Randall Reynolds, Director of Technology Services, will have a painting exhibited at the 42nd Annual Central South Art Exhibition. The exhibition is sponsored by the Tennessee Art League located at 808 Broadway and will run from May 1 through June 30. Of the 600 entries, 70 artists were accepted for the exhibition. A reception and awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, May 20, from 2-4 p.m.
Reynolds Painting Selected for Central South Art Exhibition
Belmont Alumna Advances to Top Four on American Idol
Belmont alumna, Melinda Doolittle (’99), advanced to the top four on “American Idol” Wednesday night. She will perform Tuesday night at 7 p.m. CT on Fox. Click here for Doolittle’s official “American Idol” Web page.
Belmont Students Create Fair Trade Coffee Brand to Benefit Farmers, Local Hispanic Community
Belmont University students on the Belmont Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team hosted an event at Nashville coffee shop Bongo Java Thursday, May 3, to announce and unveil a fair trade coffee brand the students developed to be served at Belmont with plans to extend distribution to other local businesses. The Belmont SIFE team partnered with Sodexho and Conexion Americas to create the new, organic, private fair trade coffee.
As a project to fulfill the entrepreneurship requirement of the SIFE team’s yearly objectives, Belmont students JonEric Pettersson, Renee Reyle, Victoria Aleksina, Janice Dotti and Lauren Winfield developed every aspect of the fair trade coffee, from working with the farmer to marketing and labeling the new brand, RumbaRoast. The students created the coffee to fund entrepreneurial and financial literacy programs, to teach Hispanic adults how to develop and sustain new businesses and to financially support the fair trade coffee growers of Central America.
“Our mission is to connect people with people one cup at a time across the table and around the globe,” JonEric Pettersson, a Belmont student involved with the RumbaRoast Coffee project, said. “Buying RumbaRoast fairly traded and organic coffee is caring for the families of farmers in Latin America, the support of local business and the highest quality in coffee we can share. The ultimate goal of RumbaRoast Coffee is to create a social and entrepreneurial means for the community to invest in itself and those we are connected to around the world. ”
Bob Bernstein, owner of local coffee shops Bongo Java and Fido, was instrumental in the creation of RumbaRoast Coffee. As a member of a consortium of privately-owned coffee houses, Bernstein was able to negotiate reduced prices for Belmont SIFE in importing fair trade coffee beans from Latin America. He was also able to match Belmont SIFE with a locally owned roaster to produce RumbaRoast at a lower price than the students would have paid independently.
The students adopted a three-phase approach in implementing their business plan for RumbaRoast coffee:
1. Belmont SIFE will launch and manage the new venture.
2. Belmont SIFE will develop a strategic plan for capturing commercial accounts and use the business as a platform to teach local Hispanic entrepreneurs.
3. Belmont SIFE will choose two – four entrepreneurs from the Hispanic community to take full control of the business, while continuously providing business-consulting services.
To date, the SIFE team has developed the coffee blend, bag labels and a marketing campaign and has sold over 200 pounds of coffee. RumbaRoast is estimated to gross $50,000 in the first year of operation. Belmont SIFE will allocate 80 percent of the profits made off of the fair trade coffee to the development of projects within the local Hispanic community and 20 percent back into the SIFE program.
One of the biggest developments in recent years in the coffee industry has been the rise of fair trade coffee. “Fair trade” refers to a rising political and economic movement that is designed to create an equitable and fair partnership between coffee buying and coffee producers in major coffee growing regions. Fair trade coffee is designed to assist poor coffee farmers that often produce high quality gourmet coffee in organic conditions.
To purchase RumbaRoast Coffee and learn more about Belmont SIFE, click here.
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Click here to watch a short video of Belmont student JonEric Pettersson discussing RumbaRoast coffee.
Click here to watch a short video of Dr. Pat Raines, dean of the College of Business Administration, discussing the mission of Belmont SIFE.
Click here to watch a short video of Dr. John Gonas, faculty adviser of Belmont SIFE, discussing the nonprofit organizations that Belmont SIFE has worked with over the past two years.
Author Marcus Buckingham Speaks at Belmont
The Peer Learning Network at Belmont University hosted Marcus Buckingham May 3, 2007, in a special presentation of “Putting Your Strengths-Based Perspective to Work”. Buckingham is widely considered one of the world’s leading authorities on employee productivity and the practices of leading and managing, cultivating employees’ strengths, dramatically increasing efficiency and personal growth. Buckingham is the author of the best-selling books The One Thing You Need to Know, First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Now, Discover Your Strengths and Go Put Your Strengths to Work.
The Peer Learning Network at Belmont University is a component of the Center for Professional Development in the College of Business Administration. The Peer Learning Network was created in 1990 as a result of a partnership between Clayton McWhorter, then chairman and CEO of HealthTrust Inc., and Belmont University. The Peer Learning Network maintains a purpose of bringing together top executives from Nashville’s best-run companies in a setting where they can learn from each other. Belmont University was designated as the “coming together” place where company leaders from a variety of fields can share problems and solutions (best practices) with their peers and learn from world-class speakers, creating a new network within Nashville’s business community.
Brandon D. Winningham Visits Belmont
Students in Dr. Jonathan Thorndike’s sections of The Ancient World Honors classes were treated to a visit by local historian and author Brandon D. Winningham. A resident of Columbia, Tenn., Winningham recently published Catiline, the story of the turbulent final decades of the Roman Republic. Students in the Ancient World classes were studying Roman history and reading the speeches of the famous orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. Winningham lectured on the period of civil wars in Rome when Lucius Sergius Catiline schemed to fill the void in the political scene. Winningham’s historical novel traces the background of the manipulative Catiline and his rapid rise to power shortly before the time of Julius Caesar.
Service Learning Students Receive Grant
The students enrolled in the service learning courses taught by Dr. Darlene Panvini were recognized in an article in the April 2007 Harris Hillman newsletter titled “The Belmont Sensory Garden Grant”. The students in Botany and Environmental Studies have done service-learning work at Harris Hillman. The Harris Hillman Special Education School services students with multiple disabilities. Sensory stimulation is a critical element of their instruction and care, which makes the sensory garden so important. Michele Howell, a biology major, wrote the proposal for a service-learning grant for $250 from the Service-Learning Task Force at Belmont. The grant will be used to purchase plants, sculptures and mulch.
Regions Bank Awards Belmont Student Entrepreneur
Belmont student Cameron Powell was awarded the Regions Bank Outstanding Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a $5,000 prize, at the College of Business Awards Day Ceremony on April 18. Keith Herron, Regions Bank Nashville president, and Scot McLaughlin, assistant vice president from Regions Bank, presented the award to Powell.
Powell is a graduating senior and entrepreneurship/music business double major. Powell created the River Rock Media Group which specializes in video production and photography.
The Regions Bank Outstanding Belmont Student Entrepreneur Award is given annually to any student majoring or minoring in entrepreneurship or who is active in Belmont’s entrepreneurship program activities and recognized a special opportunity, acquired the necessary resources and followed through on the implementation of starting and operating an entrepreneurial business venture.
Sister Helen Prejean Speaks at Belmont
Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, spoke at Belmont University Monday, April 30. Prejean recounted her experiences working with death penalty cases and making the Academy Award-winning film Dead Man Walking.
Prejean became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers. When her eyes were opened to the execution process she wrote Dead Man Walking, which was No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller’s List and became a motion picture, a play and premiered as an opera in San Francisco. Her latest book is The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.
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“Sister Helen Prejean Visits Belmont University” – YouTube, April 30, 2007
Belmont Alumna Wins Prestigious Award
Belmont alumna Lisa Williams, assistant professor of English at Centre College in Danville, Ky., has been awarded the prestigious 2007 Barnard Women Poets Prize for her collection of poems, Woman Reading to the Sea. Williams received an honorarium of $1,500 and publication of her manuscript in spring of 2008 by W.W. Norton & Co. The prize is given annually to one emerging writer to publish her second collection of poetry. Three-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Joyce Carol Oates handpicked Williams as winner of the award.
Williams received her M.F.A. in creative writing/poetry from the University of Virginia, her M.A. in Literature with Creative Writing Thesis from the University of Cincinnati, and her B.A. from Belmont University. Her poems are recently published or forthcoming in The Southern Review, Salmagundi, Raritan, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, The Cincinnati Review and other magazines, as well as in the anthology American Poetry: Next Generation. Her essays on contemporary poets appear in The Hollins Critic. In 2004, Williams was awarded the Rome Prize in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Williams’ book of poems, The Hammered Dulcimer, won the 1998 May Swenson Poetry Award. She has received a Henry Hoyns Fellowship, an Elliston Fellowship, a Walter E. Dakin fellowship and a Tennessee Williams scholarship, among other fellowships and awards.
Belmont Student-Athletes Recognized Nationally for Academic Athletes
Four Belmont University athletic teams ranked in the top 10 percent nationwide among NCAA Division-I programs for their academic progress rate (APR) as determined by the NCAA. The APR measures how well a team retains scholarship athletes from semester to semester, maintains their eligibility from semester to semester and graduates scholarship student-athletes within a five-year window. The Belmont Bruins men’s basketball, men’s soccer, men’s tennis and women’s tennis teams each placed in the top 10 percent within their respective sports.
Over the past two years, Belmont is one of only six institutions in Division-I men’s basketball to make the APR top 10 percent list and earn a berth to the NCAA Championship Tournament both years: Belmont, Davidson, Illinois, North Carolina, Penn and Villanova. In the 2006-07 season, 35 institutions boasted APRs in the top 10 percent, 10 of which made NCAA tournament appearances; for 2005-06, 36 institutions made the top 10 percent list with only 11 of those making the NCAA tournament.
“Belmont student-athletes have a proven record of success in the classroom,” Belmont President Bob Fisher said. “Our men’s and women’s cross country, volleyball, men’s tennis and men’s basketball teams have not only earned Atlantic Sun conference championships, but have also been recognized by the A-Sun and the NCAA for their academic achievements as well. Our outstanding coaches and athletics staff provide the focus and leadership for the academic successes of our student-athletes. The type of student-athletes our coaches recruit understand and respect the ‘student’ aspect of being a student-athlete and take their work in the classroom just as seriously as they do their time in the weight rooms and playing fields.”
Along with its recent recognition for its teams with APRs in the top 10 percent, five Belmont teams (men’s cross country, women’s cross country, women’s volleyball, women’s softball and women’s basketball) have each earned “Top 10” and “Top 15” rankings among all Division-I programs as a result of their team GPAs. In the fall semester of 2006, the athletics department posted a 3.19 GPA, marking the 18th consecutive semester that the departmental GPA has exceeded a 3.00.
In June of 2006, Belmont claimed the Atlantic Sun Conference Academic Trophy for the fifth straight year, an unprecedented feat in the A-Sun. The Academic Trophy is given annually to the conference school with the greatest percentage of student-athletes receiving All-Academic honors. For the 2005-06 academic year, 65.1 percent of Belmont student-athletes earned All-Academic honors, achieving a GPA of 3.00 or higher during the semester his or her sport is officially in season. Belmont has won the Academic Trophy every year since joining the A-Sun in 2001-02.
Over the past seven years, 13 Belmont student-athletes have been named Academic All-Americans while 28 have earned All-District honors. ESPN The Magazine sponsors this program, which honors thousands of student-athletes across the country for combining the best of athletic and academic performance.
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“Belmont earns national athletic/academic honor” – The Tennessean, April 27, 2007
“Belmont hoops a model for academic success” – Nashville City Paper, May 1, 2007
“Belmont gets high marks” – The Tennessean, May 3, 2007
