Belmont University held a number of notable events during the past two weeks to celebrate and honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., including a visit from keynote speaker Taylor Branch Friday morning. A Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Branch wove comments on the recent film Selma into his remarks. Teaching on historical movements and the catalysts that spark them, Branch said movements are started by moments that move an individual to act, speak up and believe in something. “That’s what a movement is,” he said. “It’s something like the language of emotion, connecting you to things that are an emotional challenge to you.”
Branch said that people do not learn from abstract analysis, which is vague and reprogrammable, depending on the content. People learn from personal experiences that spark something inside of them. “Personal experiences move us in ways that scramble our ideas of what’s real and possible,” he said.
These moving moments resurfaced as Branch discussed several scenes from Selma. For instance, Branch describes Dr. King’s call to end the march and go back to the church as the “peak of his leadership.” Even though many did not agree with the decision, Branch said, “It shows you the complexity of ideas involved in keeping a movement going to engage in larger possibilities. He kept alive the possibility of a voting rights act.”
As a show of gratitude to its neighbors in Metro Council Districts 17, 18 and 19, Belmont University hosted the community to watch the men’s basketball team play Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) rival UT Martin last night for the University’s seventh annual Community Day.
In the seven years since Community Day’s creation, the event has continued to grow and Director of Community Relations Joyce Searcy said the University is honored to provide the experience to more and more neighbors each year. “One of the reasons why Belmont thrives is because we are surrounded by a community that supports and partners with us. Community Day is Belmont’s way of saying ‘thank you’ to our neighbors.”
After a recent announcement of a recipe alteration for the Cadbury Egg, 2011 music business alumna Barbara “Boo” Detch put her feelings into song. The witty youtube video has since skyrocketed to over 36,000 views, and Detch has been featured on news outlets all over the United Kingdom, as well as a recent BuzzFeed 
More than 200 university students carried on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Saturday when they spent five hours volunteering at the fifth annual MLK Day of Service. Students from Belmont, Lipscomb, Trevecca Nazarene, Vanderbilt and Tennessee State Universities gathered at TSU’s Kean Hall to celebrate and honor King through a day of community service. The 
The Corporation for National and Community Service awarded the universities a $2,500 grant to complete the service projects. Throughout the day, students were assigned to one of seven sites and participated in a number of service activities. At Hadley Towers and I.W. Gernert, students created and dispersed disaster preparedness kits for senior residents. Others packed and sorted food boxes at Feed the Children. At Soles4Souls, students sorted shoe donations, while those assigned to Habitat Restore sorted building supplies. At Project C.U.R.E., students sorted donated medical supplies, and participants at Bailey Middle School painted the school cafeteria.
Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Dr. Anthony Blash was recently selected as one of 13 professionals featured in the 2014 publication of Careers in Health Information Technology, a health information technology (HIT) textbook by Brian T. Malec.
Assistant Professor of Law Deborah Farringer and Nashville Attorney Thomas Bartrum (Baker Donelson) co-authored “They’re Back! The Rise of the Narrow Network in Health Care Exchanges and How it May Impact Academic Medical Centers,” an article that was recently published in
