Belmont’s Dr. David Dark was recently featured on the cover of the Nashville nonprofit street paper, The Contributor, for his story “Make Repentance Great Again.” The article shares his personal experience with repentance as an educator.
Dr. Dark emphasizes the importance of owning up to our words because repentance “is a moral breakthrough that benefits self and others.” He shares that “in a nation of equals, assuming responsibility for your own words and actions, especially when they prove to have been demonstrably abusive, is one actionable way of loving your country.”
Regarding more accomplishments, Dr. Dark just signed a contract with the University of Texas Press to publish a book about U2 (Explain All These Controls: U2 & the Inner America).
Dr. Dark is a professor in the College of Theology specifically for the Religion and the Arts. Having been published multiple times by various publications, Dr. Dark has accomplished a lot of notable writing. To read more about him and some of his accomplishments, visit here.
Belmont alumna Ainsley Barry was recently promoted to Social Media Coordinator as a part of Black River Entertainment’s goal to reconstruct the marketing department. This push for change was sparked after the entertainment group deemed ‘resilience’ as their word and theme for the year of 2021. Barry graduated from Belmont in 2019 with a degree in Entertainment Industry Studies.
Originally, Barry joined Black River Entertainment as the Copyright and Licensing Coordinator in 2019. With her new promotion to Social Media Coordinator, she reports to the company’s VP of Marketing Tanya Schrage.
Her responsibilities includes planning and creating ways for the entertainment group to strengthen, grow and engage their online community. Barry is responsible for planning, implementing, managing and analyzing campaigns and content creation for social media platforms.
The entertainment group is a “family of record labels, a management company, a multi-GRAMMY winning publishing company and state-of-the-art recording studios.” The growing company has worked with various award-winning artists including Blake Ruby, Josh Kerr, Anna Vaus and more.
Belmont University’s Board of Trustees announced today a unanimous decision to appoint Dr. L. Gregory Jones, dean of Duke Divinity School, as president of Belmont, effective June 1, 2021. Dr. Jones, who will succeed long-time Belmont President Dr. Bob Fisher following his May retirement, brings more than 30 years of higher education experience as a faculty member, administrator, consultant and strategist.
Board of Trustees Chair Marty Dickens said, “Finding a president to follow Bob Fisher is no easy task, but we couldn’t be more pleased that Dr. Greg Jones has agreed to serve as the next leader of Belmont University. An exceptional scholar, tremendous communicator and strategic thinker, Dr. Jones will bring great imagination and energy to his role and will cultivate a dynamic, thriving culture that continues to focus on student success. Most importantly, as a devoted Christian and ordained minister, Dr. Jones will ensure Belmont’s ecumenical Christian identity endures and is strengthened in the years to come.”
Known for his entrepreneurial leadership and fundraising ability, Jones currently serves as dean of Duke Divinity School, a position he held from 1997-2010 and again from 2018 to the present. Between 2010 and 2018, he served in a variety of roles, including vice president and vice provost for global strategy at Duke University and also as provost and executive vice president of Baylor University. In addition, he has served in advisory and strategic roles with several foundations and educational institutions in the United States as well as in Armenia.
In his current tenure as Dean, Jones has strengthened the Divinity School’s financial trajectory, diversified the faculty and staff and led a strategic planning process that has garnered great enthusiasm for the school’s future, all while setting new records for gifts to the Annual Fund and to the Divinity School overall. In addition, he currently serves as a senior fellow at Leadership Education, which he founded, and senior fellow at the Fuqua-Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, both at Duke University. He is passionate about re-shaping cultures within and across organizations and has coined the term “traditioned innovation” to capture how he re-frames complex challenges to seize significant opportunities.
Jones said, “I am honored, humbled and delighted to be invited to serve as President of Belmont University. I have long admired Belmont as a university that brings together the best of Christian faith, an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong focus on forming and educating students through excellent faculty and staff. President Bob Fisher has provided extraordinary leadership over the past two decades, and I look forward to working with the Belmont community to build on all that has been accomplished as we look forward to a bold and exciting future.”
Dr. Greg Jones and Rev. Susan Jones were officially introduced to the Belmont and Nashville communities at a press conference Feb. 2.
Jones was unanimously recommended for the position by the Presidential Succession Committee, which consists of representatives from Belmont’s Board of Trustees, faculty, staff and alumni. The Succession Committee was guided in their selection by input from more than 775 campus stakeholders—students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, Board and community members—who participated in a survey on the qualities and experience most needed by Belmont’s next president.
Board of Trustees chair elect Milton Johnson noted, “The Belmont community spoke clearly about the characteristics they believe are needed in the University’s next president. They want an energetic, collaborative leader committed to diversity and inclusion, the student experience, Belmont’s Christian mission and campus resources and culture. Throughout his career Dr. Jones has demonstrated exceedingly strong capabilities in each area, while also possessing significant experience as a strategic and entrepreneurial thinker who excels at leading large organizations. Moreover, Dr. Jones’ passion for ‘traditioned innovation’ promises a president who will build on the strong community feel at Belmont and boldly take the University to even greater heights.”
Belmont President Dr. Bob Fisher added, “I am ecstatic that Dr. Greg Jones will become the next president of Belmont University. Having done this job for a few years, I also know how much it means to have someone beside you every single step of the way that you know loves you and cares for you no matter what. In Greg’s case, that’s Rev. Susan Jones, and I’m equally thrilled that she is ‘all in’ for this opportunity. They will be a powerful team for Belmont! Knowing that our Succession Committee was able to recruit such an outstanding leader to be the next president makes me proud to be a part of Belmont University. Former President Herbert Gabhart often said that ‘the best is yet to be for Belmont.’ I now understand that was much more than an expectation—it is a prayer, and it’s now my turn to pray that same prayer as we embrace the leadership of Dr. Jones.”
Jones’ tenures as dean have been marked by significant growth in Duke Divinity School. More than $102 million was raised under his leadership in The Campaign for Duke (1998-2003), and major new initiatives begun during his tenure include the Center for Reconciliation, the Thriving Rural Communities Program, the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, the Clergy Health Initiative, the Reynolds Program in Church Leadership and numerous international partnerships, especially with the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, the United Methodist Church in Cote d’Ivoire, and the Center for Reconciliation’s Great Lakes Initiative which embraces the central-east African region. As Duke’s Global Strategist, he led initiatives in China and India as well as helped to engage work in Singapore.
A gifted speaker, Jones is the author or editor of 19 books, including the recently released Navigating the Future: Traditioned Innovation for Wilder Seas (with Andrew P. Hogue) which outlines his perspective on traditioned innovation as “a habit of being and living that cultivates a certain kind of moral imagination shaped by storytelling and expressed in creative, transformational action.” Other works include Christian Social Innovation, the co-authored Forgiving as We’ve Been Forgiven: Community Practices for Making Peace (with Celestin Musekura), the co-authored Resurrecting Excellence (with Kevin R. Armstrong), and the widely acclaimed Embodying Forgiveness. An ordained United Methodist minister, he has published more than 200 articles in a variety of publications.
Dr. Jones received his bachelor’s in speech communication and a masters of public administration from the University of Denver, and his masters of divinity and Ph.D. in theology from Duke University. He is also the recipient of honorary doctorates from Lycoming College (Williamsport, PA) and North Carolina Wesleyan. He currently serves on the boards of the John Templeton Foundation, the McDonald Agape Foundation, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and the India Collective.
Dr. Jones is married to the Rev. Dr. Susan Pendleton Jones, who has served as a campus minister, a local church pastor and as a senior administrator at Duke Divinity School. Currently, she is working as a consultant to the bishop’s office of the United Methodist Church in North Carolina. Greg and Susan are the parents of three children: Nathan, Ben and Sarah, and are grateful for their two daughters-in-law, Amy Little Jones and Allison Jones, their son-in-law Joey Fala and their granddaughters Clara, Audrey and Sophie.
Belmont University’s Equity Trading Club will be recognized on March 24 for their excellence in managing the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Investment Portfolio this year and receiving a return of 28.96 percent (with an Alpha of 10.56 percent over the S&P 500). Massey Business School will receive a performance award of more than $12,000 from TVA, the largest award in the school’s 12 year history of competing.
Belmont is one of 26 universities that are entrusted to manage “decommissioned asset” taxpayer money slated for energy production in large coal-fired or nuclear power facilities. The Equity Trading Club managed the $600,000 investment portfolio for TVA and will learn at the virtual conference in March where they ranked among the other schools for 2020.
Associate Professor of Finance Dr. John S. Gonas, the Equity Trading Club advisor, said, “Given the investment policy tied to the management of TVA funds and the directives to adequately diversify the portfolio, I am amazed that Hayden Smith and his team of managers were able to achieve such a high level of relative performance. These students have applied what they have learned in their Massey BBA curriculum to not only bless the TVA, but also present themselves as accomplished equity analysts and wealth managers. I am excited to watch each member in their vocational pursuits, especially when they are called to the stewardship of money.”
Club President Hayden Smith
Senior Hayden Smith, president of the club, led the team of managers, including former vice presidents and now alumni Grayson Davis and Jack Morgheim, current vice president and junior Matin Danadel, seniors Shawn Gammon, Abdulkarim Abbas and Aidan Robinson, juniors Tom Joseph and Thomas Nabors, and sophomore Sadie Nayman.
Associate Professor of Law and Director of Academic Success Dr. Tracey Carter has recently shared her law expertise in several ways.
In December, Carter gave a virtual CLE presentation to the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office on “The Psychology of Negotiations.”
Dr. Carter’s law review article titled “Drunk Drivers are a Moving Time Bomb: Should States Impose Liability on Both Social Hosts and Commercial Establishments Whose Intoxicated Guests and Patrons Subsequently Cause Injuries or Death to Innocent Third Parties?” will be published in Volume 49 of the Capital University Law Review this year.
In her feature article, Ensley shares the challenges and circumstances that come with being a healthcare worker. She currently works at the Nashville Centennial Hospital where she courageously sees and assists patients of all ethnicities and ages fighting the virus. She explained, “Black people are more likely to die from COVID, and it’s my hope that seeing a Black person getting vaccinated will encourage some trust in science and the medical community.”
Since COVID struck early last year, Ensley has been adhering to a safety routine to protect her husband when she comes home from work. While taking this precaution every day, Ensley shares that she decided to get the vaccine because she exposes her husband often, she hasn’t hugged her family in nearly a year, she misses choir rehearsal and going to church and she has experienced personal loss.
“My coworkers and I have been fighting this for a long time, and some have contracted COVID—we’ve been lucky everyone has recovered. Tough decisions are being made because there aren’t enough ventilators or ECMO,” she said. “It’s been a challenging 10 months, and there are difficult days ahead. This moment gave me a glimmer of hope. I’m happy to keep anyone interested updated. Please wear your mask and keep safe distance. We’ll get through this together.”
To read more about Ensley’s statement and experience working in healthcare amidst a pandemic, visit the Tennessee Tribune.
Four Belmont alumni were recently announced as a part of the Nashville Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” 2021 awards. The accomplished professionals were recognized for creating a better Nashville, whether it be for their company, community or a cause. Rebecca McKelvey Castañeda, Justin Hayden, Trevor Hinesley and Melanie Jane Bull represented Belmont on the 2021 edition of the 40 Under 40 listing.
Castañeda serves on the Board of Trustees at Belmont and is the former president of the Belmont University Alumni Board of Directors. Currently a member (partner) of the firm Stites & Harbison based in Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee, she works exclusively in family law. Castañeda attended and graduated from the university in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in political economy and broadcast journalism.
Soon to be Chief Legal Counsel of Pinnacle, Hayden graduated from Belmont in 2004 with a degree in political science and received his Juris Doctorate degree from Mississippi College School of Law. Throughout his time at Belmont, he was named American Inn of Court Outstanding Mentor of the Year.
Hinesley, also featured in the journal, graduated in 2012 with a degree in audio engineering which then led him to become co-founder and CTO of Soundstripe. The royalty-free music subscription is for podcast creators, YouTubers, wedding videographers and more.
Senior Associate at Schmidt Government Solutions, Bull was also recognized for her many accomplishments. As the public policy director for the Tennessee Disability Coalition, she handles all statewide public policy issues. Throughout her time at Belmont, Bull studied political science and economics leading her to a state legislative internship and experience with the Tennessee General Assembly.
NBJ’s article shares 40 individuals and professionals in the Nashville area that have exceptionally succeeded in their careers striving in leadership, innovation and service.
Belmont Alumna Wren Sherrill was recently featured on the cover of the Nashville Scene in a tribute to the Nashvillians of the Year: Health Care Workers. The article shares Vanderbilt’s healthcare workers and their fight to save lives in the midst of a global pandemic.
Sherrill graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and has continued on to work as a part of Vanderbilt’s COVID-19 ICU staff. With challenging work and eye-opening experiences every day, Sherrill considers the ICU staff “the final fighters in this war.”
The article shares the words of another ICU worker Olivia Kirkpatrick who says to “give some grace to our leaders, and the scientists that are making recommendations.” Healthcare workers in Nashville and across the country are working diligently to protect their city and its residents.
As Martin Luther King week at Belmont comes to a close on campus, students and faculty will not forget the ‘legacy of uplift’ that Dr. King created as the campus community continues to pursue and encourage his example.
Belmont University’s Marting Luther King Jr. Week 2021 kicked off with an Uplift Luncheon on the 15th, where various MLK sermons, speeches and quotes were shared by members of the Belmont community. Watch the luncheon here.
On the actual MLK holiday, January 18, Belmont dedicated the new Freedom Plaza Memorial in a special online ceremony. The memorial featured guest speakers Dr. Susan West, Dr. Bob Fisher, Dr. Anthony Blash, Mark Brown, Dr. Jeffrey Ames and student Haily McGee who all spoke on the history and legacy of the memorial.
As President of the Black Student Association, McGee shared how this memorial will serve as a daily reminder of Belmont’s history, “whether good or bad.” In closing, she shared, “While this memorial is not the solution, it is a step in the right direction.” To see the memorial and dedication on Belmont’s YouTube, click here.
What MLK Means to Me postcards that will be written and displayed as an art piece on exhibit in the lobby of Janey Ayers at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, January 21, 2021.
Throughout the week, students and faculty filled out cards to be posted on bulletin boards sharing their personal intentions and reasoning for the celebration of Martin Luther King week. Intentions of students, faculty and staff can be found on bulletin boards throughout campus as remembering the importance of MLK week. Campus also used the week to give back, both through a book drive benefitting the PENCIL Foundation and through a city-wide Letter Writing Project with Greater Nashville Regional Council, Creative Ideas Project with Turnip Green Creative Reuse.
On Tuesday of the week, Jemar Tisby, author of the book “Color of Compromise,” hosted a presentation for the faculty and staff at Belmont in addition to a chapel hosted for students. This day also consisted of an event that celebrated and took strides forward in racial healing, hosted by Baratunde Thurston. The National Day of Healing featured many guest speakers that discussed how to unravel racial biases.
Marcus Knight, publicity chair of the Black Student Association, shared words of wisdom at the organization’s virtual candlelight vigil where students were able to pick up a celebration packet ahead of time. Knight shared, “There can be no comfort, complacency or currency when it comes to moving forward as a human race, solving the problem of systemic racism and social injustice.”
He led the virtual event as he shared that “justice is not a noun. It is a verb. Love is not a noun. It is a verb. Righteousness is not a noun. It is a verb.”
As campus moves forward throughout the semester, let this week be a reminder to act on the words spoken and treat others kindly.
Trish Soriano, a current Belmont student in the College of Pharmacy and active member of the United States National Guard, was recently recognized by NBC of Palm Spring under the headline “National Guard Helps Riverside Hospital Overrun with Covid Patients.” The California hospital became overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, calling in help from the National Guard.
The strike team that was called into the hospital consists of six team members, one of them being Soriano. The chief nursing officer of Riverside hospital shared that the strike team has helped alleviate the surge of COVID-19 patients and the hospital is more than grateful.
Soriano shared the reality of working on the frontlines in the middle of a pandemic is stressful and upsetting most times. “I can’t see my family or visitors, and I have to stay in a hotel leaving only with permission. I wish people could see what we have experienced in the ER and ICU every day so that others can take the pandemic more seriously,” she said.
However, she also has the opportunity to learn what it’s like to be a clinical pharmacist on-site at Riverside hospital. Soriano checks patients’ vitals and assists them with their medications.
To view Soriano and her strike team’s feature on NBC Palm Springs, click here.
