Belmont was well-represented at the 29th International Lilly Conference on College Teaching held Nov. 19-22 on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. A group of eight Belmont faculty members traveled to the conference, which is considered the premier U.S. conference on college teaching and learning.
Drs. Jeff Coker (assistant provost), Bonnie Smith (English) and Kristine LaLonde (honors) presented a session titled “The Art of Arguing With Ourselves: Reflecting on Institutions, Teaching and Leadership After Hosting a Presidential Debate.” The presentation reflected the somewhat unexpected ways hosting the 2008 presidential debate impacted curricula, personal values and actions, and even an understanding of evidence-based teaching and learning.
Drs. Pete Giordano (psychology) and Mike Pinter (mathematics) offered a session on “Ethics in Teaching: From Case Examples to Classroom Practice,” which included a variety of case scenarios dealing with pedagogical situations where ethical dilemmas are at play. Some of these cases addressed “nuts and bolts” components of teaching while others included complex teaching situations encountered in courses such as a first-year seminar class, when faculty may be expected to teach in ways that are outside their disciplinary or pedagogical areas of expertise.
Drs. Alison Moore (chemistry) and Darlene Panvini (biology) shared their experience with capstone courses in their presentation “Implementing College-Level General Education Senior Capstones Across the University.” Three basic course models were presented as case studies to exemplify a “one size does not fit all” approach to implementing a general education requirement for Senior Capstones. Goals of the capstone, rationale for having capstones designed and implemented at the college-level, general elements required in all courses and the process of development and approval for individual courses were considered.
Dr. Merrie King (Teaching Center Director) participated in a half-day pre-conference workshop on “Peak Performance Practices of Highly Effective and Happy Faculty.” This practical, interactive workshop was based on studies of faculty productivity, peak performance, work-life balance and work satisfaction. It distilled the work habits and practices of the most successful and engaged academics.
Faculty Members Present at Lilly Conference
Bennett Participates in Panel
The Nashville Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists will be on campus Sat., Dec. 5, for a panel discussion titled “From the Newsroom & Workroom to the Classroom.” The event, featuring Dr. Sybril Bennett and journalism educators from Middle Tennessee State University and Tennessee State, is sponsored by The New Century Journalism Program. Panelists will discuss how their programs are adjusting to the changing media environment and how the skills of working journalists can be translated into the classroom.
Gustke Publishes Article on Cather
Charmion Gustke, adjunct professor in the English Department, published her article,”‘As if something Obscure had been made clear’: The Making of a Mission in Cather’s One of Ours” in The Cather Newsletter and Review (Fall 2009), exploring the role of missionary work in Cather’s influential WWI novel. This paper was presented in Red Cloud, Nebraska at the Willa Cather Foundation in August 2008. Gustke also participated in the International Willa Cather Seminar held in Chicago this past summer. Her presentation,”‘Good night, ladies’: Negotiating The Waste Land in Cather’s A Lost Lady” is under review for publication in Cather Studies 9: Cather, Chicago and Modernism, forthcoming 2010. This paper examines Cather’s ambivalent relationship to modernism, highlighting the role of female subjectivity in the capitalist agenda.
Hooper Invited to be Member of MINDSTORMS Community Partners 4
Dr. William Hooper, associate professor in the Math & Computer Science Department, has been invited to be a member of the MINDSTORMS Community Partners 4 closed web forum, sponsored by The Lego Group. Membership allows him access to proprietary information on Lego robotics and help from the developers. The members are also involved in the development and tests of new ideas, concepts, prototypes, and products.
WoW, Belmont Band Together with Feed My Starving Children
For the second year in a row, EMI Christian Music Group, Provident Music Group and Word Entertainment will join students, faculty and staff at Belmont University for a charitable event that will provide 200,000 meals for needy children in Haiti. The food packing event will occur Wed., Dec. 9 in the Curb Event Center on Belmont’s campus.
EMI Christian Music Group, Provident Music Group and Word Entertainment have long collaborated in the marketing and distribution of WOW compilation projects. On Dec. 9, the collective staff of the three companies, together with the Belmont University community, will sponsor a food packaging event benefitting non-profit hunger-relief organization, Feed My Starving Children (FMSC). Minnesota-based FMSC delivers food around the world to malnourished children in schools, orphanages, refugee camps and hospitals. The 200,000 packed meals—which consist of rice, textured soy protein and dehydrated vegetables along with 20 vitamins and minerals and flavoring—will provide nutrition for 548 children for a year.
Hundreds of employees from each of the three companies, along with Belmont University employees and students, have signed up to work in shifts packing specially formulated meals in assembly-line fashion. Each FMSC meal provides the key nutrients a child needs to survive and thrive.
Packing sessions, each beginning with a 10 minute overview of FMSC’s work around the world, will take place from 9:30-11:30 a.m. (WoW Shares Packing Session) and again from 1-3 p.m. (Belmont Packing Session) on Dec. 9 in the Curb Event Center. To sign up to participate in the Belmont session, click here.
Exonerated Death-Row Inmate Ray Krone Speaks to Campus
Exonerated death-row inmate Ray Krone and Rev. Stacey Rector, executive director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, spoke on Belmont’s campus today, discussing death penalty issues on the morning after Tennessee executed a man by lethal injection. The event was co-sponsored by Belmont’s College of Law and the Office of Spiritual Development.
In 2002, Ray Krone was the 100th death row inmate to be exonerated as a result of DNA evidence. He was released after serving more than a decade in prison. A former Boy Scout and Air Force veteran, Krone was arrested on Dec. 31, 1991 for the murder of Kim Ancona, an acquaintance, at a bar in Arizona. At his 1992 trial, Krone maintained his innocence, claiming to be asleep in his bed at the time of the crime. Supposed experts for the prosecution, however, testified that bite-marks found on the victim’s body matched Krone, and he was sentenced to death.
“Like Jonah, I found myself in the belly of the whale,” Krone told a packed crowd in Neely. “I found strength in stories of Job and Jonah and in passages like ‘out of the darkness will come the light.'”
More than 10 years after his conviction, Krone finally won release when police and prosecutors were forced to admit that recent DNA testing exonerated Krone of the crime, an admission that came only after extensive media coverage of the new evidence. On the day he left prison, a reporter asked Krone how, as a man of faith, he justified God leaving him in prison for a decade. Krone responded, “Maybe it’s not about the 10 years I spent in prison. Maybe it’s about what I have to do the next 10 years. I want to be a survivor and not a victim.”
Belmont Hosts Sen. Corker, Jars of Clay for ‘Water for the World’ Event
U.S. Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., second-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke at Belmont University Monday, highlighting Tennessee-based efforts to give millions around the world access to clean water.
Corker was joined at the event at Belmont’s Inman Center by Dr. Bob Fisher, president of Belmont University; Jars of Clay, the Grammy award-winning band that has launched Blood:Water Mission, a non-profit organization promoting clean blood and water in Africa; Dave Barnes, a Nashville singer/songwriter involved with Mocha Club, an on-line community of people giving up the cost of two mochas a month, or $7, to fund relief and development projects in Africa, including clean water; and Bill Hearn, the president and CEO of EMI Christian Music Group, who is involved with Healing Waters International, a non-profit organization working to reduce water-related illness and death in developing countries.
Corker and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., are lead sponsors of the Water for the World Act, S. 624, which sets a goal of reaching 100 million people with first-time, sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015.
“The needs around the world are tremendous, but our foreign aid dollars are limited. We need to make every single penny count by better focusing and coordinating our efforts and leveraging private resources like those represented here today. A lack of clean water leads to the deaths of millions of children each year, stifles economic growth, keeps women and girls from going to work and school, and has contributed to political unrest in Sudan and elsewhere. Experts tell us every $1 invested in safe drinking water and sanitation produces an $8 return in costs. I’m a fiscal conservative, and I want to see each of our foreign aid dollars go as far as possible, so for many reasons, I believe water is one of the wisest places we can invest,” said Corker.
York, Churchman Published in Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
Dr. Grady “Stan” York, assistant professor of management, and Dr. Richard Churchman, associate professor of management, recently had their article “Understanding the Association Between Employee Satisfaction and Family Perceptions of the Quality of Care in Hospice Service Delivery” published in the November 2009 edition of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management is an internationally respected, peer-reviewed journal and serves an interdisciplinary audience of professionals by providing a forum for the publication of the latest clinical research and best practices related to the relief of illness burden among patients afflicted with serious or life-threatening illness.
Bunch Library Faculty Publish and Present
Bunch Library’s Courtney Fuson, electronic & educational resources librarian, and Jenny Rushing, coordinator of reference services, published a paper on their outreach efforts to middle Tennessee school librarians with the Conversations@Belmont program in College & Research Libraries News called “Climbing out of the ‘Ivory Tower’: Conversations between Academic and School Librarians and Teachers.” Click here to read the article.
In addition, Rushing along with Reference Librarians Rachel Scott and Judy Williams presented at the Tennessee Library Association annual conference on the development of an information literacy program, and the paper, “From 0 to 200!: Building an Information Literacy Program from the Ground Up!” was published this month in Tennessee Libraries. Click here to read the article.
Rushing and Collection Management Librarian Dawn Stephen presented this month at the 29th Annual Charleston Conference on Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition in the innovation session. Their presentation, titled “Tying Information Literacy to a Library Materials Budget,” described the recent revision of the library allocations formula to include an information literacy component.
First Year Writing Students Lead Poetry Reading with Carter-Lawrence Elementary
As the culminating event of a semester spent working with children at Carter-Lawrence Elementary Magnet School, Dr. Linda Holt (English) and the students from her First Year Writing classes hosted a poetry reading in the Vince Gill Room on Nov. 16. A group of more than 50 Belmont students, Carter-Lawrence students and their parents gathered to share poetry composed by the Carter-Lawrence children in collaboration with their Belmont Buddies. Belmont student Sam Sheryll entertained the arriving guests with his keyboard, and Ms. Jana Whittle, media specialist at Carter-Lawrence, welcomed the group, thanking those involved for their participation and continued support of the Belmont/Carter-Lawrence partnership.
Belmont University has partnered with Carter-Lawrence for more than 10 years in a series of service-learning classes, a relationship originally established by Provost Dr. Marcia McDonald. To date, well over 500 Belmont students have participated. The partnership is grounded in the desire to enhance literacy, but the true value of the experience for all parties involved is the relationships that develop. The Partners in Poetry event marks the first time members of the Carter-Lawrence community have come to Belmont’s campus.
