Belmont University’s Musical Theatre production of Parade was recently selected as a semi-finalist in the musical theatre division of The American Prize awards. The production was named as a finalist in both the Best Direction (Associate Professor David Shamburger) and Best Conductor (Instructor Jo Lynn Burks) categories for the November 2016 production.
The American Prize will announcing finalists in the coming weeks. More information on this national competition can be found here.
Belmont University celebrated a successful Homecoming last week as the institution welcomed hundreds of visitors to campus for a number of festivities. Culminating with Saturday’s all-day celebration that featured reunion breakfasts, coffee for parents, a prayer and worship service, a Tailgate at the Tower complete with BBQ and all the fixins and more — both the women’s and men’s basketball teams defeated Tennessee State with impressive scores of 84-59 and 84-42, respectively.
But campus’s “Together We Celebrate” Homecoming celebration didn’t occur on Saturday alone. Leading up to game day, Belmont community members engaged in many events all week across campus. Continuing with last year’s introduction of theme days, the week began with Mission Monday which featured a special chapel, a nonprofit alumni fair and an alumni panel for students. TShirt Tuesday invited students to ‘give a shirt, get a shirt’ as free Homecoming tshirts were given throughout the day.
WOW Wednesday, a crowd favorite, brought surprise pop-up events all day long including doughnuts and coffee in the Massey College of Business, a basketball shot game beside the lawn and a popcorn afternoon snack bar hosted by Senior Leadership. The next day, the Belmont community shared their gratefulness throughout Thank You Thursday, providing personalized thank you notes for fellow bruins.
FANtastic Friday kicked off the weekend, and included a few unexpected surprises, as the Belmont community prepared for Saturday’s games. The morning began with the annual Polar Bear 5K and the day ended with the “Celebration of Song” Homecoming in the Round concert. This year’s event featured many successful alumni musicians and one very unexpected guest — Garth Brooks.
For images from the week’s festivities, click here.
Simone Marshall, Belmont Law 2018, Chicoya Smith, Belmont Law 2018 and Lesley Smith, Belmont Law 2020, were recently awarded Napier-Looby Bar Foundation Scholarships. These awards are presented to current law school students based on academic achievements and community engagement. Three of the four coveted scholarships were awarded to current Belmont Law students.
The awards were presented at the Napier-Looby Bar Foundation’s 14th Annual Barristers’ Banquet and Awards Program. Event attendees included elected officials, judges, and members of the Nashville bar.
Award-winning singer and songwriter Garth Brooks brought gasps and cheers to Homecoming 2018 Friday night with a surprise appearance at the 6th annual Homecoming in the Round concert, an event hosted each year by songwriter and Belmont alum Gordon Kennedy. The “Celebration of Song” concert recognizes decades of talented Belmont songwriters, and this year offers special recognition to the 10th anniversary of Belmont’s Curb College songwriting major.
The show opened with outstanding performances featuring several No. 1 hits from alumni Matt Dragstrem (’08), Sawyer (a duo comprised of 2017 graduates Kei Taylor and Emma Harvey), Justin Wilson (’07), Sarah Peacock (’05) and a trio performance from recent Grammy winner Dwan Hill (’08) along with Marcus Hill (’09) and Nate Dugger (’08).
Kennedy (’81) then came to the stage offering a tribute song to the late Billy Graham and a rendition of his 1997 Grammy-winning Song of the Year, “Change the World.” Speaking of how blessed he already felt by the evening’s guests, he then introduced his surprise special guest and long-time friend by telling stories of his generosity and servant spirit while Kennedy toured with him on the road.
Momentarily dumb-founded, the crowd sprang to life with cheers as Brooks took to the stage with just a guitar. He then spent the next 90 minutes sharing stories of the music he grew up with and how it shaped who he became as a songwriter and musician, noting influences of everything from his dad’s favorites of Merle Haggard and George Jones to his mom’s singing of Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin. As he grew, the range diversified even more as he recounted hearing James Taylor, Keith Whitley and his favorite, George Strait. Throughout the evening Brooks delighted the crowd breaking into the hooks or a single verse of many of the tunes he referenced.
The proud parent of a Belmont student and the husband of a Belmont alumna, Brooks then graciously opened the floor to questions from members of the Belmont community in attendance, responding to queries like “How do you know when a song is finished?” “For me,” he responded, “if I didn’t have a deadline I’d never finish anything… Don’t be lazy. You are not writers, you are re-writers. Write it, then back up the truck and run over it. Keep doing that until it’s smooth as glass.”
After sharing who he is currently listening to, a list that ranged from Hunter Hayes and Midland to Ed Sheeran and Lady Gaga, he advised the aspiring artists and songwriters in the room to stay in school, noting how many ideas would come from simply living life and being around peers. He also added that college offers countless opportunities to perform, honing the craft on campus and off.
Throughout the evening Brooks played several of his own hits, including “The Dance” and “Standing Outside the Fire.” He closed the evening leading the entire crowd in his No. 1 hit from 1990, “Friends in Low Places.”
Belmont Law students witnessed first-hand how the state appellate court works as the Tennessee State Court of Appeals heard two cases in the Baskin Center Feb. 13 in front of Judges Richard Dinkins, Frank Clement, Andy Bennett and Neal McBrayer. After both cases were heard and court was adjourned, Associate Professor of Law Jeffrey Usman presented several questions to the judges in a panel format. The judges provided legal writing advice for appellate briefs, and oral argument advice. The two cases heard were SUGAR CREEK CARRIAGES v. HAT CREEK CARRIAGES, ET AL. and BETHEL UNIVERSITY v. TENNESSEE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ET AL.
Honors student Crystal Lemus has always had a passion for health and writing. Recently, she decided to combine both passions and write two children’s books titled, Angie the Acting Alligator Adjusts to Alzheimer’s Disease, and Freddy the Feverish Fish Fights Against the Flu. Both books are part of Lemus’s “Learn and Adjust” book series. The books follow the stories of animals and their journey’s specific health symptoms. Given their condition, they are then faced with a tough decision on how to react and how they will let the diagnosis affect their everyday life.
“The only times individuals tend to think about these conditions are when either they or loved ones are going through it,” Crystal wrote. “But I believe that children need to be exposed to what others feel and think in relation to these conditions, and this is just one outlet of doing so.” As a bilingual student herself, Lemus believes that these resources should be accessible to most, if not all, children and has published both books in English and Spanish.
While the books are available to children through Amazon.com and local libraries, Lemus is working with Tennessee’s Department of Education to make sure they are available to every child in the state. “Just because I want to be a health provider does not mean that I have to wait until then to do so. My job as an aspiring physician is to make my own resources and make them available to all that may be in need,” Lemus said.
Lemus is an Honors neuroscience major on a pre-med track. She plans to attend medical school upon graduation and hopes to write more books for the series in the future.
Georgia Hiatt, a senior social work major, recently published a reflection on trauma-informed approaches to social work for Open Table Nashville (OTN), where she interns.
In her post, Hiatt reflects on an over-night shift she took at one of OTN’s resource shelters and the safety she felt in the midst of her team. She wrote, “It’s exactly this trauma-informed and relational approach that attracted me to Open Table Nashville in the first place.” As a student preparing for a career in social work, Hiatt went on to reflect on how OTN has allowed her to nurture her abilities to be a supportive friend and build healthy bonds.
Dr. Scott Hawley, associate professor of Physics, has been accepted to participate in a program in Oxford, United Kingdom known as “Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II” for the 2018 and 2019 summers. The program is hosted by the SCIO center (Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford). Hawley’s proposed research topic of “Christian Responses to the Ascendency of Artificial Intelligence” will involve collaborating with University of Oxford faculty and other Christian scholars from around the world to address challenges and opportunities posed by the increasing prevalence and power of Machine Learning (ML) systems and their impact on society.
Hawley began developing a passion for ML after attending a conference in 2014 where he identified key technologies likely to affect the careers of future students. Since then, he has worked with students applying ML techniques to solve problems related to acoustics and signal processing. He also maintains that ML has made him a better teacher. “There are many similarities between training AIs and training humans,” he said. The fields of Education and ML can benefit from these similarities.
The joint agreement between Belmont University and the other institutes and agencies will also involve supplementing existing Faith & Science initiatives at Belmont and will provide funding for an undergraduate student in Humanities to serve as Hawley’s research assistant and study abroad in Oxford. Students interested in the paid research assistant position should contact Dr. Hawley directly at scott.hawley@belmont.edu. Those interested must be majoring religion, philosophy, honors or computer science, graduating in 2019 or 2020.
The program is sponsored by a grant given by Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II, a project run by Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford, the UK subsidiary of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, with funding by Templeton Religion Trust and The Blankemeyer Foundation.
A number of dedicated students with exemplary academic records were recently inducted into Psi Chi, the International Honor Society for psychology. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Timothy Schoenfeld, a new faculty member in the psychology department with a specialization in neuroscience. He gave an inspiring talk to the students, encouraging them to learn from failure, persevere, continue to be involved in research and take advantage of opportunities provided by the psychology department and psychology faculty.
The list of inducted students includes Shaylynn Bradbury, Elise Cloffelter, Rachelle Clousing, Christiana Duerksen, Bailee Ficzere, Dorothy Hicks, Jordan Hoffman, Dani Jackson, Hannah Johnson, Gracie Kelly, Daniel Mata, Mariah Meads, Alyssa Peacock, Heather Ribolla, David Sturges, Lillian Tashie, Molly Tatum, Eason Taylor, Alysson Webb, and Anna Wingo.
Melanie Adams, executive director of the Center for Executive Education, recently spoke at a Nashville Medical Group Management Association (NMGMA) meeting in an interactive presentation about “Coaching through Change.” Her presentation invited the attendees to think through best practices, pitfalls and effective communications strategies to help guide organizations through transformations. Her presentation was later featured in an article in Nashville Medical News.
In her role at Belmont, Adams leads the Center for Executive Education’s team of facilitators, curriculum designers and program staff in developing programs and instructing leaders within the center’s programs.
