Assistant Professor of Entertainment Industry Studies Dr. Sarita Stewart was recently appointed to serve as a mentor in the Project Music Accelerator Program. This music technology accelerator program is now in its second year at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center and was put in place by the EC to help support innovation within this key Nashville business sector.
Project Music serves to “meet the unique needs of music-minded entrepreneurs building music-driven startups.” With support from CMA, LaunchTN and Youtube, Project Music will begin in January 2016 and end in May.
Belmont students, alumni and faculty participated in the 139th International Audio Engineering Society Convention held in New York City’s Javits Center Oct. 29 – Nov. 1.
Senior audio engineering technology majors Ross Collier, Jessie Brock and Nick Lobel submitted their recent recordings in two categories, traditional studio and modern studio, in the AES Student Recording Competition. Judges for this event include respected recording engineers, mastering engineers and educators. Alumnus and recent gold prize winner in the traditional studio category Cory Wilhite also attended. Brock and Lobel received the silver award in modern studio recording and received recording-related prizes from the sponsors.
Bulla presents his paper
College of Entertainment and Music Business Professor Dr. Wesley Bulla presented the lead-off academic research paper in audio perception at conference titled “Detection of High-Frequency Harmonics in a Complex Tone.” Bulla’s experiment, a spin-off from his Auditory Perception and Hearing Science class, was the result of two listening tests investigating student and professional thresholds for differences in timbre and looking for an influence of high-frequency harmonics on timbre perception. In light of hype around the advent of consumer high-resolution audio, reviewers of the paper stated, “The topic is very important in the Audio Engineering Society considering the current movement to the high-resolution immersive audio reproduction.”
Lobel presented research conducted with students Wilhite, Jeremy Deardorff and Jack Mocherman under the direction of Bulla and Assistant Professor of Audio Engineering Technology Dr.Eric Tarr with the help of Michael Janas. Their study investigated whether listeners could discriminate between real-time (RT) and double-speed (DS) digital transfers from analog tape recordings. Signals were recorded to tape at 15 inches per second (ips), then digitized at two copy rates: 15 ips (RT) and 30 ips (DS). The DS transfers were digitally time-stretched and spectrally processed to match the duration and frequency response of the RT transfers. 31 listeners participated in an experiment to discriminate between the RT and DS transfers. Results show discrimination between RT and DS transfers was not statistically significant. Additionally, discrimination did not vary significantly across source signals.
Nashville Panel
AET Instructor Jim Kaiser organized and moderated two Nashville production-focused workshops. The first, “Sound of ABC’s Nashville,” featured guest presenters from the show’s audio technical team. Matt Andrews (production sound mixer), Mike Poole (music mixer), Fred Paragano (dialog editor), Michael Colomby (sound re-recording mixer), Rich Weingart (sound re-recording mixer) and Glen Trew (production sound mixer) engaged the audience in an explanation of the audio production process involved in the television series and played segments of unique ‘live music performance-based’ shows.
Kaiser’s second workshop focused on the music production for Kacey Musgraves’s ‘Same Trailer Different Park’. This session featured the technical story behind this critically-acclaimed break-out record, from the selection of Nashville’s historic RCA A (Grand Victor) Studio for the initial tracks to final mastering by Andrew Mendelson at his Georgetown Masters facility. The audience was treated to an in-depth look at Musgraves’s hit singles (“Merry Go Round” & “Follow Your Arrow”) that defined this seminal recording.
Kaiser also chaired and participated in convention meetings of the Convention Policy Committee, Technical Committee on Recording Technology & Practices, Education Committee and the Board of Governors.
Assistant Professor of Business Dr. Haskell Murray presented on “Advisory Boards and Constituency Directors” at the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on Nov. 14
For more information on the conference, click here.
Belmont’s Jack C. Massey College of Business hosted its inaugural Business Ethics Workshop on Friday, Nov. 20. Speakers for the event included:
Rich Brody, fraud prevention and forensic accounting global leader from University of New Mexico
Zabihollah Rezaee, internationally recognized expert in sustainability from University of Memphis
Terry Clark, professor of marketing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Harry VanBuren, corporate responsibility expert from University of New Mexico
John Fraedrich, co-author of a leading business ethics textbook and professor of ,arketing and jannetides chair at SIU Carbondale
Jan Williams, former dean of the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee and emeritus faculty
Pat Raines, dean of the Belmont’s College of Business
Harold Fogelberg, director of the Edward C. Kennedy Center for Business Ethics
Shinobu Garrigues-Pula, corporate counsel with Caterpillar Financial
Alfonzo Alexander, president of the NASBA Center for the Public Trust
The workshop was co-chaired by O.C. and Linda Ferrell, distinguished professors of leadership and business ethics at Belmont, and was designed to help faculty and graduate students understand emerging topics and best practices in teaching business ethics and applying these critically important concepts.
Linda Ferrell said, “Belmont University is in the unique position of being able to take a leadership position in business ethics. The Edward C. Kennedy Center for Business Ethics, Jack C. Massey College of Business faculty and national connections through the NASBA Center for the Public Trust, Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative and work with a variety of businesses give the University some unique experience and capability.”
O.C. Ferrell said, “Attendees from Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois and New Mexico represented the diversity of interests and the importance of discussions of business ethics education. There was a real electricity in the room and attendees were engaged and interactive as they spent they day immersed in business ethics discussions.”
Deborah Farringer, assistant professor in the College of Law, was recently announced as a member of the Tennessee Bar Association’s 2016 Leadership Law Program. Farringer is one of 33 attorneys who will take part in the program.
Now in its 13th year, Leadership Law is designed to equip Tennessee lawyers with the vision, knowledge and skills necessary to serve as leaders in their profession and local communities. The class will meet for its first session in January, and then spend the next six months learning about leadership in the legal profession, issues in the courts, policy making in state government and the importance of community service.
Belmont student members of Beta- Beta-Beta, ECO, and SMACS , along with Dr. John Niedzwiecki, faculty advisor for ECO, participated in ReLeafing Day, the Nashville Tree Foundation’s fall planting event. Held every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, ReLeafing Day was held in the Northwest Nashville neighborhoods of Bordeaux, Haynes Manor, Haynes Park, in public parks and along Titans Way with the Cumberland River Compact. Volunteers across the county come to plant trees in public spaces and private yards.
Belmont’s team planted four trees with the Nashville Tree Foundation. In partnership with Nashville Electric Service, the Tree Foundation has planted hundreds of trees that coexist with power lines since ReLeafing Day began in 2002.
Belmont’s Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business hosted their annual Best Job Ever conference on Saturday, Nov. 14. The event is an all-day conference designed to expose students to a wide-range of careers within the entertainment industry and provide ample networking opportunities. The day began with a keynote speaker, Marcie Allen of Mac Presents (inset left), followed by 20 panels presented by entertainment industry professionals. Approximately 200 students attended the conference along with 60 professionals from Nashville, Los Angeles and New York.
Young Entertainment Professionals sponsored an after-conference event at Ocean Way to provide additional networking opportunities for students including dinner and a special performance by Devin Dawson, Baylor Wilson and Louisa Wendorff.
The event was held in Belmont’s newest building, The R. Milton and Denice Johnson Center.
Dr. Cheryl Slay Carr, Associate Professor of Music Business, presented “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Classroom: Teaching Diversity In the Entertainment Industry,” during a breakfast meeting of Belmont faculty on Friday, Nov 20.
Carr’s talk included pedagogical insights from designing and delivering an Honors course called “Diversity in the Entertainment Industry: Understanding the Business of Jazz.” The course explores jazz and its commercialization as a context for teaching critical thinking about racial, ethnic and gender diversity. Carr serves as a member of the University’s Welcome Home team which recently sponsored Belmont’s first Diversity week, a week-long series of activities held to heighten awareness of diversity initiatives on campus.
Belmont’s College of Health Sciences and Nursing hosted the Eighth Annual Tennessee Simulation Conference Nov. 19-20. The conference included speakers and various sessions teaching more about available simulation products in the industry and best practices for incorporating simulation into education.
Friday afternoon included a simulation product fair with Laerdal, i-Human and SimUCare, among others.
From the University of Delaware, SimuCare brought the SimUTrach, a wearable chest that represents a patient who has a tracheostromy. Watch this SimUCare Simulation from founder Amy Cowperthwait to understand how this product replaces the comfort of working on a manikin. This way, nursing students recieve practice reactions, such as breathing, blinking and coughing, from a real person. Similarly, Marie Gonzales from i-Human Patients explained their computer-based program that allows nursing students to have virtual patient encounters. “The program helps the students learn cognitive reasoning. They must be asking the right questions to give the right diagnosis,” she said. “Simulation is a safe learning enviornment. It’s low stress, self-directed and realistic. It gives the students the practice they need before they get to clinicals.”
Dean of the College of Health Sciences and Nursing Dr. Cathy Taylor talked about the great opportunity Belmont has with the vendors on campus and by seeing their products. “Beth Hallmark is such a leader. Through her work, Belmont has been put on the map, both in the southeastern region and nationally, in this emerging science,” she said.
Assistant Professor at Tennessee State University Dalphine Burdick Presents her Poster on the Importance of Simulation
Belmont University ranked No. 18 on The Institute of International Education’s recently released “Open Doors Report,” a comprehensive ranking of U.S. schools by the number of students studying abroad, in conjunction with the start of International Education Week. This is a significant increase from Belmont’s No. 29 ranking last year. Of short-term programs, Belmont is ranked No. 12 in its category.
The report found the number of U.S. students studying abroad increased by five percent in 2013-14, the highest rate of growth since before the 2008 economic downturn. While study abroad by American students has more than tripled in the last two decades, reaching a new high of 304,467, still only about 10 percent of U.S. students study abroad before graduating from college.
The report is published annually by the Institute of International Education in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Assistant Professor of Entertainment Industry Studies Dr. Sarita Stewart was recently appointed to serve as a mentor in the Project Music Accelerator Program. This music technology accelerator program is now in its second year at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center and was put in place by the EC to help support innovation within this key Nashville business sector.
Belmont’s Jack C. Massey College of Business hosted its inaugural Business Ethics Workshop on Friday, Nov. 20. Speakers for the event included:
Belmont student members of 
The day began with a keynote speaker, Marcie Allen of Mac Presents (inset left), followed by 20 panels presented by entertainment industry professionals. Approximately 200 students attended the conference along with 60 professionals from Nashville, Los Angeles and New York.
