In a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, Professor of Entrepreneurship Jeff Cornwall was quoted on his expertise in the field. The article, entitled “A Startup Sours After A Falling Out,” walks through a messy investor-entrepreneur partnership and a company’s fizzling out.
Cornwall is quoted saying, “a significant cause of failure is the pressure that investors put on entrepreneurs to lock into a business model too soon.”
To read the full article, click here.
Belmont music business alumna Ashlyne Huff Revelette, 2007, recently published her first young adult novel, “Falling Stars,” about a 17-year-old former country superstar who is trying to get back into the Nashville spotlight. The book will be released on May 1.
“Falling Stars” has earned commentary from a number of country superstars including Reba McEntire and Martina McBride. “Growing up with an insider’s look into the music business, Ashlyne writes honestly and in a relateable way about the highs and lows of being a star. Girls will relate to it because of her believable voice, as well as the lessons that are to be learned along the way,” wrote McBride.
Belmont was a strong influence in the setting of the book, the characters’ stories and the book’s production. One character attends Belmont in “Falling Stars,” and Revelette is currently writing a sequel that takes place on the University’s campus. “Another December 2007 graduate is a character in the book. In a nutshell, I wanted to do some original music for the book and have songs that were written for it, so I called Brandon Hood, alumnus of 2007 and another non-Belmont grad to write the songs with me. Once we wrote them, I figured there was no point to make up new songwriter names for the characters, so they stayed,” said Revelette.
Revelette grew up in a musical family and is a singer-songwriter herself. She was the opening act for 2011 New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys tour, giving her insight to the ins and outs of the music industry and the inspiration to write the novel. To learn more about Revelette, “Falling Stars” and the book’s two original songs, click here.
Speaking to a packed room on Wednesday, April 22, nationally syndicated columnist and editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle shared his thoughts on political commentary with Belmont students as a guest of the University’s Department of Political Science.
Cagle spoke about his artistic craft, highlighting the tension between the expressive elements of his creative process and the soft and hard censorship considerations that come with editors’ attitudes and relative levels of cultural hostility to provocative sociopolitical images around the globe.
Belmont Chair and Associate Professor of the Public Relations Department Dr. Bonnie Riechert was recently honored at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Nashville Chapter’s annual Parthenon Awards Banquet. Dr. Riechert received the 2015 Olympus Award to recognize her effective leadership in the 180-member chapter. She served as president of PRSA Nashville in 2014. and previously served as chapter president-elect, secretary, national assembly delegate and accreditation co-chair and chair.
Five Belmont student leaders served as volunteers at the event including Makenzie Albracht, Mary Anna Davis, Victoria Lewis, Arielle Schrader and Annah Smith. PRSA Nashville sponsors chapters of the Public Relations Student Society of America at Belmont University, Austin Peay State University, Lipscomb University, Middle Tennessee State University and Western Kentucky University.
Philosophy majors Colin Bodayle, Tucker Dowell and Drew Swisher recently presented papers at the 16th Annual Southern Appalachian Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, hosted by the University of North Carolina, Asheville.
Conference keynote speakers were Leonard Lawlor from Pennsylvania State University and Susanna Siegel from Harvard University, who also served as submission and presentation judges. Bodayle presented his paper, entitled “Subjective Universality in Kant’s Third Critique: Bad Faith, or Authentic Relation to the Other?” Dowell and Swisher presented their co-written work, entitled “Love.”
Colin Duriez, British scholar and author specializing in the historic accounts and secondary worlds of the Oxford Inklings, J.K. Rowling, Charles Williams and the like, visited Belmont to speak to students at multiple events on campus. Duriez presented his lecture, “The Secondary Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling: Imagination and Reality,” on Tuesday evening and followed it with other events including a chapel service and several classes.
One of Director of the Honors Program and Professor Dr. Jonathan Thorndike’s classes was able to interact with Duriez and deepen their understanding of the class textbook, his book, “The Oxford Inklings.” Duriez walked through some of the letters and diary entries from the book to present a chronological picture to the class, tying the writings to important dates in history during World War II.
“What I am trying to do is give you a picture of particularity of the meetings [of the Inklings] and the individuality of the members,” said Duriez, in order to present less of a theoretical knowledge of who the group was and more of an experience with the words on the page, which are quite substantial.
The Belmont community was honored to hear the deep passion Duriez has for some of the most influential writers of the 20th century, gaining an insight into their lives, the impactful relationships they had and the experiences which made them who they were. Duriez recently published “The Oxford Inklings” and will soon publish “Bedeviled: Lewis, Tolkien and the Shadow of Evil.”
“The students appreciated his gentle wit, humor and deep intellect that brought together the work of the Inklings and the truth of Christian faith,” said Thorndike. “By integrating narrative, myth, faith and meaning, Duriez showed how the Inklings were counter-cultural, but at the same time, profoundly in touch with the needs of a fallen world.”
To read more about Duriez and his works, click here.
Geometer and Professor at Brown University Dr. Tom Banchoff, a mathematician known world-wide for his specialization in the fourth and higher dimensions, recently gave two presentations at Belmont. Dr. Banchoff is a pioneer in applying computer graphics to the fourth dimension, thereby permitting illustration of this illusive and abstract concept.
The first talk, “Math Spans All Dimensions: Guides to the Fourth Dimension” was based on the interactive poster developed for Math Awareness Month in 2000 while Dr. Banchoff was president of the Mathematical Association of America. In our familiar three-dimensional space, visualization is an important tool. In our age of computer visualization, we can now explore phenomena in our “nearest neighbor,” the fourth dimension. Guides in this effort include Edwin Abbott Abbott (“Flatland”), Madeleine L’Engel (“A Wrinkle in Time”) and Salvador Dalí (“Corpus Hypercubus”).
The second talk was titled “The Two-Piece Property–the Geometry of Slicing Fruit” and addressed questions including ‘What can we say about objects that fall into at most two pieces when we slice them with a long knife?’ and ’How can a topic that we can describe in simple language lead to a Berkeley PhD thesis?’ The “two-piece property” turns out to be equivalent to minimal total absolute curvature, a classical topic in differential geometry that yields surprising results when we ask the same questions for polyhedral surfaces, in three-dimensional space and higher.
To see more images from Dr. Banchoff’s presentation, click here.
Assistant Professor in Belmont’s Communications Studies Department Dr. Nathan Webb recently attended two academic conferences where he presented a research paper and chaired two research panels.
Dr. Webb attended the Central States Communication Association Annual Conference in Madison, Wisconsin and presented a paper on his research on instructor self-disclosure in the classroom and chaired a panel in the Kenneth Burke division of the organization. He also attended the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Southeast Colloquium in Knoxville and chaired a panel on internship programs for communication students.
Associate Professor of Finance Dr. John S. Gonas chaired a session this week on measuring cash flows and capital structure around social entrepreneurial growth opportunities at the University of Oxford – Said Business School Social and Sustainable Finance and Impact Investing Conference. Gonas also presented a paper titled “The Social Entrepreneur as Trailblazer: A Role for the Social Enterprise in a Market Economy.” Gonas was invited to participate along with 91 other finance, economics and management professors from 22 different nationalities.
Belmont junior Betsy Lane was chosen to represent Tennessee in the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. from April 5-11 as the Tennessee Cherry Blossom Princess.
The Cherry Blossom Princess Program is a week-long experience that offers cultural and educational opportunities for young women from around the world, typically students between the ages of 19 and 24. Participants are selected by a state society or embassy based on their leadership, academic achievements and interest in social, civic, community and world affairs. Each state society selects one representative to send to the festival each year. To see the Tennessee State Society’s announcement for 2015, click here.
The mission of the program is to offer an educational experience, or “Washington classroom,” by introducing participants to many government, cultural, military and business leaders and female role models who work in the nation’s capitol.
Lane’s D.C. tour started on Easter Sunday with a lantern lighting at the Tidal Basin. A full week of activities, including a Congressional reception, dinners with the Marines and Japan Ambassador and many other events for participants followed. The week concluded with a sushi reception and Grand Ball on Friday night, followed by a parade down Pennsylvania Ave. and the Matsuri Festival. To see a detailed list of events, click here.
Lane was able to meet and form relationships with many people through the festival’s events. “I learned that the relationship between Japan and the United States is a very special one, and it’s something that we are proud of. Every year, thousands gather in Washington DC to celebrate the friendship that we share with the gifting of the Cherry Blossom Trees 103 years ago,” Lane said.
Lane explained her strong tie to Japanese relations and culture by telling the history of her great-grandparents, Harold and Pauline Lane. Lane’s grandmother was born in Sapporo, Japan in 1930 and lived there until her 11th birthday when she and her twin traveled to New York aboard the USS Gripsholm (documented in the book, “Exchange Ship,” by Marx Hill). The twins traveled to America alone, as their parents Harold and Pauline had been arrested and imprisoned shortly after the bombing of pearl harbor. In the months following, the sisters were hidden in a convent where they were sheltered until the Red Cross could arrange for an exchange ships. Harold and Pauline joined the twins in America almost one year later.
After the war, Harold and Pauline returned to Japan to help rebuild the country because of their love of missionary work. They were among the first non-military personnel allowed back into Japan and did their best to extend friendship to their adopted country. Pauline worked as a volunteer in many organizations, and Harold returned to teach at Hokudai (Hokkaido University) in Sapporo. In 1962, the Emperor of Japan bestowed upon Harold, Lane’s great grandfather, the honor of membership in The Order Of The Rising Sun, the highest honor for non-Japanese civilians.
During her week at the Cherry Blossom Festival, as she carried on her family’s Japanese history, Lane was able to volunteer in the local Washington D.C. community. She spent time at the Kennedy Institute school, an organization that advocates for students with disabilities. Lane said it was a unique opportunity, and she was impacted by the children she spent time with and her fellow princesses.
“I really loved getting to know all the other states’ princesses throughout the week. Each state, U.S. territory and even International Embassies are represented. Because of this program, I now have best friends in Hawaii, Vermont, Utah, New Mexico and Minnesota, and now women from American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. There were even international princesses! So now I have friends in Italy, Mexico and Lithuania.”
To see more from Lane, follow her on twitter, or click here. For more information on the Cherry Blossom Festival, click here.
