President Barack Obama visited Nashville’s Casa Azafrán Tuesday on a stop to discuss his recent executive action on immigration reform. Co-founded by Belmont Instructor of Entrepreneurship and Management Jose Gonzalez, Casa Azafrán is a collaborative gathering space home to a number of immigration advocacy nonprofits, including Conexión Américas, a second organization Gonzalez co-founded.

During his time at Casa Azafrán, President Obama spoke to Nashville’s welcoming spirit and desire to celebrate the roots and tradition of its diverse residents, noting the city is home to one of the largest growing immigrant populations in the country. Gonzalez said the day was a celebration of Obama’s recognition of Nashville’s inclusivity and tolerance. “Nashville is a great place to live, work and prosper, a place that embraces the growing diversity of its population and a place where anyone can feel welcome, regardless of what part of the country…or the world they come from,” he said.

Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmacy Phil Johnston was recently named as one of Nashville Health Council’s 2015 Fellows, the third class of its kind. The class is made up of leaders from all aspects of Nashville’s health care field including bankers, lawmakers, health care providers and management professionals.

One of the class’s 36 participants, Johnston will be part of the Council’s largest class to date. In 2013, the inaugural class graduated 33 participants and in 2014, the class graduated 32 participants.

“The 2015 Fellows include some of the industry’s best and brightest leaders with experience and industry focus spanning all sectors of health care,” said U.S. Senate Majority Bill Frist, who co-directs the initiative with Larry Van Horn, a leading expert in health care management and economics, and professor at Vanderbilt University. “These individuals have a challenging task ahead, and I look forward to the meaningful discussion and debate on our nation’s health care that will come from our rigorous curriculum.”

For more information on this program and the Nashville Health Care Council, click here.

College of Theology Adjunct Professor Mark Christian, a 1994 Belmont graduate, recently returned from a full scholarship trip to the Center for Advanced Studies in Oslo, Norway. While there, Christian was invited to deliver a keynote address to an international team of interdisciplinary scholars, present a paper entitled “Networking Power and Knowledge in Ancient Israel: In Dialogue with Deuteronomy and Michel Foucault” and participate in a wrap-up discussion.

Earlier this year, Christian published an essay entitled, “Mediterranean Grottos and Phoenician Maritime Expressions of Religion,” in Mélanges Josette Elayi: Phéniciens d’Orient et d’Occident and several articles in volume seven of the The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, with 14 articles scheduled to print in subsequent volumes.

Christian has two articles in press including “Introducing the Introduction of Eckart Otto’s Deuteronomium Kommentar: Part1,” in the Special Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte and “Whose Rites and Whose Wrongs: Religious Contributions of Contingents within the Persian Navy,” in Religion in the Persian Period: Emerging Judaisms and other Trends.

In July, the Expressions of Religion in Israel program unit, a unit chaired by Christian, co-hosted a special panel with Dr. Saul Olyan of Brown University at the International Society of Biblical Literature’s meeting in Vienna. The panel included six Israelite religion specialists who outlined their accomplishments and addressed the question, “where do we need to go from here.”