On March 20, three Belmont Department of English faculty presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication held in Indianapolis, Ind. Dr. Sarah Blomeley and Dr. Amy Hodges Hamilton presented together on a panel entitled “Open(ing) Wounds: Accessing Trauma in the Classroom and Community.” Blomeley’s talk was titled “In Loving Memory: Public Grief and the Future of Mourning in America,” and Hodges Hamilton’s talk was titled, “When Access to the Personal Becomes Pedagogical: Childhood Cancer and the Composition Classroom.” In addition, Dr. Jason Lovvorn gave a talk called, “Open Sourcing the College Composition Teacher: Using MOOCs for Professional Development and Pedagogical Improvement.”
English Faculty Present at Conference on College Composition, Communication
Niedzwiecki Receives Evolutionary Biology Education, Outreach Grant
The Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) awarded Associate Professor of Biology John Niedzwiecki with an Education and Outreach Grant. The grant is provided for Local and Regional Outreach Promoting the Understanding of Evolutionary Biology. Niedzwiecki also received an SSE grant in 2009. The successful grant proposal was developed with the help of Dr. Lauren Lunsford in Education, Dr. Noel Boyle in Philosophy and Drs. Judy Skeen and Mark McEntire in the School of Religion. The grant was matched by the Middle Tennessee STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Innovation Hub. The STEM Hub provides a valuable exchange network of ideas and resources for K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and network partners to serve the STEM needs of Middle Tennessee.
The grant, titled “Teaching Through Touchy Topics, Not Around Them: Evolution, Religion, and Evolving Standards for Teaching,” will fund a workshop hosted by Belmont biology, religion, education and philosophy faculty. This free workshop will help K-12 Science teachers in Middle Tennessee teach this keystone science concept correctly within the preview of science using the latest findings in biology and pedagogy but with sensitivity to and appreciation of the different religious perspectives of their students, including the incorporation of information and evidence of the material world into their spiritual worldview. Evolution is the foundational theory of the science of biology. Understanding evolution and natural selection is essential to understanding all aspects of biology, and to make connections across biology. The day-long workshop will be held on April 26 at Belmont University.
Belmont Faculty, Staff Present at Gulf South Summit Conference
Four Belmont faculty members delivered a presentation entitled “Transformational Community Partnerships: Examining the Components of a Reciprocal Relationship” at the Gulf South Summit On Service-Learning and Civic Engagement in Higher Education held March 26 through 28 at Auburn University. Dr. Linda Holt, Dr. Jason Lovvorn and Dr. Charmion Gustke of the English Department along with Dr. Donovan McAbee of the School of Religion presented on the theory and practice of successful, service-learning partnerships, including ideas about reciprocity, trust and assessment.
Director of Service-Learning Tim Stewart, served on this year’s Executive Committee for the conference. Stewart served as co-chairman of the Evaluation sub-committee and also co-presented “Service-Learning Administration 101” at a pre-conference workshop with other service-learning directors from the College of Coastal Georgia, Birmingham-Southern College and the University of Georgia.
Psychology Faculty, Students Present at Psychological Association Meeting
Psychological Science faculty and students attended the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Boston, Mass. on March 13 through 16. Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) was founded in 1896 and is the oldest of the regional Psychological Associations in the United States. Its sole purpose is to advance the science and profession of psychology through the dissemination of professional information about the field. Those attending were, pictured left to right, Dr. Lonnie Yandell, Savannah Ladage, Antario Jones, Caroline Baumgartner, Breanna Wood, Monica Roufael, Savannah Johnson, Jasmine Jarupat, Jade Tucker, Stephanie Seeley, Shelby Wall, Melanie Chinsoon, Dr. Pete Giordano and Dr. Linda Jones.
For the second year in a row, a Belmont student won a research award for research presented at the conference. Jasmine Jarupat’s psychology senior capstone study titled “Prosocial Behavior and Just World Belief Predicted by Mortality Salience and Religiosity,” supervised by Shen-Miller and Giordano, received the sixth place award out of 100 competitors. The award was given in a graduate student competition, and Jarupat’s poster was inadvertently considered even though she is an undergraduate. The award citation indicated to her that “you have been recognized for your excellence in presentation, research methodology and research idea,” she said.
Smith Presents Paper
Clancy Smith, instructor of philosophy, presented a paper on March 21 entitled “Being-Out-of-Step: Peirce, Dubois, and Yancy on Otherness and the Socio-political Dimension of ‘Feeling'” at the American Comparative Literature Association’s annual conference at New York University in Manhattan.
Bennett Honored with Journalism Achiever Award
Dr. Sybril Bennett, professor of journalism, was one of two recipients of the 2014 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Achiever Award at the Region Three conference held in Charleston, S.C. She was recognized with Don Griffin, retired consumer reporter from Action 9 in Charlotte, N.C. She has been a member of NABJ as long as she has been a journalist, celebrating 25 years this year.
Bennett was also on The Black Beat: Making Connections and Telling Our Stories panel.
Belmont Seniors Present at Computing Sciences Conference
Belmont seniors Andrew Trask and David Gilmore had their papers accepted independently to the 12th Annual Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) Mid-South Conference. They presented their papers at The LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tenn. on April 5. CCSC Mid-South conference seeks to provide a forum for the exchange of information on computing and computing education.
Trask graduates in May with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Bachelor of Science in Applied Discrete Mathematics. His paper, “Distributing a Fully Connected Neural Network: A Novel Approach,” describes a novel approach to distributing artificial neural networks, which reduces their evaluation time by an order of magnitude.
Gilmore graduates in May with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. His paper, “Online-analytical processing: RDBMS vs. Hadoop,” describes a way to speed up a common business query task from seven hours to 12 minutes.
Belmont Again Honored as Most Innovative in Community Involvement
For the second year in a row, Belmont University has been recognized as the most innovative in the Involved category of the Mayor’s Workplace Challenge. The aim of the mayor’s program is to recognize Nashville businesses and nonprofit organizations in the areas that most contribute to a high quality of life and healthy living including being green, involved in the community and being healthy.
Belmont took top honors in the Involved category for being a community champion for its leadership in actively promoting volunteer service inside and outside the workplace. Examples of those efforts include the University’s new leadership development certification called “African-American Women on Boards,” its many programs among churches in the Edgehill neighborhood and its continued partnership with Metro Parks to improve the athletic facilities at E.S. Rose Park.
The University also earned a platinum seal, the highest designation, in the Healthy category and received a gold seal in the Green category. Read more about the Nashville Mayor’s Workplace Challenge.
Equestrian Club Ends a Successful Show Year
The Belmont Equestrian Club earned 10 ribbons at its final competition of the year held March 1 and 2 at Murray State University. Additionally, the club was awarded a seventh place team ribbon in the Zone Five Region One division for its success at competitions during the 2013-2014 show season. Club members competed against students from other universities including Vanderbilt University, Middle Tennessee State University, University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Sewanee.
“I am so proud of our team this year and our success as a University. We have worked hard over the last 12 months to show our region that Belmont has what it takes to be competitive in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. I couldn’t be happier with the way we finished our first year of competition,” said Belmont Equestrian Club President Julie Anderson.
Club members earned the following ribbons:
Julie Anderson: two sixth places
Morgan Wilters: second and fifth places
Courtney O’Connor: third, fourth and fifth places
Caitlyn Marsh: second and fourth places
Allison Harpole: fifth place
Belmont West Student Featured on Game Show
Belmont West student Grayson Flatness was a featured contestant on the game show “The Price is Right,” which aired last week.
Sporting a Belmont University T-shirt, Flatness attended the show’s “Spring Break Edition” taping where he competed in the Grocery Game. The goal of the game is to purchase products that total between $20 and $21. Flatness was shown five grocery items and was instructed to choose an item and a quantity of that item to buy.
“Being able to participate in such a historic show will always be a memory that I cherish for the rest of my life and share with plenty of my friends. I am proud that I was able to represent the likes of Belmont University and Nashville on national television. I advise any and all future students of the Belmont West and East to make use of your time and resources because you never know what amazing opportunities may arrive,” Flatness said.
