Dr. Douglas Murray, Belmont professor in the Department of English, has published an article in a special issue of Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies devoted to the #MeToo movement. His article, entitled “‘She could not repent her resistance’: Northanger Abbey and the #MeToo Movement” argues that Austen scholarship needs systematically to adopt contemporary terms such as gaslighting and rape culture.
The article is available online here.
Alumna Madeline Harcrow, OTD, OTR/L, and Associate Professor Dr. Elena Wong Espiritu, OTD, OTR/L, BCPR, co-wrote an article entitled “Occupational Therapy’s Role in Breast Cancer Prehabilitation Protocol Recommendations to Enhance Clients’ Function,” which was published in the October 2020 edition of OT Practice magazine.
Harcrow is a 2019 graduate of Belmont University’s Doctoral Program in Occupational Therapy. She completed her doctoral capstone experience in the areas of program development and advocacy with Nashville Breast Center. Harcrow now works in the acute and inpatient rehabilitation settings in Nashville.
Harcrow said Belmont’s OTD program offered her the opportunity to develop and exercise creativity, self-discipline and professionalism as a student. As a result she states, “I felt well-suited to leave the nest, with the ultimate goal of benefiting others and furthering the field of occupational therapy”.
Curb College Professor Sara Wigal was just announced as a semi-finalist for her essay entry in the annual Non-fiction Contest hosted by The Sewanee Review. Wigal is Director of Publishing at Belmont, as well as a professor of Cinema, Television and Media. Wigal has extensive experience being published in well-acclaimed sources such as The Tennessean, Publishers Weekly and Writer’s digest.
The Sewanee Review, founded in 1982, is the nation’s oldest continuously published literary quarterly.
To read more on the contest and see Professor Wigal’s mention as a semi-finalist, visit 2020 Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction Contest Winners on The Sewanee Review’s website.
Belmont alumnus Alex Farrell, who graduated in August of 2013 with a BA in Religion and the Arts and a minor in Social Justice, currently works as the marketing and communications specialist for a nonprofit in Chattanooga called Child Care WAGE$® Tennessee. WAGE$ is a statewide program funded through the Department of Human Services that is helping to address low wages in the early childhood field, which helps reduce turnover, thus promoting the continuity of care for young children.
Farrell and his colleague Wesley Mayes recently launched a podcast as a way to provide value to their program participants and to generate a weekly conversation that the educators could be involved in and benefit from.
“Within the School of Religion at Belmont, I was introduced to the fundamental components of mindfulness, human wholeness and what it means to be a well-balanced individual,” said Farrell. “As a result, many of the things I learned during those formative years gave me the building blocks for coping with stress, handling conflict, being a trustworthy communication partner, and so on. I’ve always been interested in passing those lessons down the line, but have never really had an outlet to do so at a larger scale. This podcast provided that opportunity.”
Funded through a grant with the Tennessee Department of Human Services and Signal Centers, Inc., “Lean Into You” is a self-care podcast to remind Early Childhood Educators that the best investment they can make today is in themselves. Farrell said, “My hope is that in creating this project, we are instilling in Tennessee’s educators a confidence that we are here to serve them, we care about their holistic wellbeing, and that they can be empowered in their own personal and career development.”
Belmont Religion Professor Dr. Judy Skeen joined Ferrell for a podcast episode that aired on October 14 to discuss her work with horses, human wholeness, and how nature can heal us.
Farrell said he knew from day one that he wanted to have an episode about engaging with nature as a self-care routine, and how we can maintain a certain posture to receive the lessons nature had to teach us. “It has been ten years since I had Dr. Skeen as a professor and I still remember her cadence, clarity and the magnitude of her self-confidence vividly,” he explained. “I remember her speaking at length about her natural horsemanship work and the retreats she leads at her ranch and thought the fit was perfect. Having now recorded our episode, I was not mistaken.”
Find the episode featuring Dr. Skeen entitled “Human Wholeness and How Nature Can Heal Us” on the “Lean Into You” website.
The Princeton Review has featured Belmont University on its list of “Green Colleges: 2021 Edition.” In a list of universities around the United States, the Princeton Review featured Belmont for its sustainability features that continue to keep campus green.
The website shares admissions, academics, tuition, student body, campus life, careers and visiting information for 416 colleges and universities while featuring a select few colleges that are featured throughout. One of those colleges being Belmont University featured on the Green List.
This Green rating is based on a report of a school’s performance as an environmentally aware and prepared institution. Specifically, it includes: whether students have a campus quality of life that is both healthy and sustainable; how well a school is preparing students for employment in the clean-energy economy of the 21st century as well as for citizenship in a world now defined by environmental concerns and opportunities; and how environmentally responsible a school’s policies are.
The website acknowledges Belmont as home of the second Presidential Debate in the 2020 election cycle, as well as being located in “a thriving metropolis known worldwide as Music City.” Additionally, the website acknowledges Belmont for having students from every state and 28 countries.
With more than 100 areas of undergraduate study and 8,200 students, Belmont is recognized as one of the fastest-growing Christian universities in the nation. The website also reviews each college listed through their Admissions, Academics, Tuition & Aid, Student Body, Campus Life and Careers.
The Princeton Review shares Belmont’s student life to be well-rounded with clubs and organizations for every interest, strong activity in community service and on-campus events and concerts. In addition, the college is recognized for its small class sizes and professors that “know your name and remember your face after you finish their class,” says a Belmont student.
Belmont has previously been named for being “Best in the Southeast” on the website in both 2020 and 2019. To see Belmont’s past feature for 2020, click here.
Professor of Entrepreneurship Dr. Mark Schenkel was recently consulted as an expert, lending his thoughts and opinions to WalletHub’s article on the Best Credit Cards for people with no credit.
In the article, Schenkel discusses the things to consider when getting a credit card, tips for filling out a credit card application for the first time and benefits to working with a credit union. Read the full article here.
Senior Professor of Performance Excellence Dr. Joe Alexander in Belmont’s Massey College of Business also recently offered his expertise to a WalletHub piece about cheap car insurance in Tennessee.
His feature discusses how insurance companies find something tangible for customers to identify with in their marketing since they do not receive anything physical for their purchase dollars. One strategy to do this is by using character spokespersons like Flo for Progressive or Mayhem Like Me for Allstate. He also discussed good marketing and the triple-bottom-line. Read the full article here.
Pharmacy and nursing faculty members Dr. Elisa Greene and Dr. Jamie Adam published “’Providing care across a language barrier’ – A program at the intersection of inter-professional education and co-curricular engagement” in Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning.
The article describes a novel 6-hour inter-professional, co-curricular program addressing barriers, resources, misconceptions and strategies for improving health care provision across language barriers. This collaborative effort was made available for continuing education in nursing and pharmacy, and students from both disciplines were invited to attend.
The authors discuss the need for culturally and linguistically appropriate services and the fertile ground for inter-professional collaboration in practice and education. The full article is available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1bx7A6gprIBGlY.
Dr. Adam Pace and Dr. Michael McGuire from the Belmont University College of Pharmacy recently published their article “The relationship of self-stigma of depression to evangelical beliefs and religious practices” in the journal Mental Health, Religion, and Culture.
The article describes the results of a 1000-person survey of the United States population to explore differences in attitudes toward depression between Christians and non-Christians. Christians in the study did not show more negative attitudes toward depression than non-Christians on average.
However, increased frequency of many Christian religious practices was associated with more negative attitudes. Dr. David Phillippi, lecturer in Graduate Nursing, provided expertise in the data analysis for the article.
Jennifer Duck, instructor of Journalism/Cinema, Media and Television in Belmont University’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business, and Dr. Mary Ellen Pethel, assistant professor in Interdisciplinary Studies & Global Education, participated in an episode of the “Words Matter” podcast earlier this month.
Hosted by Journalist Katie Barlow, “Words Matter” brings together fellow journalists, elected officials, policy-makers and thought-leaders to analyze the week’s news. In an episode titled “October Surprises – What’s Next?” Duck and Pethel joined Barlow to talk about the debates, President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and the history of women as candidates, among other topics.
“News of President Trump’s hospitalization broke as right we were recording, so we scrambled and came up with some additional talking points,” said Pethel, who co-teaches an Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar Democracy and the Media with Duck.
Prior to her work with Belmont, Duck was a producer for CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and Katie Couric’s syndicated show in New York. Additionally, she worked for Oprah Winfrey Network in Los Angeles. Duck began her career at ABC News in Washington, D.C. and traveled around the world aboard Air Force One as White House producer covering President George W. Bush and reported from the campaign trail as President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain canvassed the country in 2008. Duck has been a consultant for Words Matter on-and-off since its launch in August of 2018.
In addition to her work at Belmont, Pethel is an author, historian, digital humanist and academic entrepreneur. Her latest book is “Athens of the New South,” and she is currently working on a manuscript celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title Nine. She teaches courses such as “Making the Modern City,” which inspired the historical walking tour app, NashvilleSites.org. She also teaches a course called “The Good Life.”
The episode can be heard here.
In the last event scheduled for Belmont’s Debate 2020 Programming, Associate Dean of Curb College Cheryl Carr hosted the producers and lead performers of “One Vote Won,” a contemporary video opera produced by Nashville Opera, for a roundtable discussion about the opera and its historical impact. “One Vote Won” tells the story of an African American woman’s journey of voting.
John Hoomes, CEO of the Nashville Opera and artistic director of “One Vote Won,” shared that this project began as a part of the commemoration for the centennial celebration of women’s suffrage. The Nashville Opera, like many creative arts organizations, was asked to create a work to celebrate the historical moment. Hoomes researched African American women’s suffrage and learned the stories of the courageous women who were involved in the movement. He continued to study the history of African American women’s involvement in the civil rights movement and today’s issues, and the outline for “One Vote Won” was created.
Hoomes then connected with Dave Ragland who created the musical composition for the production. The opera features heroines where they are coming from and where they are going, both metaphorically and literally, which influenced Ragland’s musical composition choices. Ragland played examples of his inspiration for the opening theme compositions for each heroine, showcasing each unique style that helps tell their story.
Mary McCallum wrote the libretto and shared that her focus was on telling the story of the impactful, real women in a way that is interesting and honoring. Her writing was research informed, using the actual words recorded that the women spoke when applicable to make it come to life, concentrating on what it would look like if these ladies were actually having these conversations today.
Guest stars of the roundtable Jennifer Whitcomb-Olivia, Brooke Davis and Tamica Nicole shared about their approach to their characters, balancing story and believability. The group discussed how it is the realism of the opera that makes it so poignant. Dr. Carr shared her emotional reaction to watching the opera stemmed from seeing strong black women singing something that feels so relevant to today’s issues.
“Opera is for everyone,” Ragland shared. This is not an opera with extravagant wigs in a foreign language; rather, it is contemporary and accessible. The cast and crew hope that everyone who watches this opera will come with an open mind to watch and let what is being said resonate. The overarching theme of this opera encourages viewers to vote to make a change and let their voices be heard.
“These women in this movement have paved a path for us. They have paved this way for us and spent all this time to get us where we are now and all we have to do is find our courage, put one foot in front of the other and walk it. Walk that path,” Whitcomb-Olivia said, closing by encouraging viewers to trust themselves and work to make a difference.
