IMPORTANT NOTE: These are the archived stories for Belmont News & Achievements prior to June 26, 2023. To see current stories, click here.

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Belmont University Names Dr. Mary Clark as Director of Multicultural Learning and Experience

Hope Buckner
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Belmont University Names Dr. Mary Clark as Director of Multicultural Learning and Experience

Belmont announced today that Dr. Mary Clark has been appointed as Director of Belmont’s newly created Office of Multicultural Learning and Experience (MLE). Since coming to Belmont in 2014, Clark has provided innovative leadership to the Bridges to Belmont program as it has grown to include four cohorts and more than 100 students. In her new role, Clark will lead the Office in its charge to serve Belmont’s student-centered community by providing academic and experiential multicultural learning opportunities that serve the university’s mission to engage and transform the world.

In managing the daily operations of the Office, Clark will provide institutional leadership to support, strengthen and expand Belmont’s culture of inclusion and diversity by collaboratively partnering with diversity initiatives across campus including the University’s Welcome Home Team, a senior leadership advisory committee focused on racial and ethnic diversity. Focusing on creating culturally diverse conversations, the MLE will permeate all aspects of campus life as it supports awareness events across campus, establishes its own programming surrounding key diversity and inclusivity topics and creates new initiatives and opportunities for diverse experiences.

Belmont Provost Dr. Thomas Burns said, “I am very excited that Dr. Clark is willing to take on the additional role of Director of Multicultural Learning and Experience.  Her work with engaging students, faculty, and staff in conversations and collaborations around important issues has been exemplary.  Expanding her opportunity to lead these initiatives as the Director of Multicultural Learning and Experience will be foundational for the University and help us serve our students, faculty, and staff though new programs and new opportunities.”

The development of the MLE at Belmont allows the institution to take a proactive, educational approach to providing faculty, staff and students with opportunities to further develop and engage their cultural competencies. Serving as the central location for administration and corporate diversity planning, the MLE will continue to infuse existing structures with opportunities to increase multicultural knowledge, advance the campus dialogue on multicultural literacies and provide resources to campus constituents to enhance their foundational knowledge.

Clark said, “I am honored to serve Belmont and its community through the work of the MLE. As we embrace the premise that all people are created by God to serve Him and one another in ways that are reflective of our talents and gifts, we become a true reflection of God’s diverse creation, humanity.”

Farringer Quoted in Article

Hope Buckner
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Farringer Quoted in Article

deborahfarringerDeborah Farringer, assistant professor in the College of Law, was recently quoted in an article published in The San Diego Union-Tribune. The article, “Tri-City, UCSD finalize affiliation agreement,” highlights the partnership recently forged between the two entities.

Farringer shares her perspective from experiences with similar partnership creations.

Belmont Receives Grant to Develop Online Performance Archive of Local Shakespeare Productions

Hope Buckner
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Drs. Marcia McDonald, Jayme Yeo and Joel Overall, all from the English Department, were awarded a grant from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities for “Improving the Undergraduate Teaching of Shakespeare.” This grant will fund the development of an online performance archive of local Shakespeare productions, beginning with this fall’s Nashville Shakespeare Festival production of The Comedy of Errors.

Students in McDonald’s Shakespeare class will conceptualize and gather the raw materials for this archive, students in Overall’s digital literacies class will build and design the digital archive. The Bunch Library will house the archive, representing an initial project for the library to host knowledge bases created by Belmont students and faculty.

Though global Shakespeare productions have long been archived digitally, this project represents one of the early contributions to the study of “local” Shakespeare—the investigation of the way Shakespeare is interpreted by and interprets local cultures and topical issues. This is also a project in “digital humanities,” a rapidly expanding field focusing on the intersection of the traditional humanities with digital media.

Drs. McDonald and Yeo participated in a two-day workshop for grant recipients at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D. C., in June, on Teaching Shakespeare to Undergraduates. Belmont  was chosen as one of 21 grant recipients.

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Dr. Marcia McDonald
joel_overall
Dr. Joel Overall
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Dr. Jayme Yeo

Murray Performs at Association of Lutheran Church Musicians Meeting

Hope Buckner
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Murray Performs at Association of Lutheran Church Musicians Meeting

doug_murrayDouglas Murray, English, was recently invited to improvise three organ chorale preludes in the style of J. S. Bach at the 2016 meeting of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians in Franklin, Tennessee.

The subject of the conference was “Bach for Everyone,” featuring the heritage of Lutheranism’s greatest composer. Murray has also been selected as one of three finalists in the University of Michigan Improvisation Competition to be held on 2 October in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Fyke Publishes Cases in Organizational and Managerial Communication

Hope Buckner
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Fyke Publishes Cases in Organizational and Managerial Communication

J Fyke Brew PhotoDr. Jeremy Fyke, Department of Communication Studies, served as lead editor of Cases in Organizational and Managerial Communication: Stretching Boundaries, released Thursday, August 24. Given the interest in engaged scholarship and more flexible and virtual forms within organizational communication, cases in this volume cross diverse areas within the field and related disciplines.

Cases cover recently-emerging and longstanding topics and populations in organizational communication literature that play an important role in today’s global economy (e.g., social media, transnational organizations, blogging, cybervetting, leadership and consulting). Additionally, the book offers a unique pedagogical approach to the diverse array of topics that Fyke and his co-editors call “Take a Stand.” This method encourages students, instructors, and practitioners in various fields to engage in case study learning through a multi-stage process.

Faculty Present at International Writing Conference

Hope Buckner
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Bonnie Smith Whitehouse, English, Andrea Stover, English and Jim Al-Shamma, theatre, presented at the International Writing Across the Curriculum conference at the University of Michigan on June 25.

Their presentation, which showed how writing can be infused in the curriculum as the result of assessment in Belmont’s signature Bell Core courses, was the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration that began at last year’s workshops sponsored by the Teaching Center.

Julseth Presents at American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese

Hope Buckner
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Dr. David C. Julseth, Department of Foreign Languages, recently presented on the experience of the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage as a way to teach Spanish language and culture at the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) conference held in Miami. Co-presenter Dr. Mercedes Meier, Spanish professor at Miami Dade College, is the author of ¡Buen camino! – a Spanish reader that Julseth uses in some of his Spanish courses.

¡Buen camino! is a fictional story about a college student who travels to Spain to walk the pilgrimage, practice Spanish and have a cultural immersion experience. Julseth has developed class activities that complement the reader and the final project for his students was to create a video skit inspired by their reading that the students recorded on the Sculpture Trail at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art. During the conference presentation, Julseth and Meier spoke about their own experiences walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain and shared helpful advice for future pilgrims.

More Than 2,000 Students Head into Nashville During Orientation to ‘Serve’

Hope Buckner
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More Than 2,000 Students Head into Nashville During Orientation to ‘Serve’

As students across the state are moving into residence halls, learning new procedures and having photos taken for campus IDs at orientation, more than 2,000 freshman and transfer students at Belmont University spent Monday afternoon participating in community service as part of the university’s annual SERVE.

A tradition that’s marked Belmont’s orientation process for more than a decade, the event allows Nashville’s newest Bruins to spend time in their new home with their orientation groups. This year, students were spread out among 32 sites including Rocketown, Cumberland River Compact, SaddleUp! and Cottage Cove Urban Ministries.

Before their dismissal into the city, participating students were welcomed by Director of Nashville’s Mayor’s Office of Diversity and Community Engagement Lonnell Matthews. Belmont’s President Dr. Bob Fisher also spent time speaking to the group prior to their send-off.

New motion picture major and Nashville native Madison Eby served at Rocketown, a local concert venue and skate park that hosts events for youth. While there, Eby and her team completed a variety of tasks including painting and cleaning offices and the venue and organizing event flyers. As a native, Eby said she often overlooks opportunities to serve in her hometown, and the opportunity to participate in SERVE with her fellow Bruins was inspiring.

0822-SERVE“People are changing the world here in my backyard, and I’m so glad I got to experience that with my new Belmont family,” Eby said. “Participating in SERVE gave me an opportunity to give back to my community while also engaging with peers and learning their own stories. The fact that Belmont gives its students the opportunity to give back in their new home blows my mind. It allows us to understand the true mission of our university and how important it is to put others above ourselves.”

Director of New Student Orientation Programs Ryan Holt said the choice to include a service component into students’ first week on campus is intentional. “Students are not just joining the Belmont community–they are joining the Nashville community. As we strive to be ‘Nashville’s University,’ we want students walking away from their college experience with a better understanding of what it means to be an upright citizen of both Belmont and Nashville,” he said.

Beyond the charge to become better citizens, Holt and his team believe each member of the Belmont community is called to be a servant. SERVE is an exciting opportunity to keep that calling in mind during orientation. “Here at Belmont, we believe that all students have been given gifts. From talents, to resources, to opportunities-each new student has received much,” Holt said. “But we also know these gifts aren’t for us, but have been given so we may give. SERVE stands as a reminder for new students that this life is about giving. It is about utilizing what we have been given in order to bless another.”

Belmont Law Welcomes 104 Students for Fall 2016

April Hefner
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Belmont Law Welcomes 104 Students for Fall 2016

Belmont University College of Law recently welcomed the Class of 2019, which is comprised of 104 students hailing from 19 states and 51 undergraduate institutions. The number of students enrolling increased by 17 percent compared to the previous year. The College of Law’s applicant pool also experienced a strong increase of 25 percent.

“We attribute these increases primarily to our achieving full accreditation by the American Bar Association, our 94 percent bar pass rate for first-time takers, and our 87.5 percent employment rate,” said Belmont Law Dean Alberto Gonzales.

With the increase in quantity also came an increase in quality. The College of Law’s median LSAT and GPA markers increased with the recent entering class, 155 and 3.42 respectively. The quality credentials place Belmont well into the top-half of all ABA-approved law schools based on aggregate LSAT and GPA percentiles. This continuing trend is expected to yield additional high bar passage rates for the law school.

 

Belmont Tops 7,770 Students for Fall 2016

April Hefner
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Belmont Tops 7,770 Students for Fall 2016

Record-breaking enrollment draws more than 2,000 new undergraduates to campus

Belmont’s fall 2016 semester kicked off today with a record-breaking enrollment number for the 16th consecutive year as the University welcomed 7,771 students to the first day of classes. This enrollment number is 260 percent of its fall 2000 enrollment of 2,976 students. Belmont’s sustained and incremental growth is being accomplished through traditional, residential education.

Applications for freshman admissions for Fall 2016 saw a significant increase of 18 percent and resulted in the University’s largest freshman class to date with 1,613 students, eclipsing the previous freshman class record from last year of 1,392. Belmont also continues to be among the top destinations for transfer students as 465 transfers joined the campus this fall. Graduate program applications attracted 633 new students to the University’s master and doctoral programs, also an all-time record.

Belmont President Dr. Bob Fisher said, “After celebrating our 125th anniversary last year, I can’t help but wonder what the Belmont College founders would think were they to witness the more than 7,700 students walking through this beautiful campus today to attend their first fall classes. The growth this University has experienced, particularly in the past decade, is astonishing, but what makes me most proud is that our faculty and staff continue to put students first. No one at Belmont is a number. Here, every student’s success is our priority, and I believe that emphasis is what continues to attract so many to make Belmont their collegiate home.”

This year’s incoming freshman class hails from 48 states and represents 8 foreign countries, with 79 percent of the class originating from outside of Tennessee. As a group, Belmont’s Class of 2020 scored an average of 26 on the ACT and held an average high school GPA of 3.6. Of those submitting a class ranking, 28 percent were in the top 10 percent of their graduating class, with 59 percent in the top quarter. Belmont’s student body currently consists of 6,347 undergraduate students and 1,424 pursuing graduate/professional paths.

Associate Provost and Dean of Enrollment David Mee added, “The story of Belmont continues to be one of national and international significance. In addition to the tremendous enrollment growth, this University has set a wonderful example of how a mission-focused institution can be counted among the nation’s finest collegiate options while remaining true to what sets it apart from the more than 3,000 options prospective students have when beginning their search for the right university.”

Beyond enrollment growth, Belmont begins the fall with multiple new academic programs as well, including undergraduate majors in Public Health, Global Leadership Studies and Sport Administration, bringing the total undergraduate areas of study to more than 90 programs. Additionally, new graduate programs in Audio Engineering and Mental Health Counseling enrolled their inaugural classes this semester.

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