IMPORTANT NOTE: These are the archived stories for Belmont News & Achievements prior to June 26, 2023. To see current stories, click here.

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Trost Featured as Expert in WalletHub Article

Hope Buckner
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Trost Featured as Expert in WalletHub Article

Charles TrostProfessor in the College of Law Charles Trost was recently featured as an expert in WalletHub’s “2016’s States with the Best and Worst Taxpayer ROI.” Highlighting where “taxpayers get the most and least bang for their buck,” the article ranks the states by overall ROI, as well as individual categories including school systems, hospital networks, water quality, roads and more.

As the featured expert, Trost addresses how tax revenue can be used more effectively across the country and how Americans can complete their own ROI assessments.

Honors Students, Faculty Present at Christian Scholars’ Conference

April Hefner
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Honors Students, Faculty Present at Christian Scholars’ Conference

Each year the Belmont Honors Program selects three outstanding students to attend the Christian Scholars’ Conference (CSC) and participate in a session with other Honors college students. This year the CSC theme was “Justice: Meaning and Practice,” and the students’ session was titled “Meeting Needs in Community Health Care through Service, Mission, and Volunteerism.” Belmont was represented by Honors Nursing students Rebecca Hall (senior from Bon Aqua, TN), Emily Tomsovic (sophomore from Edwards, IL), and Julia Sherwood (senior from Brookline, NH). The mission of the Christian Scholars’ Conference is to create and nurture an intellectual and Christian community that joins individuals and institutions to stimulate networks of scholarly dialogue and collaboration. The conference was created under the direction of Pepperdine University Distinguished Professor Emeritus Dr. Thomas H. Olbricht and has been hosted by several faith-based universities. The conference calls together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines in the liberal arts, sciences, business, law, education and medicine to develop their own academic research and to reflect on the integration of scholarship and faith.

Don Cusic and Jonathan ThorndikeHonors students each presented original essays on how their experience at a Christian university like Belmont informed their decisions to pursue a career in nursing, medicine or other health-related fields. The students discussed how they responded to issues of underserved communities, economic inequality, racial discrimination or inadequate health care resources in Nashville. They reflected on how a faith-based education better equips students to “carry each other’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” while responding with justice and mercy to unmet needs. The session was moderated by Dr. Jonathan Thorndike, director of Belmont’s Honors Program.

Also representing Belmont at the Christian Scholars Conference was Dr. Don Cusic, professor of Music Business, who presented “Free Burma Rangers: A Battle for Displaced People.” The Free Burma Rangers is a humanitarian and evangelical group that brings help, hope and love to people in the war zones of Burma/ Myanmar. Pro-democracy groups send teams to be trained, supplied and sent into the areas under attack to provide emergency medical care, shelter, food, clothing and human rights documentation. The teams also operate a communication and information network inside Burma that provides real time information from areas under attack.  In addition to relief and reporting, other results of the teams’ actions are the development of leadership capacity, civil society and the strengthening of inter-ethnic unity.

Pinter Presents at Teaching Professor Conference

April Hefner
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Pinter Presents at Teaching Professor Conference

Mike PinterAt the June 2016 Teaching Professor conference in Washington, D.C., Mike Pinter (director of Belmont’s Teaching Center and professor of mathematics) presented a poster session titled “Faculty Small Group Variations: Reading, Scholarship, Writing.”  The poster provided information about a range of Belmont faculty small groups, each of which has as its focus a common reading, scholarly projects and/or teaching and learning applications. The groups described in the poster included summer reading groups on a range of topics, applied teaching/learning groups that meet throughout a semester, reading groups that have a connection to faculty half-day retreats (using the Courage to Teach framework and process), faculty writing groups to support scholarly writing and faculty scholar cohorts that come together around a focal point of some kind.

Belmont Honored with Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award

Hope Buckner
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Belmont Honored with Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award

Belmont University was recently named as a winner of the 2016 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award, a designation given by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation Commissioner Bob Martineau. The award recognizes exceptional voluntary actions that improve or protect the environment and natural resources with projects or initiatives not required by law or regulation. Belmont was recognized in the state’s Building Green category for the university’s LEED Platinum certified Janet Ayers Academic Center.

“The quality of our air, land and water is essential for public health and the marketability of our state,” Haslam said. “I thank all of the winners for their individual contributions to keeping Tennessee a beautiful state to live, work and visit.”

Martineau described the award’s significance and said, ““It is important that we pause to recognize the people and organizations that work so hard to protect our environment while teaching others about sustainability. These winning efforts will help pave the way for future ideas on how we can further protect our natural resources.”

The only higher education institution to be recognized among the state’s 11 recipients, the list of honorees includes:

  • Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition
  • green|spaces – Hamilton County, Tennessee
  • Emmett Elementary School – Sullivan County, Tennessee
  • EPB – Hamilton County, Tennessee
  • The Jackson Walk – Madison County, Tennessee
  • Sevier Solid Waste, Inc. – Sevier County, Tennessee
  • Tennessee Environmental Council – Natural Heritage
  • Sharp Transport, Inc. – Lawrence County, Tennessee
  • Music City Center – Davidson County, Tennessee
  • Lipscomb Academy Elementary – Davidson County, Tennessee

A panel of 24 agricultural, conservation, forestry, environmental and academic professionals judged more than 85 nominations and selected this year’s award recipients based on criteria including on-the-ground achievement, innovation and public education. The winners will be recognized for their achievements and positive impact on the state’s natural resources in an awards ceremony held in Nashville on June 15.

Belmont’s Vice President for Finance and Operations Steve Lasley said, “The University is honored to receive this designation in recognition of our commitment to conservation and sustainability. With educational and sustainable green roofs, a geothermal heating and cooling system and two LEED certified buildings, among other sustainable features on our campus, we are delighted to join in Tennessee’s efforts to respect the resources we’ve been given. We could not be more pleased to accept this award from Governor Haslam and Commissioner Martineau.”

Syb Brown Delivers Keynote Address at College Debate 2016

Hope Buckner
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Syb Brown Delivers Keynote Address at College Debate 2016

Dr. Syb Brown, professor of journalism at Belmont, was a keynote speaker for the first College Debate 2016 held at Dominican University of California in early June. The event included representatives from higher education institutions across the U.S. Brown’s topic was digital citizenship and civility.

Belmont Vision Editor Riley Wallace also served as a delegate at the debate.

College Debate 2016 is a national, non-partisan initiative to empower young voters to identify issues and engage peers in the presidential election.

Belmont Physical Therapy Earns Reaccreditation

Hope Buckner
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Belmont University’s School of Physical Therapy was recently granted a 10-year reaccreditation term by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE). This is the maximum length of time granted by the Commission and is reserved for programs that have demonstrated compliance with established criteria and excellent program outcomes.

Focused on the continued improvement of physical therapy education across the country, CAPTE requires programs to engage in a self-study to demonstrate compliance and submit it for review. Additionally, a team of CAPTE reviewers conducts an onsite assessment of the program. The findings of the self-study and the on-site review team are then reviewed by the Commission for determination of accreditation status. This year-long process (undertaken by Department Chair Renee Brown, PhD, PT and the entire physical therapy faculty and staff) included students, graduates, employers, clinical instructors and the Program Advisory committee.

The School of Physical Therapy’s 10-year reaccreditation was awarded on May 4 with no areas of non-compliance or areas for improvement cited. Additionally, the Commission commended the program for the quality of the self-study. The awarding of 10-year reaccreditation indicates that CAPTE recognized the high quality of the program, the caliber of the faculty and staff and the accomplishments of students and graduates.

Dean of the College of Health Sciences and Nursing Dr. Cathy Taylor said, “This is a remarkable accomplishment and well-deserved recognition for Dr. Brown and our exceptional PT faculty, staff, students and graduates.”

Mathematics, Finance Alumnus Receives Scholarship for Ph.D. Program at Oxford

Hope Buckner
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Mathematics, Finance Alumnus Receives Scholarship for Ph.D. Program at Oxford

andrew_trask (2)Andrew Trask, a 2014 Belmont graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Discrete Mathematics and Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance, was recently accepted to the doctoral program in computer science at University of Oxford in England, beginning in October 2016. Trask has received full funding, along with a stipend, from Oxford and will be studying deep learning with Dr. Phil Blunsom, an expert in deep learning and computational linguistics who holds joint appointments at Oxford and Google.

Trask, along with 2014 computer science graduate David Gilmore, presented research at the 32nd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) in France last year. Their paper titled, “Modeling Order in Neural Word Embeddings at Scale,” describes the deep neural network built at Digital Reasoning, their employer. Neural networks are computer systems that are modeled after the human brain.

Like the brain, these networks can gather new data, process and react to it. The design for the network is based on ideas Trask developed while an undergraduate at Belmont. The parallel neural network is 14 times larger than the previous world record (built at Google) and performs 40 percent better in a key language-recognition benchmark than any other program.

Biology Professors Lead Maymester Trip to Costa Rica

Hope Buckner
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Biology Professors Lead Maymester Trip to Costa Rica

Associate Professor of Biology Dr. John Niedzwiecki and Professor of Biology Dr. Darlene Panvini recently returned from an 18-day study abroad trip to Costa Rica with 15 Belmont students. While traveling, Niedzwiecki taught tropical biodiversity, while Panvini covered conservation and sustainability.

The group’s trip began at La Selva Biological station in a lowland tropical rainforest where they saw sloths, an anteater, toucanets and impressive trees. From there, they ventured to Arenal National Park to see a volcano and lake and learn about geothermal and hydroelectric energy production.  During their 10-day stay at the University of Georgia-Costa Rica campus in San Luis, the group learned about plants and animals of a highland rainforest, went on a night hike, explored Monteverde cloud forest, had a cooking lesson with a local family, learned how to dance the merengue and visited a chocolate factory.

Other highlights of their time abroad include visits to a sustainable coffee farm, a Biodigester and local art co-op. From there, the group traveled to the beach where they learned about a dry tropical forest at Santa Rosa National Park, observed white-faced capuchin and howler monkeys and went snorkeling.

Belmont’s Large Theater Wins Audio Experience Innovation Award

Hope Buckner
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Belmont’s Large Theater Wins Audio Experience Innovation Award

Dr. Wesley Bulla, audio engineering technology professor and and Ron Romano, Curb College technology specialist and Dave Warburton, recording and film studio manager, recently traveled to Las Vegas to receive a Harman Innovation Award for Belmont’s Large Theater as part of the UBTech Conference.

The awards celebrate innovative higher education institutions and their use of AV and IT technology.  With submissions from college and universities across the globe, this year’s awards included the most entries in the history of the program. Belmont was nominated for two awards and the Large Theater won for “Audio Experience.”

As an award winner, Bulla participated in a panel discussion with other winners as the conference’s opening keynote. As the audio experience winner, Belmont will be featured in University Business Magazine and will receive $25,000 worth of products from Harman and its subsidiary brands.

To watch the opening ceremony, including Bulla’s panel participation, click here.

College of Law Achieves Full American Bar Association (ABA) Accreditation

April Hefner
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College of Law Achieves Full American Bar Association (ABA) Accreditation

Program’s string of successes include strong bar passage, career placement rates

Belmont Law was granted full approval by the American Bar Association (ABA) on Saturday, June 4. The College of Law, which enrolled its first cohort in Fall 2011, achieved full accreditation in the earliest possible timeframe and represents the first fully accredited law school in Tennessee in more than 50 years. Achieving full accreditation comes after the College of Law produced the highest bar passage rate in Tennessee in 2015, and the school continues to garner strong employment rates for its graduates.

Moreover, the law school has attracted locally and nationally recognized faculty who are experts in their field. Belmont Law is led by Dean Alberto Gonzales, the former U.S. attorney general and a frequent national media expert on constitutional law and politics. He said, “Receiving word from the ABA that we have now achieved full accreditation signifies reaching another important benchmark in this program’s brief but impressive history. I am proud of our faculty, staff and students. We have built a first-class law school with a focus on practical skills and the ethics and professionalism expected of all lawyers. I am honored to have a role in the development of the next generation of leaders.”

With more than 500 applications for admission this coming year, Belmont Law will welcome another excellent and diverse class of first-year students in Fall 2016.

Travis Brown, a 2015 Belmont Law graduate currently working at the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, said, “Belmont Law not only equipped me to sit for the bar exam, but instilled in me the values that the public is looking for in attorneys.”

A few other highlights for Belmont Law include:

 

 

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