Mt. Zion Baptist Church recognized Belmont Director of Community Relations Joyce Searcy with its Eagle Award on Nov. 11. The church gives the award annually to a university faculty or staff member during the church’s College Sunday, a service led by and for college students. Click here to view a video of Belmont employees and students reflecting on Searcy’s good work for them and the University. Click on “November Sunday Series,” then “College Sunday” and fast forward to 1:07:22.

Casey Woodling, of Philosophy, recently presented his paper “The Incompatibility of Privileged Access and Content Externalism” at the annual meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association at the University of Central Florida and at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Philosophical Association at Vanderbilt University. The paper is related to some of the central ideas of his dissertation, “Intentionality and Self-Knowledge,” which he defended in the fall of 2011.

Sport Administration professors Amy Baker, Ted Peetz and Stephen Shin recently attended and presented at the annual Sport Marketing Association conference in Orlando, Fla.

Shin and Baker presented information, handouts and student’s work examples of “Sport Marketing Plan Project” at the pedagogy symposium in the conference. This display features a final project culminated by students developing an overall marketing plan for a sport business, an organization or a product of their choice. This project enhances understanding of marketing theories and concepts and also promotes practical applicability by creating an original marketing plan paralleled to ones used in sport organizations today.

Peetz presented a case study at the pedagogy symposium which offered instructors material for teaching sport marketing promotional concepts and practices. The presentation included a case and PowerPoint presentation that introduced students to the San Diego Chicken, a legendary sport mascot. Over a decade ago, Peetz worked as a marketing assistant for the San Diego Chicken assisting in the execution of live performances at sporting events across the country. The case offered an informative look into marketing lessons the performer had learned during his 30 plus years as a sport entertainer. (image)

Assistant Professor of Asian Studies & Chinese Language Qingjun (Joan) Li is co-editor, along with Rachana Sachdev of Susquehanna University of Encountering China: Early Modern European Responses. This newly published volume of essays from Bucknell University Press addresses the responses of early modern travelers to China who, awed by the wealth and sophistication of the society they encountered, both attempted primarily to build bridges and express criticisms of China’s local traditions and practices.

Li’s essay in the collection is entitled, “Of Golden Lilies and Gentlewomen: Constructions of Chinese Women in Early Modern European Travel narratives.”

Contributors in the collection engage critically with travelogues, treating them not just as occasional sources of historical information but as primary, literary texts deeply revelatory of the world they describe. The contributors also reach back to the earliest European writings available on China in an effort to broaden and nuance the readers’ understanding of European contact with the Middle Kingdom in the early modern period. While the primary focus of these essays is the external gaze – European sources about China – contributors also tease out aspects of the Chinese world-view of the time, thus generating a conversation between Chinese literary and historical texts and European ones.

Media Studies Associate Professor Sybril Bennett presented “I Still See Opportunities: Now Tweet That!” for the Broadcast Education Association District Two regional conference held at Tennessee State University.  Her presentation focused on the future of journalism and journalism education. Bennett also led a convocation sponsored by Student Advisory Board. She addressed social media, branding and professional presence online.

Philosophy Assistant Professor Mélanie Walton presented her paper, “Lyotard on Myth and its Narration: A Solution for or Cause of the Inexpressible?” at The 51st Annual Meeting of the Society for Phenomenological and Existential Philosophy conference on Nov. 1 through 4, in Rochester, N.Y.