Dr. Sal Giorgianni, assistant Professor and director of experiential education and development, recently co-authored a new booklet from the Men’s Health Network titled Your Head: An Owner’s Manual. Understanding and Overcoming Depression, Anxiety and Stress. This 28-page booklet provides information to help understand the nature and type of stresses and symptoms of stress that men and boys have and how they may translate into depression and anxiety conditions. The book also provides listings of numerous self help and professional resources and organizations that men and those who care about them can access to address emotional problems.
Entrepreneurship Program Gains National Top 25 Ranking
From more than 2,300 schools surveyed by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review, Belmont University was distinguished as having one of the top 25 entrepreneurship programs. Belmont ranked 23rd in the undergraduate category of the survey.
The sixth annual ranking reveals the nation’s Top 25 undergraduate and Top 25 graduate programs for entrepreneurship. Belmont’s ranking can be seen at www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges, along with information on overall trends found with social and environmental entrepreneurship, experiential learning and entrepreneurship as a means of reaching out both internationally and locally.
“Belmont made the commitment to create a quality program in entrepreneurship, and I am proud that we have been able to make so much progress in only five years,” said Dr. Jeff Cornwall, director of Belmont’s Center for Entrepreneurship and holder of the Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship. “To be singled out from the hundreds of universities across the country is a testimony to the support we have gotten from the students, alumni, faculty, staff and administration of Belmont and the Nashville business community.”
Psychology Professors to Speak at Conference
Drs. Lonnie Yandell and William Bailey, both professors in Belmont’s Psychology Department, will conduct a workshop at the “Getting Connected: Best Practices in Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning in Psychology” conference on Fri. and Sat., Oct. 3-4 in Atlanta. This is the seventh conference in the popular “Best Practices in Teaching Psychology” series, which started in 2002 and is sponsored by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, American Psychological Association Division 2.
The title of their workshop is “Online Pre-Class Quizzing in a Blended Psychology Survey Course.” They will present information on the background and goals of pre-class quizzes, as well as the practical problems involved in developing, administering and assessing this method using a web-based platform such as Blackboard. Dr. Yandell will also present a poster titled “Online Mastery Psychology Survey Course” at the conference, which will focus on a description of his survey of psychology course that makes use of the mastery learning method, sometimes referred to as the Personalized System of Instruction, in an online environment. Dr. Linda Jones will also be attending the conference.
Volleyball Player Reaches Milestone
In the second set of the Battle of the Boulevard, senior Cat Mundy made history, recording her 1,000th kill. Her milestone was dimmed in the Bruins loss to rival, Lipscomb in three sets on Tuesday night. With 10 kills on the night, Mundy increased her kills total to 1,004, good for sixth-most in Belmont history. “That is such a great honor to achieve in her career – to get 1,000 kills,” Head Coach Deane Webb said. She has 1,000 kills in two years and a few matches. So certainly, she is a dynamic attacker, and it’s good to see her perform well tonight.” Click here to read more on this story.
Belmont’s First Annual Alumni Showcase to Raise Money for Chinese Orphan’s Surgery
Belmont University will welcome back several talented alumni to perform at “Coming Home for a Cause,” the first annual Alumni Showcase on Sat., Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. in the Curb Event Center. Co-sponsored by the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business and the Office of Alumni Relations, the showcase—featuring Sam & Ruby, Abby Burke and the Manly Band, KingBilly and Andy Davis—will serve to raise community support and awareness for the Shaohannah’s Hope foundation (www.shaohannahshope.org), an organization started by Belmont alumnus Steven Curtis Chapman.
Gospel artist Chapman, a former Belmont student and Curb College Advisory Board member, and his wife Mary Beth founded Shaohannah’s Hope to care for orphans and to help more people experience the miracle of adoption by reducing financial barriers. 
For the “Coming Home for a Cause” benefit, Shaohannah’s Hope has specifically identified an 18-month-old orphan in China, John (pictured left), who needs surgery for a cleft lip. Belmont’s donations will go directly towards John’s surgery. Buckets were distributed across campus this week to allow the Belmont community to participate and contribute to changing this orphan’s life. The “Change for Orphans” campaign buckets can be found at all residence hall/clubhouse front desks, the Beaman Student Life Center desk, Belmont Central, Corner Court, Department of Student Affairs front desk, Cafeteria, What’s Bruin? and the Curb Cafe.
“The purpose of this event is to provide a unique learning opportunity for CEMB students by utilizing the showcase series to profile Belmont talent, on and off the stage, and to highlight the community service endeavors of close Belmont affiliates,” explains Julie Bunt, associate director of Alumni Relations. “For this first annual event and out of Belmont’s Christian response to one of our own, Shaohannah’s Hope was selected as the nonprofit partner.”
The “Coming Home for a Cause” concert is free and open to the public. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for the 7:00 p.m. event.
Cusic Featured in Nashville Lifestyles
Don Cusic, professor of music business, is featured in the current issue of Nashville Lifestyles magazine. The article on Cusic is a two-page spread that discusses his newest book, Discovering Country Music, and spotlights Cusic as one of the leading academics writing about country music.
Byrne Edits, Designs Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Plagues and Pandemics
Professor Joe Byrne of Belmont’s Honors Program designed and edited The Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Plagues and Pandemics (2008 Greenwood Press), a two-volume, 850-page, interdisciplinary reference work. Byrne was aided by an editorial board consisting of top scholars and librarians in medical history from Yale, UCLA, Vanderbilt and Indiana University, as well as the former historian of the U.S. Public Health Service, Dr. John Parascandola. Byrne authored 19 of the nearly 300 entries, on subjects including “War, the Military and Epidemic Disease,” “Societal Reactions to Leprosy” and “Measles in the Colonial Americas.” The vast majority of articles, however, were contributed by 100 scholars and professional health practitioners from a dozen countries. Three of these are Belmont faculty: Devon Boan, director of the Honors Program, who wrote on epidemic disease in literature and culture; entomologist Steve Murphree, who covered insects and pesticides; and physiologist Nick Ragsdale, who penned the article on dysentery. Recent Belmont graduates Sarah Bennett and Becky and Beth Repasky also contributed editorially, and Honors student Elizabeth Schriner generated electronic source material for the volumes. This project follows Byrne’s two volumes on medieval plague, also for Greenwood, The Black Death (2004) and Daily Life during the Black Death (2006). Byrne is currently preparing a single-volume, single author Encyclopedia of the Black Death for ABC-CLIO, which is scheduled to appear in 2011.
Hobson Speaks at Faculty Retreats in Virginia, Indiana
Dr. Eric Hobson in the School of Pharmacy was the keynote speaker and workshop facilitator for the Fall Faculty Retreat at Averett University in Danville, Va., and for the Fall Faculty Retreat and the New Faculty Orientation Program at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Combined, he worked with approximately 300 faculty (new and experienced) to help these educators augment their existing instructional strategies with best practices from the literature on higher education.
Service Corps’ Skyline Party Gives Back
The Nashville skyline was the backdrop to history in the making Sunday night for Belmont Service Corps, the university’s largest student organization. Approximately 500 people attended Service Corp’s first annual Skyline Party, which was held on the top floor of the Curb Event Center parking garage and raised almost $1,000 in donations for the Nashville Gilda’s Club.
“I am so proud to say that the Skyline Party was one of the greatest accomplishments for Service Corps members the organization has ever seen,” said Bob Foglia, president. “For the first time ever, we were able to take what we have learned over the years through volunteering at entertainment industry events across the nation, to create, plan and successfully implement an event that undoubtedly raised awareness of cancer throughout the Nashville community.”
The Skyline Party, which included musical performances by Madison Hardy, Greg Bates and EMI Publishing’s Brett Mcglaughlin, was the organization’s first independent event dedicated solely to giving back to the community for its consistent support and belief in student education and was aided by contributions from Sony BMG, Universal Music Group Nashville, Rock Solid Security, Red Bull, Subway and country recording artist Luke Bryan. For years, as part of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, Belmont University’s Service Corps has been known throughout the country as an organization of music industry majors and student leaders who donate their time and talent to volunteering at various events. More information and photos from the Service Corps Skyline Party can be found at www.belmontservicecorps.org.
Magruder to Be Published in Applied Physics Journal
Dr. Robert Magruder, chair of the Chemistry and Physics department, has had the following paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Physics: “The effect of implanting boron on the optical absorption and electron paramagnetic resonance spectra of silica” by R. H. Magruder, III, A. Stesmans, R. A. Weeks and R.A. Weller.
