal patterns to detect movement disorders and the pharmacology of sleep-wake cycles.
The special lectures included Mu-ming Poo’s “Random Walk in Neurobiology,” Thomas Albright’s “Reforming Forensic Science: Insights from Research on Vision and Memory” and Christopher Reeve stem cell research data blitz.
Dean of Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy Dr. Phil Johnston recently attended a global conference on pharmaceutical sciences education hosted by the International Pharmaceutical Federation in Nanjing, China. The focus of the conference was to explain current and future educational needs in pharmacy on a global scale and to seek agreement and endorsement by delegates from 35 countries of 60 prepared statements that will guide educators in developing a proper curriculum.
Many of the prepared statements were based on data collected by the World Health Organization. Among these statements, there was a strong emphasis on drug shortages around the world, the migration of the world population and the health care needs that emerge from it, the need for inter-professional collaboration, the importance of alliances between industry and education, the need for antibiotic stewardship, the need to document the roles taken to develop with proof of concept, a focus on the health needs of the world in curricular planning and the expansion of the roles of health professionals. 55 of the 60 prepared statements were approved at the meeting.
Johnston discussed the importance that the conference had for the future of health care educators. “In a world where 10-15 percent of all workers are in health care, and where 50 percent of those workers require specialized education, it is imperative that we work collaboratively and build our curriculum to meet the needs of our population.”
Alumna Samantha Hubner, a May 2016 Belmont graduate, recently announced an international book drive for middle and high school students living in the small city of Quzhou, Zhejiang, China. Hubner is currently working in Quzhou as an educational ambassador and English teacher through the Ameson Education and Cultural Exchange Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of programs that facilitate cultural and educational exchanges worldwide.
For the rest of the month, Hubner will be accepting mail donations of books at the middle or high school reading level in any genre to help aid her students in practicing their English language skills. In exchange for donations, one of Hubner’s students will send a thank you postcard to the donor sharing why learning English is important to him or her.
Hubner said the idea for the book drive recently came to her when she was talking to her first-year high school students about English books. She realized that even though most of her students had been learning English since primary school, almost all of their practice reading had come from textbooks. Paired with her desire to get fellow Americans involved in her work overseas, the international book drive was born.
“The idea for the book drive came to me as I was brainstorming ways to better engage people back in the U.S. about what I was doing here in China,” Hubner said. “I keep a blog, which allows me to share the occasional anecdote and misadventure, but I wanted to come up with something that was more engaging than a weekly recap.”
Hubner also recalled her own experiences with learning foreign languages and what materials were most beneficial to her understanding of them. “When I was a student at Belmont and studying French and Chinese, reading outside material was one of the best ways I learned. And so I began to wonder, as we approach the Christmas season, why not ask people back in the States to consider helping these students build their school library with some English books? And what better way to connect two vastly different cultures than through the love of reading?”
Book donations can be sent to the following address:
Samantha Hubner
Quzhou No. 1 Middle School
399 Jinhua Lu
Quzhou, Zhejiang, China, 324000
(136-0050-8178)
The Game Audio Network Guild (GANG), a community set up for the discussion of challenges in the interactive audio industry, recently interviewed Belmont’s Pat McMakin and Nick Spezia about Ocean Way Studio’s setup, operations and the studio’s entrance into the video game industry. McMakin is the director of operations at Ocean Way and Spezia is a scoring engineer and Belmont alumnus. The interview discussed everything from the studio’s conversion from a church in 1996 to what the process is like for recording video game scores.
Some of Ocean Way’s recent projects in the video game industry include recording scores for two Call of Duty games, Madden 2016, FIFA 2016 and Ori and the Blind Forrest, all award-winning games. The studio has also captured the audio for several distinguished games that are set to release this holiday season.
To view McMakin and Spezia’s full interview with GANG, click here. For more information on Ocean Way’s recent projects and achievements, check out this article.
Dr. Susan Jellissen, associate professor of political Science, led a delegation of twelve Belmont students to the American Model United Nations conference in Chicago, Illinois from November 19-22.
At the conference, Belmont represented Estonia, a Baltic state and spent three days caucusing with students from more than 100 schools, each representing a particular country, in a simulation of the real United Nations. They focused on issues including nuclear weapons, refugees, the global arms trade, land mines and economic development.
Belmont University bundled up on Tuesday, November 29 to host its second annual Blizzard on the Blvd, an event celebrating the beginning of the Christmas season across campus. Held before the Battle of the Blvd, Belmont’s annual basketball game played against Lipscomb, the celebration included snow machines, holiday treats, Christmas carols and Santa, himself.
Students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members gathered around the Christmas tree on Belmont Blvd to kick off the night’s activities. Attendees demonstrated their Christmas spirit by donating spare change to Ms. Cheap’s Penny Drive, the 8th annual event benefiting Second Harvest Food Bank.
The festivities continued in the Curb Event Center with gingerbread house decorating, an ugly Christmas sweater competition and family photos with Santa. The Bruins women’s and men’s basketball team both went on to defeat the Lipscomb Bison 100-62 and 64-62, respectively.
Both teams broke records during their games. The women’s final score of 100 points are the second most points the team has scored in the Event Center in program history, and the men earned their 10th consecutive victory against Lipscomb, the longest winning streak in the Battle of the Blvd series.
After the game, students celebrated in the Curb Cafe as Belmont’s Student Government Association hosted an after party complete with ornament decorating, Christmas music, free food and more.
