IMPORTANT NOTE: These are the archived stories for Belmont News & Achievements prior to June 26, 2023. To see current stories, click here.

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Belmont Holds August 2021 Commencement, Celebrates 2020 Graduates with In-Person Ceremony

Belmont University will hold two commencement ceremonies on August 13 in the Curb Event Center, one for August 2021 graduates at 5 p.m. and one retro-active ceremony at 10 a.m. for students who graduated in 2020 but were unable to participate in an in-person ceremony due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Belmont will award 139 bachelor’s degrees, 144 master’s degrees and 48 doctoral degrees to the August Class of 2021. Participants from the May and August Class of 2020 will include 422 bachelor’s degrees, 31 master’s degrees and 39 doctoral degrees.

Belmont President Dr. L. Gregory Jones will preside over the events, and José González, assistant professor of entrepreneurship and management, will deliver the commencement addresses. González is the 2020-21 Presidential Faculty Achievement Award recipient, a title awarded for the outstanding contributions he has made to student success.

Sponsored by Belmont’s Office of Alumni Relations, all graduates, family, guests, faculty and staff are invited to join President Greg and Rev. Susan Jones at a reception immediately following each ceremony on the lawn next to the Johnson Center. The commencement reception provides an opportunity for graduates and their families to meet and mingle with faculty, administrators and fellow graduates.

More information and a livestream of each ceremony is available at Belmont.edu.

Belmont Alumni Contribute to New Musical ‘Hamlet’ with Discovering Broadway

Joel Kirk, founder of musical theater development program Discovering Broadway Inc., is the director and conceiver for the Shakespeare-inspired new musical “Hamlet.” This show assigns a different writer or writing team to each character, and Belmont alumnus Cody Fry is authoring the titular character Prince Hamlet.

Fry is the son of Emmy-winning composer Gary Fry who is co-authoring the character of Prince Hamlet. It is believed that Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet” shortly after the death of his eleven year old son, Hamnet. At the core of the musical is a father and son relationship, which brings a unique element to the father and son writing duo.

Kirk told Playbill, “Each character is complex and nuanced enough to get their own musical: so I wanted each of them to get their own writer. I believe a music style can capture the soul of each character.”

Cody Fry on American Idol
Belmont alumnus Cody Fry on his audition for “American Idol”

The creative team for the musical will participate in Discovering Broadway Inc.’s writer’s retreat program with a ticketed show on August 20, premiering songs from the show. The show will star Broadway icon Adam Pascal (Rent), Samantha Pauly (Six) and Jordan Donica (My Fair Lady) as well as Belmont alumnus Kyle Caress.

Hamlet is the third show to participate in Discovering Broadway Inc.’s writers retreat program, following May’s Ever After and February’s The Devil Wears Prada. The new musical is the final show of the nonprofit’s inaugural season.

Kirk visited Belmont’s campus last year to workshop the musical alongside Belmont musical theater undergraduate students. The show was recorded as a student album, staged with social distancing, and filmed.

Raines Published in ‘The Economist’

Professor of Economics Emeritus Dr. J. Patrick Raines, former dean of the Jack C. Massey College of Business at Belmont, recently wrote an editorial entitled “An Evolving Discipline” that was published in the Letter to the Editor section of the July 24 issue of The Economist.

The editorial was in response to an article entitled “Economics Needs to Evolve” in the June 26 issue that stated contributions of behavioral economists, such as Raines, should receive more recognition for explaining real-world outcomes.

Raines writes, “You are to be thanked for vindicating the careers of evolutionary and institutional economists who have spent their lives seeking to explain real-world behaviour and economic outcomes (Free exchange, June 26th). Some examples of that insightful literature include the notion that fluctuations in share prices are the result of speculative instincts rather than fundamental investing; higher education is more about selling a curriculum by captains of erudition rather than intellectual development; and elections are determined by the ‘common man,’ who votes for governments that support the interests of big business.”

Those with a subscription to The Economist can read the article here.

Totaro and Quintet Tie for Second in American Prize Chamber Music Performance

School of Music Faculty Member Dr. Carolyn Totaro and her colleagues in the Tennessee Valley Music Festival Quintet tied for second place in the professional division of The American Prize Chamber Music Performance, 2020-21. Totaro has taught at the Tennessee Valley Music Festival since 2009 and has played with the same woodwind quintet for more than 12 years. 

The Tennessee Valley Music Festival Woodwind Quintet is the resident faculty woodwind quintet of the Tennessee Valley Music Festival. The current members of the group have worked together for more than 10 years returning each summer to Huntsville, Alabama to coach chamber music and lead woodwind masterclasses as well as serve as the principal winds for the festival orchestra. In that time, the group has given numerous world premieres and assisted with the Tennessee Valley Music Festival Young Composers’ Forum by giving feedback on composers’ works as well as tips on how to write effectively for their respective instruments.

Belmont Pharmacy Student Selected for Vanderbilt University’s Biomedical Informatics Research Program

Sara Saif, a second-year student at Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy, accepted an internship at Vanderbilt University’s Biomedical Informatics Summer Research Program. By joining this program, Saif will actively apply the subject of informatics to address healthcare challenges.

Throughout her internship, she will be working directly under the guidance of Dr. Jeremy Warner, an associate professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University. With Dr. Warner as a mentor, Saif will be able to work with data regarding the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium.

As a current student in the Belmont University College of Pharmacy, Saif not only receives a strong clinical foundation, but also valuable training on healthcare information technology and its use in the practice of pharmacy. This training in informatics has proved to be useful to her in the application process and will continue to be a valuable resource throughout her internship at Vanderbilt.

Dr. Anthony Blash, Pharm.D., BCompSc., CPHIMS, associate professor and lecturer in the College of Pharmacy’s Healthcare Informatics concentration, has created a sequence of five courses and a one-month intensive experiential rotation to prepare Belmont’s student pharmacists to become future leaders in healthcare informatics. “Nashville is considered by many to be home to the U.S. healthcare industry, with nearly 300 companies providing healthcare synergies found in few other places,” said Blash. “If your interests lie in healthcare and informatics, our program stands apart. Our students have the opportunity to develop an impressive project portfolio during their time at Belmont, working on projects such as the creation of smart pump clinical decision supportlive EHR implementationsbecoming Data Analysts while exploring Big Data and Analytics with Microsoft SQL and creating Artificial Intelligence Software for Amazon Alexa.”

As a HIMSS Approved Education Partner, Belmont’s College of Pharmacy is the only pharmacy school in the world with a healthcare informatics concentration leading to an internationally recognized certification in healthcare informatics, which may be obtained before experiential rotations, residency inquiries and job searches begin.

The informatics concentration at Belmont is collaborating with interested organizations to provide competent student and graduate healthcare informaticians with clinical knowledge as grad-student team members and plans to expand its program to include residents and/or fellows. This collaboration would be of no cost to the partnering organization and could help to advance Healthcare Informatics initiatives currently underway or in the planning phase. To find out more about this exciting opportunity, please contact Dr. Blash at: Anthony.Blash@belmont.edu

Heard Leads National Science Foundation Workshop for Faculty Across Country

On July 20 and 21, Associate Professor of Biology and Rob Fisher Chair of Environmental Sciences Matt Heard helped to run a virtual workshop that was funded by the National Science Foundation to provide training to undergraduate faculty members in using large-scale ecological data and data science approaches to design new research projects and teaching activities.

In total, 75 faculty members from institutions across the United States and Canada were in attendance. This workshop brought together experts from three national networks: the Ecological Research Education Network (EREN), the National Ecological Observation Network (NEON) and Project EDDIE (Environmental Data-Driven Inquiry and Exploration) and established working groups on teaching and research projects that will continue over the next year. Participants from the workshop will meet again in person in summer 2022 at Belmont University.

Co-Principal Investigators of the grant and co-organizers of the meeting included Laurie Anderson (Ohio Wesleyan University), Kristy Hopfensperger (Northern Kentucky University), Claire Lunch (NEON), Catherine O’Reilly (Illinois State University) and Sara Scanga (Utica College). 

For more information on this grant, see the grant award abstract from NSF

Belmont School of Nursing Again Receives Grant to Train Nurse Faculty

For the second year in a row, Belmont University’s School of Nursing received the Nurse Faculty Loan Program (NFLP) grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to train nursing educators. A cost matching award, Belmont was awarded federal funds of $422,317 from HRSA, and the University will match with $46,924. This grant addresses the ongoing shortage of nurse educators by offering Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) student scholarships of 85 percent tuition reduction with an agreement that the students will serve as nursing faculty or FNP preceptors for four years after graduation.

In addition to the traditional DNP education in the family nurse practitioner (FNP) role, students will obtain coursework specific to the role of a nursing educator. Students in the Belmont NFLP will benefit from mentorship, strong nurse educator preparation, and monetary support to pursue doctoral education and loan forgiveness. Easing the financial barrier to doctoral education will improve the supply of nurse educators and nurse practitioner preceptors.

Associate Dean of Nursing Dr. Martha Buckner said, “We are so pleased to receive another round of funding for the NFLP. We have seen an increased interest in our graduate programs as a result of the scholarships we can offer. This year’s cohort completed nine hours of graduate-level nursing education courses this summer that augment their doctoral education. I know they are going to have a tremendous impact on educating the next generation of nurses that our country so desperately needs.”

The program will provide loan forgiveness of up to 85 percent of Belmont tuition, fees and associated costs if graduates are employed full time as family nurse practitioner preceptors or faculty in any school of nursing in the United States for four years following graduation. Students will have one year after graduation to secure appropriate employment.

To qualify for the program, students must be accepted and enrolled in either the post-BSN or post-MSN Doctor of Nursing Practice program at Belmont University.

To learn more about the program, visit http://www.belmont.edu/grad-nursing/nflp.html.

This Belmont NFLP grant is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $469,241.00 with 9 percentage financed with nongovernmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.

Belmont University Makes History With Record-Breaking Fall 2021 Enrollment

Long known as one of the fastest growing Christian universities in the country, Belmont is breaking all-time records for Fall 2021 with significant increases across multiple categories, including a historic total student enrollment projected to exceed 8,750. For the first time in history, Belmont received more than 11,000 applications for admission and expects to welcome more than 2,490 new freshmen and transfer students, a 17.2 percent increase over Fall 2020.

Hailing from 49 different states and nine foreign countries, Belmont’s newest Bruins come to campus well-qualified for the next phase of their academic journey, scoring a mean ACT of 27 and SAT of more than 1240 among those who submitted scores. The Class of 2025 represents Belmont’s most diverse entering cohort in history with 21.3 percent of incoming students from historically underrepresented groups. In addition, Belmont continues to be among the top destinations for transfer students with more than 500 transfers from 40 states committed to join the campus later this month.

Belmont President Dr. Greg Jones said, “In summer orientation sessions with our incoming new students, I’ve shared my belief that a Belmont education produces competent, caring, compassionate people of character who have the ability to make a significant impact on our world. I’m tremendously encouraged to see how many students are embracing that vision for their own futures, and I’m grateful for the faculty, staff, student leaders and Belmont supporters who are helping us warmly welcome these new Bruins to campus later this month. While there is still much progress that needs to be made, I’m also encouraged by the racial and ethnic makeup of this new class as we seek to be a University with a stronger representation of diverse perspectives.”

All of Belmont’s new undergraduates are joining the campus during an exciting season as Dr. Jones kicks off his inaugural year as president with a fresh vision for the University to “Let Hope Abound.” New and returning students can also consider new programs as Belmont launches innovative majors in Supply Chain Management, Photography, Illustration and Film & Television Writing, among others.

Belmont graduate programs are also experiencing strong growth with more than 685 new students across the 17 degrees offered, an increase of 8.2 percent over last year. Highlights include record enrollments in several master’s (Mental Health Counseling, Occupational Therapy and Strategic Communication and Leadership) and doctoral programs (Law and Physical Therapy). 

Associate Provost and Dean of Enrollment Services Dr. Chris Gage noted, “Belmont’s mission, innovation and value remain extremely attractive to prospective students. To see the strength of Belmont’s incoming Class of 2025, both in size and qualifications, it’s evident that students from across the country, and in record numbers, are continuing to embrace this University’s vision to prepare them for the future.”

Belmont’s newest students begin moving into campus housing August 19 with the first day of classes set for Wednesday, August 25. Final enrollment numbers will be available in late-September following the University’s official census.

Applications for admission for the Fall 2022 cycle opened on August 1.

Fox, Overall Attend CUNY Digital Humanities Research Institute

Nicole Fox, assistant professor and research and instruction librarian, and Dr. Joel Overall, associate professor of English, attended the online Digital Humanities Research Institute (DHRI) last month, which is sponsored by City University of New York.

During the two-week workshop, Fox and Overall developed skills working from the command line, collaborating with git, programming with Python, querying structured data, creating maps and analyzing texts computationally in an effort to bring digital humanities practices to the Belmont teaching and research community through a local version of DHRI.

College of Health Sciences and Nursing Hosts High School Educators, Advisers for Tennessee Career and Technical Education Conference

On July 13, the College of Health Sciences and Nursing hosted approximately 70 high school teachers and advisers for the Tennessee Career and Technical Education Conference. The participants rotated through demonstrations and presentations of each of the disciplines in the College of Health Sciences and Nursing, exposing them to the professions and giving them suggested activities to introduce their students to these careers. 

In addition, this was an opportunity to showcase the Belmont facilities to teachers and advisers who will be working with high school students as they consider their college options.

The feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive, including “I have been going to this conference for years and this has been the best.” Many expressed interest in bringing their students to campus.