Belmont Professor of Biology and Summer Scholars research program advisor Dr. Lori McGrew recently hosted Jim Garrett, alumnus and science teacher at Davidson Academy, and two of his students. This summer, Garrett and his students are learning to work with Danio rerio (zebrafish) and have joined McGrew and her student group in Belmont’s zebrafish lab to replicate research conducted by one of last year’s Summer Scholars, Curt Brown.
The team would like to extend Brown’s project and present their results at the Middle Tennessee Science Fair. Additionally, Garrett plans to establish a zebrafish colony at Davidson Academy so he can his students can conduct additional research and McGrew and her team will be heavily involved in establishing tailored data collection methods.
(Image above L to R: Davidson Academy students participate in research with Mr. Garrett).
Belmont University, in partnership with eight other teacher prep programs across the city, recently formed a coalition focused on the broken teacher pipeline, specifically related to a lack of diversity in Nashville’s teacher workforce. The Trailblazer Coalition completed a year of research and self-analysis on the pipeline, shared its findings and recently held a community discussion to brainstorm ways partners across the city can fix the broken pipeline.
The group met monthly during the 2016-17 school year, conducted research on causes of disparity between teacher and student diversity and worked to find ways to improve the diversity of Nashville’s educator preparation programs and teaching ranks.
Citing misperceptions of teaching, the financial burden of college and licensure and a lack of specific mentoring and retention strategies, among others, the Coalition’s research highlights multiple barriers for people of color to become teachers in Nashville. The disparity in teacher and student diversity is a nationwide issue reflected across Tennessee and in Nashville’s schools. A report last year by the Metro Human Relations Commission pointed out that over 68 percent of Nashville’s students identify as African American, Hispanic or Asian, while less than 26 percent of Nashville’s teachers do.
“Working to improve the diversity of the teaching force in Metro Nashville Public School takes all of us,” Assistant Professor and Director of Innovative Projects in Education and Coalition Steering Committee Dr. Alan Coverstone said. “The most exciting thing about the Trailblazer Coalition is that it brings together all the Educator Preparation Programs serving Davidson County schools to learn about and work to address the challenges that our teachers of color face in entering and remaining in the profession. We are all learning from each other and beginning to develop new strategies together to support teacher candidates as they prepare for and begin their careers.”
Based on its research, locally and a comprehensive review of national research on teacher diversity, the Trailblazer Coalition identified five main areas of need in its report:
Promoting teaching as a transformative practice
Promoting an anti-oppressive culture in teacher preparation programs
Support for teacher retention and success
Support for licensure and testing
Financial support for underrepresented students
Over the next year, the Coalition will work to partner with local and state government leaders and area nonprofits to implement systemic changes to impact these areas.
“It is inspiring to see the teacher prep community in Nashville come together to help our school system tackle this issue,” Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said. “Often in Nashville you see government leaders convening and calling on institutions and organizations to collaborate and help solve public sector problems. In this case, it’s the teacher prep programs stepping up to say ‘we all have to own this to make a difference.’ Their findings align with the work my office has been doing to make affordable housing more accessible to Nashville teachers. I look forward to expanding and accelerating this work with more partners at the table.”
The Trailblazer Coalition’s full report, titled “Fixing the Broken Pipeline: Teacher Diversity and the Classroom,” is available here.
Alongside Coverstone, Belmont is represented by Dr. Mark Hogan, professor and chair of the Education Department, and Dr. Mona Ivey-Soto on the Coalition.
Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness Dr. Paula Gill was recently selected as a Maury Cotter Leader of Change by the Network for Change and Continuous Innovation: Higher Education’s Network for Change Leadership (NCCI).
Gill was one of two higher education leaders selected as a recipient of this year’s prestigious honor, and she will be recognized at the 2017 Leaders of Change during the Annual Business Meeting and Awards Luncheon at the 2017 Annual Conference on July 29 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Created in 2013, the recognition program identifies leaders of change throughout higher education, recognizes them for their accomplishments, and helps link them with their peers to leverage further the impact of their good work. Beginning with this 2017 class of Leaders of Change, NCCI is proud to name the Leaders of Change Award for founding member Maury Cotter, in recognition of her significant contributions to the Association and the higher education profession.
“This important award program supports NCCI’s broader strategic effort to identify and support those individuals who are leading change on their campuses and to grow the network of change leaders within higher education,” said NCCI President Teresa Hartnett, who is the assistant dean of finance and administration at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. “I congratulate these two outstanding leaders, as well as all of those who have been nominated for recognition. They truly reflect the values of NCCI: innovation, continuous improvement, collaboration, excellence, and diversity of perspective.”
As Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness, Dr. Gill is responsible for evaluating the university’s progress toward its performance objectives and for seeking ways to improve services and processes that provide value for students. Among Dr. Gill’s recent accomplishments are facilitating an inclusive, campus-wide strategic planning process, Vision 2020, and overseeing its ongoing management and implementation. She also led a complete review and improvement of all enrollment strategies and communications, reducing the time from completed application to decision by 83 percent and resulting in the largest increase in freshman and graduate enrollment in the history of the University.
In addition, her portfolio of responsibilities includes the newly consolidated Library and Information Technology Services (LITS), a department reorganized under her leadership that led to the hiring of Belmont’s first Chief Information Officer and first Director of Instructional Technology. Dr. Gill also led Belmont’s most recent SACS reaffirmation for accreditation initiative and currently leads operational improvement efforts in numerous academic and administrative units, including the reorganization of the Division of Student Affairs
About NCCI
NCCI is a professional association dedicated to improving higher education nationally and internationally by providing a collaborative professional network for change leadership. NCCI has more than 90 institutional members and more than 1,000 individual members worldwide.
For many college students, “experiential education” translates into internships, study abroad trips, research and other practical, hands-on means of learning. Belmont University certainly offers all of those opportunities, but as part of the University’s vision to be a Christian community of learning and service, Belmont goes a step further. Through University Ministries and academic departments alike, students are presented opportunities to explore and strengthen their faith in meaningful ways through mission trips in the U.S. and abroad.
“Belmont’s foundation as a Christian university creates a unique opportunity in higher education to offer life-changing missions as part of our students’ experience,” said University President Dr. Bob Fisher. “We provide a place for students to find their God-given purpose through service to each other, their community and the world beyond.”
Frequently, as is the case with many health care-related missions, the trips are tied to academic pursuits, allowing students to see how their chosen field of study can impact places and cultures they never before imagined. Just last year, 250 Belmont students engaged in mission-oriented experiences with trips ranging from tutoring at an after-school program in downtown Chicago to leading songwriting workshops in Zimbabwe to providing a free health clinic in Jamaica.
University Ministries provides countless opportunities to serve as well, including many programs that are held within the continental U.S. and occur over Fall Break (Plunge trips) or Spring Break (Immersion). The most recent Spring Break trips included students serving in a variety of settings. While one group worked in an orphanage in rural Kentucky, others dove into assisting disenfranchised populations in urban areas in New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Memphis.
Junior Sean Grossnickle noted that his group in Memphis sought to serve often forgotten populations within the inner city. “On one of the first days we went and helped refugee children get extra practice reading so they could get up to the English level of their peers in school… We all wanted to get a look at what it was really like to live in modern day poverty, to see the perspectives of the people actually living it and to really change our perspective and our mindset toward the individuals living in those conditions.”
Most importantly, these trips foster students’ spiritual growth alongside the academic, physical, social and cultural challenges they face in different situations at home and abroad. Missions opportunities are central to Belmont’s foundation as a Christian institution and its intent, as spelled out in its Vision 2020 plan, to further “exemplify the Christian faith by responding to the imperative expressed in James 1:22, which states ‘Do not merely listen to the word… Do what it says.’”
(L to R: Santoru, Murray and Fuqua stand in the Senate House of the University in front of a portrait of the University’s previous Chancellor, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.)
Two Belmont Graduate M.A. in English students and one faculty member presented at an international conference at the University of London, Literary London, 2017. Lauren Santoru presented “The Subaltern Comes to the Capital: Nathanial Hawthorne’s Critique of London in Our Old Home,” Patten Fuqua presented “‘There are two Londons’: Abjection in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere” and Dr. Douglas Murray, professor of English, spoke on the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in “‘And draw her home with music’: Vaughan Williams’ Vision of a Democratic London.”
The three Belmont speakers stand in the Senate House of the University, in front of a portrait of the University’s previous Chancellor, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
Dr. Bruce Dudley, associate professor of music, recently returned from two weeks of teaching at jazz camps and performing with four Belmont students in Colombia, South America. At the invitation of Colombo Americano Centers of Medellin, Manizales and Pereira, Dudley took a jazz quartet from the School of Music made up of bassist Thomas Altman (’17), guitarist Cole Clarke (’18), drummer Brad Covington (’18) and saxophonist/flutist Max Dvorin (’18).
Over the course of two weeks, the group visited three cities in central Colombia including Medellin, Manizales and Pereira. They conducted group sessions daily for 135 students ranging from 10 – 24 years old. The Belmont Jazz Quartet, under Dudley’s direction, also presented concerts to the general public at central theaters in each city.
“Each of us will carry the memories and experiences with us for a long, long time,” Dudley said. “And perhaps, most importantly, we were able to share our love of democratic freedom of expression and artistic sensibility to students in Colombia who are eager to experience the joy of music and expression their hearts and minds through jazz music. In fact, we heard them begin to do so every day that we were there!”
Nicole Brandt, 2014 religion and the arts Belmont graduate and founder of Poverty and the Arts (POVA), was recently featured on “The Plus Side of Nashville.” As a social enterprise, POVA provides supplies, studio space, training and a marketplace for artists overcoming homelessness to create and sell artwork while gaining entrepreneurial and social skills. On “The Plus Side,” Brandt detailed POVA, how the idea was born and the ways she and her team are impacting the Nashville community.
Growing up in a small town, Brandt said she had the opportunity to spend time with a homeless community weekly during her senior year of high school. Through the relationships she built there, a new passion was formed. When she moved to Nashville to attend Belmont, Brandt said she began attending church and volunteering for a homeless ministry where she passed out donations, but it was the chance to listen to each person’s story and experiences that impacted her most.
An artist completes her work as part of POVA’s programming
“I learned the places they hated and the place most loved, like Room in the Inn,” she said. “While I enjoyed getting to know my new friends and often tried to coordinate groups of students from Belmont to come with me to Church Street Park, I knew there must be a way to make a greater impact by sharing my experience on a deeper level with more people.”
Her sophomore year, Brandt landed what she calls her “dream job,” working with Tim Stewart at Belmont’s Office of Service Learning. As the Diversity and Human Rights Campus Coordinator, Brandt was charged with developing and executing three community service projects each semester for students. “I saw this as my opportunity to recreate the environment I had experienced in Kentucky where students could genuinely get to know people experiencing homelessness,” she said. “I started to wonder what it would look like for art to be the conduit in which community members have an opportunity to sit down as equals with individuals experiencing homelessness–creative and talented human beings in the middle of a struggle, someone they can relate to.”
Soon after, Brandt worked alongside Room in the Inn to host her first POVA event where Belmont students participated in visual art, music or creative writing with members of the un-housed community. Thanks to a positive response from participants, Brandt continued hosting POVA events each semester through her position at Belmont. As graduation approached, Brandt began to realize she might have found just what she was looking to do professionally.
“I started to dream about POVA’s sustainability and about the impact it could have on the Nashville community,” she said. “After meeting with several contacts from the nonprofit field for advice, one phrase that continued to stand out was ‘Don’t repeat services.’ Nashville doesn’t need more nonprofits doing the exact same thing and competing for the same funding. This really resonated with me as I began to evaluate our program and shape its current services.”
Seeing significant talent but a lack of resources in the community, Brandt launched POVA’s Artist Collective in May 2014. Seeking to provide the resources needed to allow homeless individuals the opportunity to create art, the Collective provides an opportunity for artists to create and sell artwork as a way to earn income for themselves. “This supplemental income, made possible by their creative skills, provides greater autonomy in their day-to-day lives and allows the artists the opportunity to take control over basics like where to eat, how to get around or who to spend time with,” Brandt said.
Now, POVA has served 20 artists total, 9 of which have transitioned into housing since joining the programming. The organization has secured a rental property and transformed it into a Studio and Gallery in Wedgewood-Houston, allowing them to participate in the neighborhood’s monthly art crawl and provide ongoing exhibition opportunities to their artists.
POVA’s Studio and Gallery
Long-term, Brandt and her team hope to expand their services and increase the number of artists they serve. In addition to purchasing their own studio and gallery in the next five years, POVA hopes to provide transitional housing to their artists in the next 10 years. “By understanding the ways in which environment drives behavior, we know that our artists have the greatest possibility of succeeding when we can provide them an environment which includes a space to live, breathe, sleep and be,” Brandt said. They also hope to increase their revenue streams, and artists’ income, by expanding to retail, corporate art and teaching artist grants.
Looking back on her time at Belmont, Brandt said she can clearly identify an environment that encouraged the kindling of her dreams, while providing her with the space necessary to grapple with the challenges facing Nashville and beyond. “I devoured and analyzed books by theologians, sociologists and philosophers,” Brand said. “All struggling with the problems of the world and theorizing potential solutions. My religion professors encouraged me to think critically about my religious background and other classes began to reshape how I saw the world and my place in it.”
“My only regret,” Brandt said, “is not taking more business classes that would have provided me with foundation I needed to launch my own nonprofit! But I am extremely grateful that I was provided an environment that allowed me to nurture and grow my dream.”
A website created by Belmont students, “Nashville Shakespeare Performance Archive,” was selected for inclusion in the “Folgerpedia,” an online encyclopedia of teaching resources sponsored by the Folger Shakespeare Library. The website was funded by a grant from the Folger Shakespeare Library in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The grant and the website were organized and facilitated by two classes of Belmont students under the guidance of Drs. Marcia McDonald, Jayme Ye, and Joel Overall, with graduate student assistant Alyssa Wynans, who recently graduated from Belmont with a Master of Arts in English.
Belmont’s College of Pharmacy, in partnership with Aegis Sciences Corporation, recently celebrated the completion of its first Clinical Scientist Fellow in Drug Information, a two-year program that provides an intensive postgraduate training program focused on drug information, evidence-based practice, teaching and research. Dr. Kate Claussen, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, was the program’s first fellow.
The program is one of approximately 60 postgraduate pharmacy fellowships in the country and offers a unique training experience in areas not widely available in pharmacy training. Two new fellows, Jeneva Garland and Stephanie Manley, began their training on June 1. This program is the first drug information fellowship in Nashville and the only drug information fellowship with a healthcare laboratory component.
This summer, Belmont will send its largest group of students across the world for study abroad experiences. With more than 650 students participating in 34 programs, including Maymester trips, students will spend time in Greece, Brazil, England, France, Switzerland and Haiti, among many other locations.
Belmont’s new Director of Study Abroad Dr. Thandi Dinani said the opportunity to spend time abroad in college is an invaluable experience as participants are able to see the world in a whole new way. “Studying abroad encourages students to expand worldviews and deepen their understanding of themselves and the world,” Dinani said. “Living in a global society, it is important that our students experience and understand the interconnectedness of the world. It also prepares students for their future careers, as they learn to understand diverse perspectives and work to navigate other cultures.”
Junior corporate communication and psychological science double major Christiana Duerksen recently participated in a month-long trip to China. While there, she visited Beijing, Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, Huangshan and Shanghai, among other cities. Focused on “China Rising,” the trip was centered around understanding the Chinese culture and included four courses for credit.
Image provided by Christiana Duerksen.
While there, the group visited many landmarks including Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Shaolin Monastery, the Longmen Grottoes and Huangshan Mountain. They experienced diverse cuisine and traveled throughout the country by bus and train.
Though Duerksen has traveled abroad before, she said this trip was different. “I’ve never been somewhere so incredibly different than the US,” she said. “My favorite memories, aside from the amazing sights, were the moments all the students spent together. Because it’s a month-long trip, we developed great friendships. The best moments were getting to explore an incredible country with the people I was becoming so close with.”
As a season traveler herself, Duerksen said one of the reasons she chose Belmont was for its study abroad offerings. After having the opportunity to travel to Peru and Europe through her high school in Colorado, Duerksen said she was especially interested in an institution that could provide similar experiences. “I knew, coming into Belmont, that I wanted to study abroad,” she said. “Anyone can book a flight and a hotel to visit another country, but you can’t get this same type of experience without being there with your professors and such knowledgeable tour guides. This trip was absolutely incredible.”
A public relations senior, Johnathan Pushkar spent three weeks in Rome, Florence and Paris, among other cities, for the “Belmont in France & Italy: Culture, Cooking & Cardio” trip. While there, Pushkar earned credit for chemistry, psychology and writing courses. “My experience abroad was nothing short of extraordinary,” he said. “We tried tons of Italian and French foods, stayed on a Tuscan farm overnight, traveled by bus to amazing sites like Pompeii, Assisi and Versailles and spent time exploring the city streets of Paris, Florence and Rome!”
Image provided by Johnathan Pushkar
Having the opportunity travel to cities that are older than anywhere else he’s been, Pushkar said he was amazed at the chance to marvel at such impressive landmarks. “Everything we’ve ever seen in the States was not even in existence while these locations were in their hey day,” he said. “Most vividly, I remember making amazing friends on the trip, listening to music while driving through the Italian countryside, and taking in each and every moment knowing that this was the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Reflecting back on his time abroad, Pushkar said its the opportunity to experience personal development that means the most. “The best part of the experience was coming out of my shell and setting forth on an unexpected adventure,” he said. “I learned so much about myself traveling with a group of people who I had not met before, and the introspection that a trip abroad offers a traveler cannot be achieved at home. There is something almost surreal about standing at sites that you have only previously read about, and connecting those past lessons with the opportunity to visit historic sites will remain with me for the rest of my life.”
“Working to improve the diversity of the teaching force in Metro Nashville Public School takes all of us,” Assistant Professor and Director of Innovative Projects in Education and Coalition Steering Committee Dr. Alan Coverstone said. “The most exciting thing about the Trailblazer Coalition is that it brings together all the Educator Preparation Programs serving Davidson County schools to learn about and work to address the challenges that our teachers of color face in entering and remaining in the profession. We are all learning from each other and beginning to develop new strategies together to support teacher candidates as they prepare for and begin their careers.”
“I started to dream about POVA’s sustainability and about the impact it could have on the Nashville community,” she said. “After meeting with several contacts from the nonprofit field for advice, one phrase that continued to stand out was ‘Don’t repeat services.’ Nashville doesn’t need more nonprofits doing the exact same thing and competing for the same funding. This really resonated with me as I began to evaluate our program and shape its current services.”
Belmont’s College of Pharmacy, in partnership with Aegis Sciences Corporation, recently celebrated the completion of its first Clinical Scientist Fellow in Drug Information, a two-year program that provides an intensive postgraduate training program focused on drug information, evidence-based practice, teaching and research. Dr. Kate Claussen, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, was the program’s first fellow.
