Following a thankful message from Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and a charge to find their purposes through service from Belmont President Bob Fisher, students in Belmont’s Class of 2018 along with transfers students volunteered throughout Nashville through the University’s annual SERVE Project on Monday afternoon.
“This event has been going on at Belmont for at least 15 years. It’s so Belmont when our students go out into the community and serve. What I hope for you and for our community is that it will trigger an ongoing quest in you to find what you are uniquely made to do to serve others,” Fisher told 1,750 students before they departed campus for 13 sites across the city, including three Metro Nashville Public Schools and nonprofit organizations like Preston Taylor Ministries.
An annual “Welcome Week” tradition for more than a decade, SERVE provides a perfect tie-in to Belmont’s ongoing commitment to engage students in their community and encourage the values of service on both a local and global level.
“I am very pleased to be here and welcome you. You are all geared to serve our city,” said Dean. “Tennessee is the volunteer state, and Belmont and the city of Nashville have a strong tradition in giving back. When you go out and volunteer, please know that we appreciate that. There is nothing more valuable you can do in college than to get involved and understand how the city works.”
In West Nashville, 20 students sorted and bundled school supplies for LP PENCIL Box, a nonprofit organization that allows Metro school teachers to pick out $600 worth of pencils, rulers, backpacks, highlighters and other supplies every year. Program Manager Kerry Conley said 72.4 percent of Metro students live at or below the poverty line and are unable to purchase their own supplies, so often times Metro teachers spend $500 of their personal funds to help their students.
Belmont alumna and country music newcomer 
Twenty Belmont students and three faculty spent the first summer session traveling and studying in China from June 11 to July 2. During their stay in the city of Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, students enjoyed a homestay with faculty members from Zhengzhou University’s School of Foreign Languages and their families. Zhengzhou University is the largest university in Henan Province with over 50,000 students, and it is one of Belmont’s partner institutions in China. Belmont’s Dr. Qingjun Joan Li, assistant professor of Chinese language and Asian studies, set up the home stays, coordinating with Professor Victor Wang Shengli, dean of the School of Foreign Languages. Wang will teach at Belmont this Fall Semester as a Visiting Scholar. Belmont students were assigned in pairs, two persons to each Chinese family. They enjoyed a wide variety of activities while staying with their Chinese families including making Chinese dumplings called jiaozi, boating on the Yellow River, joining their little Chinese siblings in birthday parties, learning calligraphy from their Chinese parents, teaming up with their Chinese families to sing Chinese and American songs in karoke, fan dancing and doing taiji quan with their families in the park in the evening as well as visiting with Chinese senior citizens who had never met any Westerners.
After 27 months of construction, Belmont University administrators, trustees and student representatives officially cut the ribbon today to signify the grand opening of the Wedgewood Academic Center, a 186,000 square foot structure plus 159,500 square feet for parking located on the corner of Wedgewood and 15th Avenues. From the five-level underground garage fit to hold 430 vehicles to the Fifth Floor Conference Room offering a perfect bird’s eye view of Nashville’s skyline, the building stands as a new cornerstone for the University that seeks to serve both its growing student body and its dynamic hometown.
“The Wedgewood Academic Center provides a perfect visual testimony of just what a unique and challenging education Belmont offers,” said Dr. Fisher. “Where else can science, liberal arts and religion students and faculty interact so easily? I believe the building itself will quickly become a Nashville icon—it is spectacular.”
Today Belmont University unveiled its new campus Chapel, the first space on the ecumenical Christian university’s campus intentionally designed for worship services. Located on the ground floor of the new Wedgewood Academic Center at the corner of 15th and Wedgewood Avenues, the Chapel sits as a focal point within a larger structure that will house three of the University’s Colleges: Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, Sciences & Mathematics and Theology & Christian Ministry. The Chapel will host services three times a week during the fall and spring semesters, as well as special services of worship throughout the year. 
On Aug. 7, Motion Pictures Chairman and Assistant Professor Will Akers presented a paper at the University Film & Video Association annual conference at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. On the panel “Narrative Trends in 2014: Enhanced Content, Expendable Characters, Anime Undertones, Creative License,” Akers spoke on his paper topic “Turning Real Life into Drama: The Joys and Pitfalls of Discovering a Story in the Past.”
The New York Times cited Belmont Honors Professor Joseph Byrne in an article published Tuesday about a government quarantine of cities in Liberia and Sierra Leone to stop the spread of Ebola. Their method, “cordon sanitaire,” keeps people from entering or exiting the infected area and was common during the Black Death. Byrne is a historian who teaches the medieval and early modern sections of the Honors interdisciplinary humanities curriculum and in the article discussed a voluntary cordon in Eyam, England in 1665. 
Dr. Pat Sells, associate professor of physical therapy, lent his expertise to a recent story posted in 
Drs. Carolyn Treybig, Joel Treybig and Gregg Bunn performed by invitation at the 2014 National Flute Association Convention in Chicago, Illinois. The concert, which took place on Aug. 9, centered upon a variety of music for flute, trumpet and organ and featured baroque pieces by William Corbett and Maurizio Cazzati, virtuoso salon works by Ernesto Köhler and Rudolph Speil and modern works by Ellen Given, William Presser and Anthony Plog. Plog’s piece was written specifically for the group and premiered by Carolyn Treybig, Joel Treybig and Andrew Risinger in Nashville in 2010 with the composer attending.
Dr. Pete Giordano, in the Department of Psychological Science, has published a research article called “Undergraduate Consent Form Reading in Relation to Conscientiousness, Procrastination, and the Point-of-Time Effect” in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. Co-authors are three Belmont Psychology major alumni: Justin Theiss (May, 2013), Will Hobbs (Dec 2012), and Olivia Brunson (May 2013).