Alumnus Tommy Rhodes (’95) was featured this week in an article in The Tennessean about Barefoot Republic, the multicultural Christian camp Rhodes founded that brings together hundreds of kids from diverse backgrounds. Click here to read the article.
Senik Publishes Article on RealClearMarkets.com
Belmont alumnus Troy Senik (’05) recently had an article published on RealClearMarkets.com. Senik recently served as a speechwriter for the Bush administration and was the second youngest speechwriter in presidential history. Currently, he works for the Center for Individual Freedom. Click here to read the article.
Riechert Serves as Sertoman Convention Speaker
Dr. Bonnie Riechert (Media Studies) was a featured speaker at the 2009 Annual Sertoma Convention July 23-25 hosted by the Nashville Chapter at the Sheraton Music City Hotel. She spoke on “Ten Essential Skills for Surviving and Thriving.” Sertoma (which stands for “Serving to Mankind”) helps people with hearing health issues, promotes freedom and democracy, assists youth, and benefits other community needs. The local Sertoma Chapter also is served by Belmont’s Tower Creative Consultants, the student-run public relations firm.
Belmont Named in Top 25 for Global Student Entrepreneur Awards
The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) has announced the preliminary top 25 nominating schools with the most students in contention for the prestigious award. With nine nominees, Belmont University claims a spot in the list among such schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Purdue University.
GSEA, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) program, is the world’s premiere award for undergraduate students who own and run businesses while attending a college or university. Annually, student entrepreneurs from more than 340 universities and colleges worldwide receive nominations. From the approximately 1,500 nominations, 30 finalists will compete for the top prize at the 2009 GSEA Global Finals Competition at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 18-20.
Nominees from Belmont competed at the International meeting of Delta Epsilon Chi in 2009. This is the second consecutive year Belmont took first place in the Business Plan Competition and first and second place in the Entrepreneurial Challenge at this conference.
Belmont’s Dean of the College of Business Administration Dr. Patrick Raines said, “Entrepreneurship is a core competency in the College of Business curriculum. To have so many students nominated for the GSEA award is another indication that we are accomplishing our mission.”
The Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University offers a hands-on approach to help students hit the ground running. Student entrepreneurs are given opportunities to work in student-run retail spaces on campus or develop their own business ventures with the support of their professors. The innovative program has earned Belmont University recognition for being the 2008 National Model Program for entrepreneurship education by the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and a national Top 25 entrepreneurship program by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review.
Dr. Jeff Cornwall, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, said, “I continue to be amazed by the entrepreneurial spirit of our students. We need this generation of entrepreneurs to help us revitalize our economy.”
Belmont Named a ‘Best in the Southeast’ College by Princeton Review
Belmont University is one of the best colleges and universities in the Southeast according to The Princeton Review. The education services company selected the school as one of 141 institutions it recommends in its “Best in the Southeast” section of its Web site feature “2010 Best Colleges: Region by Region” that posted July 27.
Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s vice president of publishing, said, “We chose Belmont University and the other terrific schools we recommend as our ‘regional best’ colleges primarily for their excellent academic programs. We also work to have our roster of ‘regional best’ colleges feature a range of institutions by size, selectivity, character and locale. We choose the schools based on institutional data we collect from several hundred schools in each region, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of independent and high school-based college advisors whose recommendations we invite. We also take into account what each school’s customers – their students – report to us about their campus experiences at them on our 80-question student survey.”
The 141 colleges The Princeton Review chose for its “Best in the Southeast” designations are located in 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The Princeton Review also designated 218 colleges in the Northeast, 123 in the West, and 158 in the Midwest as best in their locales on the company’s 2010 Best Colleges: Region by Region section on its site. The 640 colleges named “regional best(s)” represent only about 25 percent (one out of four) of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.
Selden Selected for Conference’s Student Newsroom
Journalism major Abby Selden was chosen as a staffer for the Online News Association ONA09 Student Newsroom, which will provide coverage for the organization’s 10th annual conference in October in San Francisco. The 20 students selected will bring a rich, varied set of multimedia skills and fresh perspective to ONA09 coverage, which will appear on the conference Web site, ONAConference.org. Mentored by experienced journalists and journalism professors, they’ll cover people, events and issues surrounding ONA09, using a range of digital formats and styles, including interactive text and graphics, live blogging, slideshows, audio and video.
Littlejohn Authors Two Textbooks
Dr. Ronnie Littlejohn, professor and chair of the philosophy department, is contributing two textbooks to a new religion series from publisher I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. Littlejohn is authoring Daoism: An Introduction and Confucianism: An Introduction.
Class Receives Coverage in Washington Post
The 40/40: Rediscovering America class was the subject of a recent story in the Washington Post. Click here to read the article.
Barton-Arwood Published in Journal
Dr. Sally Barton-Arwood, chair of the Department of Education, was recently published in peer-reviewed journal Preventing School Failure in a featured article titled “Visual and Oral Feedback to Promote Appropriate Social Behavior for a Student with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.” Barton-Arwood worked with colleagues from the University of Louisville and Georgia State University to present the outcomes of school-based case study. With increased diversity and behavioral challenges in schools, the article provides practical intervention ideas for teachers with an emphasis on making data-based decisions.
Music Business Professor Receives Fellowship Award
Sarita Martin Stewart, incoming doctoral student in the University of Alabama’s Communication and Information Sciences College, is the recipient of a 2009-2010 Graduate Council Fellowship. Stewart currently serves as an instructor of entertainment industry studies in Belmont’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. The Graduate Council Fellowships are the most prestigious and competitive graduate fellowships at the University of Alabama and are awarded to graduate students with the highest academic and scholarly qualifications. The fellowship covers tuition and fees, single health insurance and an annual stipend.
Stewart will focus her studies in the area of Mass Communication with an emphasis on entertainment theory under the guidance of Dr. Jennings Bryant, a noted media expert and the Reagan Endowed Chair of Broadcasting. Stewart has more than 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry, having started her career in Los Angeles at Curb Records. She has worked with a variety of top music artists including Tim McGraw, LeAnn Rimes and Wynonna Judd, among others. She has also held positions as Marketing Manager for AKG Acoustics, U.S., and as a self-employed artist manager.
