Women’s tennis player Abby Leatherwood, a sophomore math major and a 2008 Atlantic Sun Conference All-Freshman Team selection, opened the spring season with a singles victory against Chattanooga Saturday evening. Her performance earned her the first Player of the Week award of her career, the conference office announced on Wednesday. Leatherwood becomes the first Bruin to earn the weekly honor since Elizabeth Conyer in the 2007 season.
Faculty, Student Published in Physics Journal
Dr. Robert Magruder, professor, and Dr. Steve Robinson, assistant professor, in the Chemistry & Physics Department, and Caitlin Smith, Belmont Physics student, recently had a paper accepted for publication. The paper is titled “Dichroism in Ag nanoparticle composites with bimodal size distribution” and was published in the Jan. 21 issue of the Journal of Applied Physics. Click here to download the article.
Music Alumnae Participate in Inaugural Celebrations
Sarah Wiley Tietsort, who earned a 2008 master’s degree in vocal performance from Belmont, performed with the United States Navy Band’s Sea Chanters chorus at the Jan. 20 Inauguration of President Barack Obama. The 21-member Sea Chanters group performed the National Anthem just after the presidential inaugural address.
In addition, 2006 School of Music alumna Tiffany Wharton is featured on the Johns Hopkins University Web site as a performer for a Web feature on the Presidential Inauguration. Hopkins’ Peabody Conservatory, where Wharton is a first-year Master of Music candidate in Voice, marked the inauguration of Barack Obama by offering videotaped performances of two quintessentially American songs. Click here to watch Wharton’s performance of “At the River.”
Curb College to Honor Donna Hilley with First Mulloy Award
Continuing a tradition of recognizing music industry greats who are also dedicated to the educational process, Belmont’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business will name Donna Hilley as the first recipient of the Robert E. Mulloy Award of Excellence at the 2009 Best of the Best Showcase at the Curb Event Center on April 25 at 7 p.m. Last spring, the Curb College established the Award of Excellence in memory of program founder Bob Mulloy to annually recognize an individual who has achieved a level of excellence in the music business and entertainment industries with notable service to Belmont University and the Nashville community.
Born in Birmingham, Ala., Donna Hilley came to Nashville with little knowledge of the music or publishing industries. Under the leadership of Jack Stapp and Buddy Killen of Tree International, Hilley learned the business and through persistence and tenacity established herself as one of the top female executives in Music City. After transitions in leadership and the sale of Tree International to CBS, Sony purchased the company in 1994. Shortly after, Hilley was named president and CEO of Sony/ATV Nashville.
Alumni’s Company Featured in Tennessean
John Price and Sam Dryden, alumni of Belmont, were featured in the Jan. 16 issue of The Tennessean for the work they do as Lifetime Reel, a video production company that focuses on documenting important stories, memories and more for families and individuals. Click here to read the full story.
Watts Publishes Editorial in The Tennessean
Dr. Andy Watts, assistant professor in the School of Religion, had an editorial titled “Tower of Babel shows God’s love for language diversity” in the Jan. 16 issue of The Tennessean. Click here to read the article.
Faculty Present Research at Japan Studies Association Conference
Earlier this month, faculty members Dr. John Paine (English and Foreign Lannguages), Dr. Andrea Stover (English) and Dr. Jonathan Thorndike (Honors Program) attended the Japan Studies Association Conference in New Orleans and presented research.
Dr. Paine spoke on “‘Some Things Remain Broken Forever’: Christopher Banks’s Missed Connections in Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans.” Paine’s presentation concerned the quest of a London detective to solve the mystery of his own past and find his parents, who disappeared from the Japanese settlement in Shanghai in the 1930s, when Japan was about to invade China. Dr. Paine was given special recognition for accepting the role as editor of the JSA journal and bringing the newest issue of the journal to completion.
Dr. Stover talked on “Infusing Japanese Texts into an Upper-Level Composition Course on Life Writing.” Her essay explained the course she designed that combines Japanese and western authors, looking at how radically different authors construct a narrative self in the autobiographical mode.
Dr. Thorndike presented on “Tendai Buddhism and the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei.” His essay discussed the founder of esoteric Buddhism in Japan (Saichō) and the extreme physical accomplishments of the Buddhist monks on Mt. Hiei, who run rough mountain trails in darkness, covering distances up to 84 kilometers each day for 100 days.
Paine and Thorndike led last summer’s Japan Study Abroad trip, and the 2009 Belmont in Japan Program will be led by Paine, Stover, Dr. Cynthia Bisson (History) and Dr. Marieta Velikova (Economics). Scheduled for May 13 to June 3, the program will offer two different academic options: “From the Tokugawa to Toyota: Japan, 1603 to the present” and “Japanese Life Writing in Kyoto.”
ESPN.com Reports on Bruin Basketball
ESPN.com college basketball writer Kyle Whelliston attended the Jan. 5 Belmont-Florida Gulf Coast game and filed a feature story on the Bruins. Click here to read the story.
United:For Change to Hold Kick-off Event at Belmont Jan. 19
Student-founded organization to raise money for needy children worldwide
Charity organization UNITED: FOR CHANGE announced today that it will hold its kickoff event featuring special musical guests on Mon., Jan. 19 at Belmont University. The 3-5 p.m. launch party will be held in Belmont’s Massey Performing Arts Center and coincides with President-Elect Barack Obama’s call for a national day of service.
UNITED: FOR CHANGE, founded by Belmont junior Joshua Maisner, is a movement to raise awareness of impoverished children worldwide and to create a sustainable financial model for college-age students to be part of the solution in helping eradicate children’s poverty. Each Belmont student will be asked to contribute their spare change each week. If each of the university’s 5,000 students donated $1 per week toward the effort, UNITED: FOR CHANGE could raise its goal of $100,000 over the course of the 20-week spring semester. The money raised will benefit four charities that impact children locally, nationally and internationally: Safe Haven Family Shelter, Feed the Children, African Leadership and World Vision.
“I’ve been really haunted by the plight of poor children in our community and around the world for some time, but as a college student, I’ve also felt incredibly powerless to do anything about it,” Maisner, a marketing major, said. “Then I realized that while my efforts alone might not seem significant, the efforts of a united campus could produce much bigger dividends. Asking individuals to contribute the spare change in their pockets on a weekly basis is a commitment that’s a lot easier for college students to do than to write a check each month.”
Alumnus Todd Williamson Returns to Belmont
Belmont University alumnus Todd Williamson returns to campus with the opening of his art exhibit “Blurring the Lines.” Williamson graduated from Belmont in 1988 with a Bachelor of Music.
On Wed., Jan. 28 at 3:30 p.m., Williamson combines his musical and visual arts talents with a performance in Harton Hall. The performance is a combination of three elements: music written by Greg Walter, a Williamson painting that is slowly revealed and a mirror attached to the back of the canvas to reflect the audience as it slowly turns. The purpose of the performance is to show the audience the influences and emotions that a visual artist feels when creating an original piece of artwork.
After the performance, the opening reception will take place in the Leu Art Gallery at 4 p.m. Williamson’s exhibit, “Blurring the Lines,” examines the question, “What influences an artist to keep painting?” The performance and opening reception are free and open to the public. For more information, call (615) 460-6770. “Blurring the Lines” will be in the Leu Gallery through April 2, 2009.
