Director of Health Services Katy Wilson was elected to the board of the Middle Tennessee Advanced Practice Nurses Association (MTAPN) on Nov. 20. Wilson will be in charge of membership for the coming calendar year.
MTAPN is a regional organization that brings advanced practice nurses together including nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, nurse anesthetists and clinical nurse specialists to offer networking opportunities, continuing education and legislative support.
Belmont Director of College Health Science Simulation and Assistant Nursing Professor Dr. Beth Hallmark is committed to the University’s sustainability ideals as she leads the School of Nursing’s (SON) efforts to reuse and recycle simulation equipment.
In a simulation lab, students are given the opportunity to practice nursing skills in a safe environment, complete with set-ups that mimic hospitals in the Nashville area and use the same equipment students will see in their clinical rotations. Although this opportunity is an invaluable educational experience, it can be very costly.
With the popularity of nursing on the rise and Belmont’s School becoming more and more successful, Hallmark said her interest in the School’s sustainability efforts began when she started to notice the increase of nursing students and the sheer volume of supplies needed.
Simply recycling the equipment used by students wouldn’t have been adequate, since a large part of the lab is learning sterile techniques when opening equipment. To reproduce this experience for each student but cut down on cost, Hallmark decided to start the SON’s reuse program. Since simulations utilize state of the art mannequins and no contamination of supplies occurs, the reuse of simulation equipment is sanitary and safe.
Now, a number of student workers are trained to clean equipment once it has been used in a simulation. Using a detailed guide, workers re-package tools so they look the same for the next student who will open them.
Hallmark takes the SON’s program one step further by personally traveling to area hospitals and healthcare organizations to collect unused and expired supplies that would have been thrown away. Since the simulations work only on mannequins, expired equipment can provide training for nursing students. The equipment that the SON cannot use or does not need is donated to a local nonprofit, ProjectCure.
“The SON has been blessed with unbelievable facilities and thanks to Mr. Inman and grants from local organizations like the Memorial Foundation, we continue to have the best facilities; however, it is important that we are good stewards of what we have been given,” Hallmark said. “We truly believe that we are called to honor the verse in Luke that reminds us, ‘to whom much is given, much is required.’”
With the combination of the SON’s reuse program and the unused supplies collected from area organizations, Hallmark estimates than an average $40,000 is saved yearly. With this savings, Hallmark says the program is able to save budgeting for specialty items that might not have otherwise been purchased.
Biology department faculty Drs. Steve Murphree, Darlene Panvini, Nick Ragsdale, John Niedzwiecki and Roger Jackson and 25 undergraduate research students representing Biology, Environmental Science, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Neuroscience majors, attended the 124th Tennessee Academy of Science (TAS) Annual Meeting held Nov. 21 in Morristown, Tennessee.
The Tennessee Academy of Science, founded in 1912, organizes symposia, manages on-going programs in many fields and communicates with the national scientific culture. Belmont students presented posters at the meeting and attended presentations from graduate students and faculty from a wide variety of Tennessee schools. Dr. Steve Murphree, professor of biology, serves as TAS’s Treasurer and Dr. Rachel Rigsby, associate professor of chemistry, serves as the Managing Editor of the Journal.
For a complete listing of the 25 students who presented research posters, click here.
Instructor of Music Business, Dan Keen, recently received a commission as a Kentucky Colonel, a designated given by the Governor of Kentucky. The Colonel designation is given to individuals who have achieved a significant accomplishment or have contributed greatly to the community (city, state or nation).
Commissioned Colonels are members of the The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, an organization that supports the Commonwealth of Kentucky and provides assistance to community members and organizations.
Assistant Professor of Communication, Dr. Nathan Webb, co-authored an article entitled “Student Views of Instructor-Student Rapport in the College Classroom” that was recently featured as a “Resource of the Week” at the Teaching Center at the London School of Economics.
Webb’s article examines research that explains the link between classroom built rapport and positive learning outcomes. By using behaviors that students consider to be positive rapport builders, the article offers tips for teachers looking to strengthen their skills.
For more information, click here.
Associate Professor of Asian Studies and Chinese Language, Dr. Qingjun Li and students, Anna Croghan, Samantha Hubner, Joseph Minga and Ryan Pino, hosted a recent convocation event regarding the research project they conducted in China this summer.
The project, entitled “Commodification of Culture in China’s New Cultural Industry,” was generously funded by the ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellows program and took the team to five cities including Beijing, Wuxi, Hangzhou, Hengdian and Wuhan in 22 days.
Their presentation featured their initial video, research report and survey results. The team gave an overview of the results of their interviews with professors and deans at the Institute of Cultural Industry at Beijing University, executives and leaders of the mega-corporation Wanda Group and government officials at the various cities.
Belmont students Emily Bukowski, Jesse Bobick, Riley Walters and Skyler Schmanski recently participated in activities of the Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature (TISL), a mock legislature comprised of the top echelon of Tennessee’s collegiate leaders and Tennessee Intercollegiate Supreme Court (TISC), the judicial branch presiding over the Appellate Moot Court Collegiate Challenge (AMC3). Since its conception in 1966, TISL has provided students with a platform to advocate for issues they believe in through the organization’s Senate, House of Representatives and Supreme Court.
Bukowski, Bobick and Walters served as magistrates for the AMC3 competition, and Schmanski served as both a magistrate and senator in the mock State Legislature.
TISC’s Nominating Commission also selected Walters to serve as one of five 2015 TISC Justices. Schmanski was appointed by TISL to assume the role of Attorney General.
Master of Sport Administration students collaborated with the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Nashville Predators to design marketing plans for their Student Rush Night campaign. Dr. Ted Peetz’s Marketing and Public Relations course spent the semester researching and analyzing the Thursday night promotion.
The course culminated with nine student teams participating in a mock version of the TV show “Shark Tank,” where they competed to have their ideas implemented into the Predators marketing strategy. Marty Mulford, Senior Director of Ticket Sales noted, “We have always had a wonderful relationship with Belmont’s Sport Administration program and this project was a fantastic way to merge course content with a real life marketing situation. The students offered us some outstanding suggestions that we plan implement in the near future.”
Belmont partnered with Watson Grove Missionary Baptist Church (WGMBC) and 760AM The Gospel for WGMBC’s annual Edgehill ThanksLiving Fellowship Meal, a Thanksgiving celebration that serves the Edgehill community with a side of unapologetic dignity, as well as a hearty meal.
The event created an upscale atmosphere to provide guests with a high-quality dining experience. Servers were dressed in professional waiter attire and host pastors and their wives came in formal evening wear. A live jazz band contributed to the upscale experience and elaborate décor emulated a fine dining atmosphere. All guests left the lunch with a gift bag that contained personal hygiene items, food and winter clothing from area sponsors. In addition to the University helping to host and financially support the event, several students and faculty also volunteered their time to make the event possible.
With more than 200 community members in attendance throughout the day, the event was the largest in the three years since its conception.
“The church has a responsibility to reach out to the community. It is in our DNA to bless the Edgehill Community. We must embrace the reality of sameness; we are all more alike than we are different,” said WGMBC Senior Pastor John Faison.
Dr. Eric Hobson, professor in Belmont’s College of Pharmacy, was the featured scholar at the “Colόquio Internacional: Matto Grosso Expedition (1931)” recently held in Cáceres, Brazil by the Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso (UNEMAT).
His seminar, “Why Descalvados? Mato Grosso Expeditions Between the Wars,” helped to fill gaps in the Brazilian historical record about non-Brazilian scientific exploration activity along Brazil’s western frontier in the early twentieth century.
Dr. Hobson joined UNEMAT history faculty and graduate students on a two-day research trip down the Paraguay River to Fazenda Descalvados — the largest ranch in the western hemisphere during the early 1900s — which served as base camp for many exploration/scientific teams from the United States, including the Theodore Roosevelt/Colonel Rondon Expedition of 1914.
