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

Home Blog Page 7

10 Unique Classes You Can Take in College

Mairi Collins
-
0
10 Unique Classes You Can Take in College

No matter the field or industry, Belmont is dedicated to offering the best innovative and integrative approaches to learning for students to gain holistic, well-rounded experiences while in college. With this approach to education as inspiration, the university is offering forward-thinking classes which feature unique collaborations and offer students the opportunity to build tangible skills and connect to the greater community in exceptional ways.

1. What’s Your Why?

Dr. Greg Jones and Reverend Susan Jones have teamed up to offer students the chance to explore who they are and what their purpose is in life with their course, “What’s Your Why?” Through guest speakers, reflections, discussions and more, the Joneses are providing a space to slow down, listen and learn from one another in the hopes of discovering the “why” of it all. Students from all backgrounds and majors can take joy in unearthing the ways in which we each bring our unique perspectives to the table while coming together as community.

2. Art: Special Topics – Design Agency

Want firsthand experience working for a creative agency while getting class credit? Watkins College of Art, in collaboration with the Cone Center for Entrepreneurship, is launching a student-run marketing agency class. This exclusive course will assemble a small team of talented designers, copywriters, marketers and other creatives to run all aspects of the creative agency. Students will produce real design projects (logos, videos, blogs, print ads, branding, etc.) for external and internal clients, learn about the ins-and-outs of running an agency as an entrepreneur, and hone their craft with the support of faculty & industry professionals.

3. Law: Legal Globalization and Comparative Law

This course will introduce students to the phenomenon of globalization and its impact on cultures and legal systems through specific case studies. Students in this course will learn about a particular country and a specific legal topic, examining that country’s history, legal systems, culture and languages. Students will also gain the opportunity to travel to the country of study for a period of one week to continue their learning.

4. First Year Seminar: Trains, Jesus and Murder: The Gospel According to Johnny Cash

Welcome to Nashville, a city where music and Christianity have an outsized influence on each other. Perhaps no other person epitomizes this confluence better than Johnny Cash. In this course, students in their first year at Belmont will use their time in their Bell Core required First Year Seminar class to explore the life of Johnny Cash and the music he performed which addressed topics of love, God, family, patriotism, justice and redemption through the lens of philosophy and Christian theology.

5. Interdisciplinary Learning Community (ILC): Women, Comedy and Social Change and Rhetoric of Humor

ILCs are one of the critical ways the BELL Core helps students see that all the various academic disciplines are interconnected. In these courses, students are enrolled in two different classes that each have the same group of students and the instructors in the two courses work deliberately to explore a connection between the two disciplines.

In this current ILC being offered, students address rhetoric and humor as being rhetorical in that it persuades people toward change, even if this movement is as simple as looking at the world just a little bit differently. In the two classes, students think, talk, and write about what makes something funny, but they also consider the byproducts of humor—how it can help bring people together to consider and even act on important social and political concerns. The linked class will be run in the fall to coincide with this year’s Belmont University Humanities Symposium, which will examine the strong ties between humor and humanity in a weeklong series of events at the end of September.

6. Sociology: Men, Masculinity and the Movies

In this course students will examine men and masculinities from a sociological perspective. Cultural representations of boys/men from a variety of media will be used as a framework for analyzing male lived experiences in interpersonal relationships, at work, in education, in families, etc. The course will examine the processes by which boys, men, and masculinities are shaped within different socio-historical contexts and by social factors such as race/ethnicity, class and sexual orientation.

7. Entrepreneurship: Service Learning in Entrepreneurship

This course will integrate service learning experiences in start-up entrepreneurial ventures into a seminar that examines a variety of issues common in entrepreneurship. The start-up ventures used for this course will include those supporting inner city economic development, newly created non-profits, or entrepreneurs seeking economic independence through business formation. Students will work with these entrepreneurs to assess their specific business needs, evaluate possible solutions, develop a plan of action and assist with implementation. Self-reflection will be an important part of this process.

8. Creative Entertainment Industries: Networking & Connecting in Entertainment

An often overlooked connection in the entertainment world is that between business leaders and the creative forces that make up the entertainment industry. Without this connection, art would never have the chance to be seen, heard or felt on a major scale. In this course, students will be given a general overview of the networking and interpersonal skills needed to successfully navigate and connect in the entertainment industry.

9. Media Studies: Augmented Reality Storytelling

This is an introductory study of creating immersive storytelling experiences using augmented reality (AR). The goal is to introduce students to augmented reality as a digital storytelling tool to present news and information to news consumers in a more engaging and immersive way.

10. English, Writing Emphasis: Writing in the Community

An upper-level service-learning course which offers students the chance to write for and with local organizations in ways that serve both the needs of the organization and the students. Emphasis will be placed on the ways in which context and audience shape writing and the writing process.

Through these unique and challenging courses and many more like them, Belmont is developing diverse leaders of purpose, character, wisdom and transformational mindset, who are eager and equipped to make the world a better place.

Belmont’s Class of 2022 Achieves Highest Career Outcomes Rate to Date 

Jasmine Simmons
-
0
Belmont’s Class of 2022 Achieves Highest Career Outcomes Rate to Date 

Belmont’s most recent graduating class has achieved the University’s highest-ever Career Outcomes rating of 96 percent, significantly surpassing the 84 percent national average. This statistic means that 96 percent of recent graduates were employed, pursuing continuing education or enlisted in the military within six months of graduation, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ First-Destination Survey. 

“Belmont University seeks to equip our students to pursue lives of meaning and purpose and prepare them to pursue their chosen paths upon completing their degree,” said Mary Claire Dismukes, Director of Career & Professional Development. “The First Destination Rate helps us to put into full perspective how Belmont graduates are putting their education to work in the world.”

The Career Outcomes Rate comes from the First Destination Survey of recent graduates and data obtained from the University’s Career & Professional Development Office. Among the surveyed 2022 graduates, 87 percent are employed, 8 percent are continuing their education and four percent are enlisted in military or volunteer service. Eighty-eight percent of those employed had found professional positions that aligned with their short-term or long-term career goals and 86 percent were in positions either very related or related to their degree. 

When asked, “Which of the following helped you find and/or obtain your current position?” in the class of 2022 First Destination Survey, 54% of graduate respondents included “Having one or more internships during my time at Belmont.” Nearly half of Belmont’s graduates participated in an internship for course credit. 

Jessica Knoble is a board-certified Music Therapist at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. “I am incredibly grateful for Belmont’s music therapy program and the wonderful professors who taught me so many values and core components of my work,” she said.

First Destination Survey results also indicated that graduates secured employment in numerous regions across the United States with 69 percent of graduates remaining in Middle Tennessee– Nashville topping the Wall Street Journal’s list of 2022’s hottest job markets. Top employers for Belmont graduates included Bridgestone Americas, HCA Healthcare, Nashville Predators, Buntin, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Caterpillar Financial among others.

For more information on the class of 2022, visit the Student Career Outcomes page. 

Belmont University Names Dr. Anderson Spickard Dean of Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine

Hope Buckner
-
0
Belmont University Names Dr. Anderson Spickard Dean of Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine

Belmont University today announced the appointment of Dr. Anderson Spickard as Dean of the Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine. Spickard has been serving as Interim Dean for the College since June 2022 and began his tenure at Belmont in fall 2021 as associate dean for spiritual growth & development and professor of internal medicine.

Belmont President Dr. Greg Jones said, “Since accepting his appointment as Interim Dean last summer, Anderson has provided incredible leadership and vision for the entire College of Medicine team as they’ve worked to establish the College’s foundation. He has also emerged as a remarkable leader across the University. His exemplary character, commitment to his faith and joyful personality and collegiality contribute to the mindset with which he approaches everything he does, and I’m grateful for his willingness to continue serving the Belmont community and beyond as Dean of the Frist College of Medicine.”

Belmont’s College of Medicine has been established in alliance with HCA Healthcare, one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare services and one of the College of Medicine’s major clinical affiliates. The Frist College has earned “Candidate Status” from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), its accrediting body, the next step in the College’s accreditation process. Frist will host a site visit with the LCME this summer to tour its facilities, review submitted materials, receive updates on building progress and meet with various participants regarding planning, curriculum and more.

The College will be housed in a 246,000-square-foot building, which is currently under construction near the corner of Wedgewood and 15th Avenues and slated for spring 2024 completion. The facility will be located within a block of Belmont’s Gordan E. Inman Center and McWhorter Hall, home to the University’s well-known nursing, health sciences and pharmacy programs. The building has been designed to create a fully interdisciplinary educational experience, allowing students in existing programs to work alongside aspiring MDs, emulating modern clinical settings.

“We are building something special at the Frist College, taking on a whole-person approach to healing that will teach future providers to consider all aspects of each patients’ identity and what makes them special,” said Spickard. “Throughout my career, I’ve noticed the impact made at the bedside when caregivers can recognize—and honor—the distinctives of the full person presenting before them and their setting. We will train our students to be excellent in the basic and clinical sciences, in systems of care and in considering patients’ contexts to enable patients to thrive, while also focusing on our trainee’s formation and wellness. What an opportunity! I am so grateful for an incredible team at the Frist College, all of whom are dedicated to this work, and I’m honored to lead my colleagues forward as we seek to impact healthcare in a meaningful way.” 

Prior to joining the Frist team at Belmont, Spickard spent 27 years at Vanderbilt University where he served in a variety of roles. He established and directed the Primary Care Clerkship for the School of Medicine, led educational programs for the Division of General Internal Medicine, directed the Internal Medicine Clerkship and taught residents and students in clinic and on the wards as a Master Clinical Teacher.

Spickard also served an appointment in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and led the team that built and managed the tightly integrated IT infrastructure to deliver curriculum content and capture performance data in the workflow of learning to inform trainee and programmatic success. His expertise in study design and the evaluation of medical education helped to form partnerships between departments that provided Vanderbilt innovative curricula and a sustained research agenda in the education of health care professionals. Spickard’s research interests and publications address numerous aspects of medical education, and he has practiced internal medicine for 27 years where he has earned the highest patient ratings year over year. 

It’s All About the Song

Mairi Collins
-
0
It’s All About the Song

Students gathered on April 3 to hear multi-platinum recording artist—and Belmont alumnus—Josh Turner speak on the 20th anniversary of his hit debut album, “Long Black Train.” Turner talked about the inspiration behind his career-launching song, saying “’Long Black Train’ was one of those songs that just snuck up on me.” He wrote it in only 24 hours during his time at Belmont in the Hillside apartment where he was living, never knowing that the song would change his life.

Turner’s agent, Barry Jeffrey, said, “Over the years a lot has changed about the music industry. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the song. It’s incredible what a song can do for an artist.” Turner went on to establish his legendary status in country music history in 2005 with the release of his first number one hit, “Your Man,” a collaboration with Chris Stapleton, Chris DuBois and Jace Everett.

“Your Man” experienced a resurgence in 2011 when Scotty McCreery performed it on American Idol and went on to win the televised talent competition. “It’s had a rebirth several times,” he said. “It’s now certified triple platinum, which is insane.”

Turner remains an inspiration to Belmont students and anyone who comes from a humble background but believes in themselves and believes in their dreams. “It does my heart good just to see how much joy one song can bring,” said Turner. “From day one, this thing was not just about me, it’s been about the people I can reach. Music is powerful, and we take that for granted.”

Maymester and Summer Abroad Programs Offer Short-Term Cultural and Academic Opportunities

Cara Baker Davis
-
0
Maymester and Summer Abroad Programs Offer Short-Term Cultural and Academic Opportunities

Belmont Abroad is committed to enhancing the lives of its students by offering an array of cultural and academic learning experiences in locations throughout the world. This year, Belmont University will host a total of 68 faculty directors to lead 626 students on 34 Maymester and summer programs.

Popular new short-term programs include:

  • Japan: Creative Arts, Enduring Cultures and Life Sciences (Offers Japanese, Asian studies, BELL core art, BELL core science and 3000-level science focusing on Cancer Biology)
  • Rome in the Age of Augustus (Classes in Latin, Humanities and European Studies)
  • France and Italy: Sacred and the Secular: Interior Design and Religion (a great option for interior design majors from O’More College and pairs with 3rd-year religion)
Haley Pappas
Haley Pappas

Haley Pappas, creative and entertainment industries major from Baltimore, Md., extended her time at Belmont by an extra semester so she could travel on a Maymester program followed by a London internship, then graduate in December 2023. “I’m glad I chose to do the extra semester and have this opportunity,” she said. She’ll do a two-week program in Italy called Revolutions in Science, which combines history and physics. “We’re going to be in Florence and then in Rome.”

Belmont offers a variety of study abroad experiences with varying lengths and content. Short-term programs are led and designed by Belmont faculty to explore one or two areas of study while giving students the opportunity to travel and deepen their global awareness.

“Study Abroad is one of the most distinctive features of Belmont University,” Dr. Witold Wolny, Director of Study Abroad, said. “These experiences provide unforgettable global education opportunities for our students.” 

While the University offers traditional semester and year-long programs, Maymester programs provide students with a three-week immersive experience, led by Belmont faculty members and often focusing on courses in the BELLCore, major or minor. Summer programs are typically four weeks long and take place in June or July. These trips differ from semester-long exchange programs as each program is specific in duration and content, allowing students to pursue their educational goals while experiencing life abroad.

Mia Coutts stands next to the water with a backdrop of a mountain in Hawaii
Mia Coutts in Hawaii

Mia Coutts spent a Maymester in Hawaii last year. “As a group, we got to meet many Hawaiians and learn about the history of Hawaii and its rich culture through their perspective,” she said. “There was also so much nature to appreciate! One of my biggest takeaways from this experience was growing in my independence and self-confidence. I often struggle with breaking out of my comfort zone, but this trip taught me how important it is to trust myself and lean fully into new experiences.” The confidence she gained throughout her Maymester encouraged her to study abroad for a full semester. “This past semester studying abroad in Spain has pushed me further outside my comfort zone and lead to even more self-growth.” 

Learn more about Maymester and summer programs and attend virtual information sessions before applying (Wednesdays at 10 a.m. or in-person Fridays at 10 a.m. in Ayers 1037).

Belmont Songwriter Finalist in 2023 TN Songwriters Week Showcase

Mairi Collins
-
0
Belmont Songwriter Finalist in 2023 TN Songwriters Week Showcase

Belmont songwriting major Sarah Hardwig recently won one of seven finalist spots in the 2023 Tennessee Songwriters Week festival and had the opportunity to perform at The Bluebird Café during a private event with music industry professionals on March 25.  

Tennessee Songwriters Week—hosted by the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development—is a contest held to inspire travelers to experience the music and art that has made Tennessee famous, with more than 1,200 artists performing at qualifying rounds in over 50 venues across the state throughout February. In addition to performing at The Bluebird Café in March, the top seven finalists also received a branded commemorative Taylor guitar, two-night stay in Nashville, $100 gift card for travel and a one-year membership to Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI). 

A long-time member of NSAI, Hardwig said, “[the organization has] helped me a lot when it comes to finding more co-writers to connect with and write with, while also giving me more opportunities to showcase myself as a songwriter and further improve my craft.” 

Sarah’s story is one of perseverance and inspiration. She has been singing and writing music since she was a young girl, and despite being diagnosed with Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis and losing her sight when she was only five months old, she has never let her diagnosis stop her from doing what she loves. Pulling from influences like Kelsea Ballerini and Carrie Underwood, Hardwig is becoming a voice to be reckoned with in the Nashville country music scene.  

Legal Studies Major Sees Significant Growth as Pathway to Law Careers

Cara Baker Davis
-
0
Legal Studies Major Sees Significant Growth as Pathway to Law Careers

Erin Grimm’s dream of making a difference drove her to major in legal studies at Belmont with the goal of becoming a family law attorney. Fate was not exactly kind, however, and she was faced with daunting obstacles like beginning law school in the middle of a pandemic and adapting to an entirely different method of learning.

“We were starting law school in the middle of a pandemic,” Grimm said. “Trying to go from being in the classroom 24/7 to starting law school out on Zoom was really hard – also, just law school in general, getting used to the Socratic method, and it’s just a new way of studying, learning.”

Erin Grimm
Erin Grimm

Despite this, she managed to push through due to the combination of supportive classmates, friends and professors, and the sense of community while being the first slated to graduate from Belmont’s 3+3 law program.

She is now looking ahead towards taking the bar exam, and pending admission, has accepted a job as a Family Law Associate Attorney in Phoenix, Ariz. Her dream is becoming realized after six years of hard work and perseverance.

She also feels ready to take the bar after graduation thanks to a class that focuses on preparing for it. “We’ve already been studying for the bar since January, which is really nice,” Grimm said. “The majority of law schools do not have that class in place. The best thing about going to that is feeling extremely prepared.”

Belmont’s 3+3 pathway allows applicants the ability and opportunity to shorten their academic journey from a four-year bachelor’s program to a three-year juris doctorate while maintaining an excellent legal education. To join one of the two 3+3 programs at Belmont (Legal Studies and Music Business) or through one of Belmont Law‘s approved 3+3 programs with another institution, a satisfactory score on the LSAT must be presented by the prospective student. Admitted applicants are also considered for Bruins Scholarships.

In the five years since Belmont began offering a legal studies major, enrollment numbers have seen significant growth. For instance, enrollment in 2022 saw a 34% increase from 2021.  

Legal Studies Offers a Flexible Future

Sondos El-hulu received the Dr. Fannie Hewlett Award in 2022.
Sondos El-hulu received the Dr. Fannie Hewlett Award in 2022.

Sondos El-hulu is a Belmont senior with a double major in psychology and legal studies. She expressed her excitement to transition to an alumna, noting the strong community and support she experienced at Belmont, which embraced the multi-faceted nature of her interests. “I’ve always been attracted to Belmont’s psychology program, so I knew it was going to be a major,” she said. “Adding legal studies exposed me to that department as well. Because of that I’ve been able to see the psyche part of things, why people do what they do, but also I can take that and apply it to the law world. It gives me a new perspective.”

El-hulu went on to describe two of her favorite classes – business law and legal writing – that provided her with the necessary skills to venture into law school in the future. According to El-hulu, an increase in interest in legal studies is due to its flexibility and the ability it gives individuals for various future settings.

She plans to leverage that flexibility after graduation by taking a gap year and working in the field. “Currently I’m working part-time at a law firm, so I hope to go full-time during the gap year to gain more skills, knowledge, experience. And then, after that, go to law school, attend for 3 years, and get into the career.”

For more information on the legal studies and 3+3 programs, visit belmont.edu/legal-studies.

Belmont University Receives $1.25 Million Grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. for Intergenerational Worship Project 

Jasmine Simmons
-
0
Belmont University Receives $1.25 Million Grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. for Intergenerational Worship Project 

The College of Theology and Christian Ministry (CTCM) at Belmont University has been awarded a $1.25 million, five-year grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. for “In Every Generation,” a project focused on developing opportunities to nurture children through intergenerational worship.  

Drs. Steve Guthrie, Belmont Professor of Theology and Adam Perez, Professor of Worship Studies are overseeing efforts for the project, seeking to understand how intergenerational worship can make an impact in Church communities and in the lives of children.  

“By intergenerational worship, we don’t mean Vacation Bible School or Children’s Church” Guthrie explained. “We’re talking about ways of bringing together people of different ages in worship. “That can be difficult, because people have different needs at different stages of life. Church leaders must be very intentional to create a worship culture that includes a diversity of ages and stages of life.” 

The grant aims to draw together three constituencies to explore the issue of intergenerational worship: scholars, church leaders, and Nashville musicians and music industry representatives. 

Guthrie and Perez hosted a collaborative luncheon where partners from these stakeholder groups shared their insight on intergenerational worship to inform the project. “The luncheon was extraordinarily valuable,” Guthrie said. “We discovered a great deal of interest in this conversation, but we also learned a lot about the challenges to developing worship that is genuinely intergenerational.” 

The project will work to understand and address age-based separation within the church along a natural trajectory from learning, to teaching to implementation. All throughout the process, the “In Every Generation” team will collaborate with a cohort of local partner churches to better apply the work. 

Research has shown that intergenerational worship has implications for a child’s spiritual connection as they transition into adulthood. The “Sticky Faith” strategy from the Fuller Youth Institute shows parents and ministry leaders how to actively encourage their young people’s spiritual growth so that it will stick with them into adulthood and concludes that each young person is greatly benefited when surrounded by a team of five adults, called the new 5:1 ratio.  

“We are seeking to find ways for the church to worship as a ‘diversified unity,’” Guthrie said. “We see the Apostle Paul get excited about this idea in Ephesians when he speaks of unexpected people coming together to worship in the church. That kind of unity was uncommon then, and it’s uncommon now, but it’s meant to be one of the marks of the church. This project seeks to understand how we can apply this same idea intergenerationally.”  

This five-year implementation grant is the second awarded disbursement after Belmont received a planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. in the fall of 2022 for this project. 

Belmont Faculty and Students Highlight Failure as a Transformational Tool to Reaching Purpose

Mairi Collins
-
0
Belmont Faculty and Students Highlight Failure as a Transformational Tool to Reaching Purpose

Belmont faculty and staff gathered on Monday, March 27 and Friday, March 31 for FailFest, an event focusing on how failure can be a tool for transformational power when grounded in authentic humility and joy.

As Belmont continues towards the institutional aspiration of being the leading Christ-centered university in the world, FailFest furthered the University’s strategic pathway one initiative of modeling whole person formation that teaches and develops people of character, purpose and wisdom with a transformational mindset.

Dr. Amy Crook, Vice President for Transformative Innovation, Character, & Purpose and Pathway 1 catalyst said, “Students can focus on what they are achieving and lose sight of who they are becoming, and we want to support them becoming the best version of themselves.” The journey of finding purpose goes far beyond a job or career.

At the event, faculty authentically shared vulnerable moments of failure throughout their lives as students gathered around to learn from their experiences. From stories of ripping their pants in front of the German parliament to failing a master’s thesis, receiving district-wide hate for enacting school reforms, losing $15,000 in trying to start a business, and facing backlash from their kids due to mistakes in parenting, Belmont’s faculty and staff had a lot to say about failures both big and small and what they’ve learned from the experiences.

Dr. Amy Crook speaks at FailFest Chapel.

At the culminating chapel event, Crook spoke of her experiences both falling down the steps in front of the entire school on her first day at Duke University and also failing her first attempt at her master’s thesis. Both experiences taught her to try and stop herself from catastrophizing and spiraling into negative patterns of thinking after experiencing failure. “Take time to pause and reflect,” she said. “Reframe your story. Take some emotional distance and say, ‘this is going to make a great story one day.’ There is always a hard season before it turns beautiful.”

Through FailFest, Belmont offered students and faculty the chance to look at the ways in which they’ve come up short in life and re-evaluate how to perceive those failures. Faculty encouraged students not to view failure as embodying who they are as people, but instead to look at it as FAIL – First Attempts in Learning.

Remembering how Belmont’s main academic building—Blanton Hall—burned down in 1972, and the school didn’t know if they would be able to rebuild and keep the university going, the phoenix statue on campus serves as a forever reminder of what we are capable of when we come together as a community and refuse to admit defeat. “We want to normalize talking about failure at Belmont,” said Crook. “Keeping that transformational mindset of turning failure into hope is how we keep moving forward.”

21st Annual Family Literacy Day Celebrates the Power of Story

Cara Baker Davis
-
0
21st Annual Family Literacy Day Celebrates the Power of Story

Belmont’s 21st Annual Family Literacy Day is a celebration of reading for children in pre-K through Grade 6 and their families in the Edgehill neighborhood. During this event, held on April 1 at the Easley Community Center, participants enjoyed reading circles hosted by campus organizations as well as games, crafts, treats, door prizes, balloons and face painting. Through participation in the reading circles, event-goers earned stickers for a book of their choice courtesy of Book’em.

Story time with Bella at Family Literacy Day at Rose Park at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, April 1, 2023. Photos by Cara Davis

The Family Literacy Day event is one example of Belmont Volunteers for Literacy program’s efforts to be an active leader in literacy promotion across Nashville, which involves ongoing tutoring at the Carter-Lawrence School, Easley Community Center and the Nashville Adult Literacy Council.

Reading circles

Student volunteers earned service-learning credits through the class Teamwork and Organizations led by Joel Hester. Mary Margaret Jones, a freshman social entrepreneurship major, said the day was the culmination of a semester of hard work. “I’ve enjoyed seeing everybody’s hard work come together because there were like five groups for our individual class and then we all had different parts of the larger team. So it’s been interesting to see how all of our roles kind of merged for today.”

L-R: Mary Margaret Jones, Daniel Quartararo, Carly DeMartino

Freshman Daniel Quartararo described the class as fun and engaging. “You have a lot of opportunity to put your opinion in and see where it goes.”

Freshman Carly DeMartino added, “It’s great to see all the families that have come in with their kids that are really excited to read and really excited to pick a book when they leave.”

Service-learning student volunteers

Amy Crook, Vice President for Transformative Innovation, Character and Purpose, greeted the participants with a reflection on the power of story: “Whether we’re younger or older, [stories are] comforting and encouraging. They unlock new worlds for us. They help us explore different cultures. They help us relate to each other. Characters are some of our most favorite people to return to sometimes when life is hard, whether that’s a sacred text or just a favorite story.”

The event included the announcement of poetry contest winners. The 2023 “Favorite Character” Elementary School and “Earth Appreciation” Middle School Contests were open to MNPS students. The top 5 poems from each contest were selected by Belmont English Club and each finalist worked with local professional songwriters to set their poem to music. (Click here to hear the songs.) First Place winners received $500, Second Place $300, Third Place $200, Fourth/Fifth Place $100 – prizes were split between poets and their teachers for the classroom.

For more photos of the event, click here.

1...678...888Page 7 of 888
Belmont University Logo | News & Media

CONTACT US

University Marketing and Communications
615-460-6650
communication@belmont.edu

FOLLOW US