Sandra Hutchins (English) won the Leo Love Award for fiction given annually by the Taos Summer Writers Conference, selected by professors and graduate students at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She will be a featured guest and writer during the conference this July and is also featured on the conference Web site.
Belmont Media Studies Students Win International Video Award
A team of Belmont students won a 2010 International Telly award in the student category for their video documentary, From Dream to Reality: The Nashville Zoo.
The Belmont team includes producer Kevin Heim; writer Pierce Greenberg; video editor/music coordinator Jessica Wardwell; and photographer/interviewers Katie Chow, Brittany Hodges, Alysa Meisterling and Chelsea Reed. The journalism students did all of the research, photography, interviewing, writing and editing in producing the eight-minute documentary. Music major Alex Belcher composed and performed all music used in the piece. Rich Tiner, Associate Professor of Media Studies, provided the narration.
The welcome video was a project for Stephan Foust’s Journalism Practicum II class in partnership with the Nashville Zoo. “This was a great opportunity to have students practice their skills and create something useful for the Zoo,” said Jim Bartoo, Marketing and Public Relations Director for the Nashville Zoo. “The class did a nice job, and I applaud the Telly’s recognition of their efforts.”
The Telly Awards honor creative excellence in student and professional videos. The 31st annual Telly Awards received more than 13,000 entries from all 50 states as well as several countries around the world. The award-winning video is on the Nashville Zoo’s homepage. To view the video, click here
Belmont Joins Nashville Bar Association to Honor Attorneys in Nashville Sit-in Trials
The Nashville Bar Association, Napier-Looby Bar Association and the Nashville Bar Foundation celebrated Law Day 2010 on Tues., June 15 by honoring the local attorneys who defended the rights of the lunch counter sit-in demonstrators in Nashville courts in 1960. SunTrust Bank was the Title Sponsor; Belmont University’s newly announced College of Law served as the Event Sponsor; and U.S. District Court’s Library and Miscellaneous Fund was the Supporting Sponsor.
This Law Day, Nashville attorneys commemorated the 50th anniversary of the date on which Nashville’s lunch counters were officially desegregated and the dedication of local attorneys who, despite public criticism and opposition, assured that the protestors had access to the justice system. It is a rich legacy of access to justice which has added much to our wonderful city.
“Almost all of the lawyers representing the demonstrators have passed away, and we believe that Chief Justice A. A. Birch, and George Barrett may be the only surviving lawyers of the defense team to now receive the recognition they so deserve for defending justice in the face of unfavorable public opinion,” said Jonathan Cole, president of the Nashville Bar Association. “These lawyers placed their professional reputations, lives, and even their families at risk in taking on the cases which at the time polarized the city of Nashville.”
Belmont president Dr. Bob Fisher made remarks and introduced Mayor Karl Dean at the Law Day luncheon in remembering these outstanding lawyers who fearlessly undertook representation of the civil rights protestors and the contribution that they made to assuring access to justice for everyone.
Belmont University’s newly announced College of Law was the event sponsor for Law Day. Jeff Kinsler, the founding dean of Belmont’s College of Law, said, “Belmont University College of Law is honored to sponsor this event. Justice Birch and Mr. Barrett are role models for all lawyers and law students.”
Bennett Quoted in Our Sunday Visitor
Dr. Sybril Bennett was recently quoted in a story on Nashville flooding in Our Sunday Visitor, the weekly publication of a Catholic not-for-profit organization.
Center for Entrepreneurship Holds First Entrepreneurship Challenge
The Center for Entrepreneurship, within the College of Business Administration at Belmont University, hosted its first Entrepreneurship Challenge on June 5, an event planned to become an annual tradition. Nineteen high-school students from around middle Tennessee came to Belmont to learn more about what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
Dr. Robert Lambert, professor of marketing and faculty coordinator for marketing and entrepreneurship, gave the opening lecture which focused on opportunity assessment, researching markets and discovering yourself as an entrepreneur. Students were put into groups and prompted with the Entrepreneurship Challenge – to create a company that takes advantage of social media. Teams were given one hour to research, after which they presented their ideas in front of the entire group.
A panel of judges rated students’ presentations on the following criteria: description of the business concept, innovation and creativity, fiscal responsibility, presentation ability, and quality of research. First went to an online shopping center, offering a feature that enabled users to view friends’ closets, called Youtopia.
Belmont’s entrepreneurship program has been named as one of the Top 25 Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Programs in the country by Entrepreneur magazine and the Princeton Review, and as a National Model Undergraduate Program by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE).
Marty Stuart Records at Studio B
Country legend Marty Stuart recently spent time at RCA Studio B recording his upcoming Aug. 24 album, Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions. Through a partnership between the Mike Curb Family Foundation, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and Belmont University, the home of the famed “Nashville Sound” has launched an educational mission by serving Belmont students along with visitors to the Country Music Hall of Fame. This unique recording studio is the only one of its kind in the world that allows students to step back in time into a classic 1970s-era recording studio and gain hands-on experience by working with refurbished vintage equipment and original Studio B instruments on class work, weekly labs, and recording individual projects. Curb College students assisted in the recordings of Ghost Train along with RCA Studio B Manager Luke Gilfeather.
Bacon Presents Poster at Sports Medicine Meeting
Nick Bacon and Patrick Schneider of the Sport Science Department attended the annual American College of Sports Medicine meeting in Baltimore. Bacon presented a poster titled, “A cross-sectional survey of why shod runners do not run barefoot.” Dr. Bacon will begin his first semester in the Sport Science Department in August teaching in the Exercise Science discipline with Dr. Schneider.
Senior Lands NASA Summer Internship
Belmont Senior Matt Lefavor has landed a summer internship with NASA on the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) team. The SAM Team is located at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. SAM is a suite of instruments that will be on board the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover. The SAM team consists of scientists and engineers both in and out of NASA, in the US and Europe. SAM’s five science goals will address three of the most fundamental questions about the ability of Mars to support life – past, present and future. If all goes well, the SAM module will Launch aboard the Mars Science Laboratory in late 2011, and ride in the “shotgun” seat as the rover explores the Martian surface.
Matt is a double major in Computer Science and Philosophy in the Belmont Honors Program and has presented undergraduate research in both fields. His current assignment, data analysis for the SAM team, is not difficult for the A student, but according to Matt “there’s a ton of interesting and smart people around, and a ton of interesting things to do.”
Thune Earns Three of Atlantic Sun’s Biggest Honors
On the heels of advancing to the national ballot for the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America award, Belmont women’s cross country and track runner Brittany Thune (Sioux Falls, S.D.) earned three of the Atlantic Sun’s most prestigious honors in an awards ceremony Wednesday night — Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the Postgraduate Scholarship and the league’s nod for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.
Thune becomes the first Bruin female student-athlete to garner the Scholar Athlete of the Year award since Candice Mitchell at the conclusion of the 2001-02 academic year. Her selection also marks the fourth-consecutive year a Belmont student-athlete has been named the Atlantic Sun Male or Female Scholar Athlete of the Year. Since Belmont joined the A-Sun in 2001, Thune brings the university’s tally to eight student-athletes who have earned the distinction. Click here for more on this story.
Jackson Day Celebration to Be Held at Belmont University
Tennessee Democrats can hear Vice President Joe Biden give the keynote speech at this year’s Jackson Day Celebration at Belmont University’s Curb Event Center on Fri., July 16. Doors for Jackson Day will open at 4:30 p.m., and the program will begin at 5:30 p.m. CDT.
“Tennessee Democrats are excited Vice President Biden will help us kick off this year’s critical mid-term elections with his appearance at Jackson Day,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said.
Biden served in the U.S. Senate for 36 years before becoming the nation’s 47th Vice President. As the chairman or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations and the Judiciary committees during much of his tenure, the Vice President has helped shape this nation’s foreign policy and its criminal justice system.
Jackson Day is an annual event held by the Tennessee Democratic Party honoring President Andrew Jackson, the founder of the modern Democratic Party. For attendance information, go to the Tennessee Democratic Party’s website at www.tndp.org or call 615-327-9779.
