Belmont alumna Emily Reid (’13) is featured on the cover of School Ties, the alumni magazine of St. Michaels University School (SMUS) in Saanich, Canada. The photo shows Reid singing “West Coast Waters” in a farewell concert to her band teacher last year. Click here to view the video. In the article, she talks about her musical education at SMUS and Belmont, and why it is so important to her career. Click here to read the article, which begins on page 12.
Belmont Alumna Featured on Magazine Cover
Murphree Talks Spiders, Insects at Community Events
Dr. Steve Murphree, professor of biology, participated in Charlotte’s Web Day at the Adventure Science Center on July 12. The day was a celebration of the birthday of children’s author E.B. White and his classic book. Families could experience farm fun and learn more about the amazing animals depicted in the story. Murphree, an entomologist, had a floor exhibit on spiders where people could learn about spiders and the amazing webs they build. He also gave a talk on spiders as they relate to Charlotte’s Web. Murphree’s pet tarantula, Rosie, got a lot of attention.
He also spoke at the The Warner Park Nature Center’s 21st annual Insects of the Night program on July 18 during an event to celebrate moths, katydids and other nocturnal six-legged critters through games, demonstrations, crafts and puppet shows. Murphree, had live scorpions, termites and other arthropods on display. He has participated in all 21 Insects of the Night programs.
Chen Appointed to State Performance Excellence Board Of Examiners
Dr. Dennis C. Chen, assistant professor of management, has been appointed by the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (TNCPE) to the 2014 Board of Examiners. Each year, the TNCPE award program recognizes local, regional and statewide organizations that demonstrate excellence in business operations and results.
As an examiner, Chen is responsible for reviewing and evaluating organizations that apply for the TNCPE Award. The Board of Examiners comprises experts from all sectors of the regional economy, including health care, service, nonprofit, manufacturing, education and government. All members of the Board of Examiners must complete extensive training in the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Examiners take the skills and expertise developed during training and the assessment process back to their own jobs, benefiting and improving their own organizations in the process.
Each year, the TNCPE Board of Examiners contributes more than 10,000 hours of volunteer service to organizations across Tennessee.
Curb College Professor, Student Record Colombian Ensemble
Dr. David Tough, associate professor, and Curb College students Andrew Christenberry and Jake Minnes recently recorded the 17-piece musical ensemble El Guamo from the country of Columbia at Belmont’s Quonset Hut studio. The group traveled to Nashville, Tennessee on a state department grant and were hosted in collaboration with the Music Without Borders program at Tennessee State University.
Viral Video Launches Alumni Benji, Jenna Cowart into National Spotlight
Belmont alumni Benji (’96) and Jenna (’95) Cowart made headlines and national TV this week with their music video response to the popular “Rude” single by Canadian reggae band Magic! The creative cover is in response to “Rude,” a song in which the singer asks a father’s permission to marry his daughter and then questions the father’s refusal, noting “Why you gotta be so rude?… I’m gonna marry her anyway.”
Cowart, a father of three, wanted to provide the father’s perspective and offered a humorous, acoustic response that has scored national attention. In addition to a story in The Tennessean, the Cowarts have been featured in USA Today, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Huffington Post and MTV.com. The video is approaching six million views on YouTube, and the couple has now added a higher quality version for download on iTunes.
Diaz-Cruz Contributes to Cancer Research Study
Dr. Edgar Diaz-Cruz, assistant professor of pharmacy, was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Oncology, for research he and his colleagues conducted on human pancreatic cancer. The study, entitled “Human pancreatic cancer-associated stellate cells remain activated after in vivo chemoradiation,” showed that human tumor-derived pancreatic stellate cells survive both in vivo chemo- and radiotherapy. The data supports the idea that stellate cells play an essential role in supporting and promoting pancreatic cancer and may lead to new treatments targeting the pancreatic tumor microenvironment. The team included researchers from the National Cancer Informatics Program, the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, the University of Texas, the German Research Center for Environmental Health and ETH Zurich in Switzerland.
Greenwalt Earns Specialty Certification
Suzanne Greenwalt, an instructor in the School of Physical Therapy, recently received certification as a Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Specialist from the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties (ABPTS). ABPTS is the national governing body for certification of clinical specialists in physical therapy. Less than 200 physical therapists are certified in this particular specialty, and Greenwalt is the first physical therapist in Tennessee to gain this credential.
“It’s quite an accomplishment,” said Dr. Renee Brown, the chairman of Belmont’s School of Physical Therapy, “and it’s great for our program. The knowledge and experience she has gained will enhance her teaching and benefit our students. We congratulate her.”
Cardiovascular and pulmonary physical therapy provides treatment for individuals who suffer from cardiovascular and pulmonary conditions, such as heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pulmonary fibrosis, to increase endurance and improve functional independence. To gain certification, Greenwalt was required to provide 2,000 hours of direct care of patients with conditions involving the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems in both acute and rehabilitation settings.
Belmont Students Serve with Project Transformation Tennessee
Three Belmont students are working with Project Transformation Tennessee, which seeks to address three unique challenges with one program: meet the academic, physical, and spiritual needs of children from low-income communities; provide meaningful ways for college-age young adults to explore ministry opportunities and develop as young principled leaders for the church and the world; and help revitalize churches.
Project Transformation Tennessee harnesses the creative energy and ideas of young adults who live in intentional Christian community and who plan and implement free summer day camp programs for children and youth in under served neighborhoods. The programs are held at United Methodist churches located in the heart of low-income neighborhoods, thereby helping those churches connect in meaningful ways with their communities.
Three Belmont students serving with Project Transformation are Casey Enright (a sophomore church leadership and administration major), Christine Anderson (a sophomore social entrepreneurship major) and Natalie Webb (a junior social work major).
Enright said, “This is my first year working with Project Transformation, and it has been a life changing summer. Not only am I building a relationship with the kids that I work with, but also my fellow interns and different organizations that we meet through our organization.”
‘Riding with a Reason’ Team Completes Trip, Achieves Fundraising Goal
Rising Belmont senior Brennon Mobley and rising junior James Richfield, along with alumnus JD Hartwig (’14), recently completed their cross-country Riding with a Reason trip. The 3,300-mile bike trip started in Oceanside, Oregon in mid-May and was completed in Washington, D.C. last week, raising more than $58,000 along the way for 147 Million Orphans, a Middle Tennessee-based nonprofit organization that raises awareness for orphans and provides them with food, water and medication. The funds will be used to finance a school building in Mount Olivos, Honduras and fill it with basic supplies, desks, chairs, books and uniforms as well as secure teachers’ salaries.
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., made a statement in front of Congress on June 27, honoring the team for their good work, noting, “Cycling across the country is a certainly a noble endeavor. Nobler still are the 147 million reasons these three men are offering up their summer with blood, sweat, tears and bike tires… I ask my colleagues to join with me in celebrating the loving-kindness of Brennon Mobley, James Richfield and JD Hartwig as we all continue the sacred work of protecting and serving the least among us.”
Read more about the Riding with a Reason trip here.
Frist, Gates Lead Conversation at Belmont on ‘Mother & Child Project’
Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., founder of Hope Through Healing Hands, and Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, led a community conversation Monday in Belmont’s Maddox Grand Atrium on “The Mother & Child Project: Simple Steps to Saving Lives in the Developing World.” This was the first public event held by the Faith-Based Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children Worldwide, a joint partnership of Hope Through Healing Hands (HTHH), a Nashville-based global health organization, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
More than 250 individuals representing the faith community, global health NGO and higher-education sectors throughout greater Nashville attended the discussion, hosted by Belmont University. In addition to opening the event, Belmont Provost Dr. Thomas Burns and Hope Through Healing Hands (HTHH) Executive Director Dr. Jenny Eaton Dyer also announced that this fall they would award the first Frist Global Health Fellowship to enable a Belmont graduate student to be immersed for a semester in a global health experience.
U.S. Olympic figure skating champion Scott Hamilton, who with his wife Tracie is an active global health advocate, moderated the event, posing questions to Frist and Gates about their experiences.
“As I began to talk with women around the world, it became very clear to me the spacing and timing of pregnancies we take for granted in the U.S. is a matter of life and death for them,” said Gates. “So I got very involved in contraceptives, because it truly starts the cycle of life, where they can feed their children, get their children in school, and honestly, not die themselves.”
Sen. Frist agreed, saying, “Contraception is a pro-life cause.” He went on to explain that, “…if you delay first pregnancy to 18 years old, you can increase survival in countries where one in 39 women die in childbirth, and cut the chance of children dying by 30 percent, enabling them to stay in school and become productive members of families.”
“Second, if you can push out the interval between pregnancies to three year period, the child is twice as likely to survive the newborn stage.”
Today, more than 200 million women in developing countries want the ability to plan if and when they become pregnant, but lack access to information about planning their families. Increasing access to a range of contraceptive options, and providing women with the ability to time and space their births, is critical to improving the health of mothers and children.
At the event, Gates reflected on her upbringing in Dallas, Texas, where she attended Catholic parochial school from grades K-12, and confirmed she remains a practicing member of the Catholic Church. While Gates recognizes the tension between her work and the Church’s position on contraceptives, she has found common ground on healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies, even though organizations embrace different tools to achieve it.
Sen. Frist expressed his support for Gates’s efforts, explaining that the Faith-based Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children Worldwide has a critical role to play in engaging members of the faith community to help disseminate this simple message.
He likened this initiative to a similar movement of Americans in 2002 that shared a vision with houses of worship across all faiths, which lead to the support and eventual funding of PEPFAR, the largest health initiative in history that turned the tide on the HIV/AIDS.
“The millions of people dying of HIV/AIDS worldwide led to a major U.S. tax-payer led movement to save lives, resulting in more than what is now 12.9 million individuals currently on anti-retroviral medicine,” he said, noting the Coalition’s efforts could save over 287,000 women’s lives each year.
The Faith Based Coalition on Healthy Mothers and Children Worldwide’s mission is to galvanize support among faith leaders across the U.S. on the issues of maternal, newborn and child health in developing countries. The coalition will place a particular emphasis on the benefits of healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies, including access to a range of contraceptive options, in alignment with its members’ unifying values and religious beliefs.
Several faith leaders already involved in this issue also participated in the program by echoing their support of this new initiative. “The best way to see change in Africa is to change the lives of African mothers,” said Steve Taylor, recording artist and filmmaker.
Jena Lee Nardella, co-founder with Jars of Clay of Blood:Water Mission, shared their experience in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. “We were inspired not by the statistics, but by the compelling stories. As a Church, let’s not forget to tell the story, but make it personal.”
Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church, added, “The Evangelical church is often accused of loving the child and not the mother; but in doing so, we lose God’s mosaic. We believe in ‘Imago Dei,’ the dignity of every human being.”
“It all comes down to the mother and child nexus and the healthy timing and spacing of births,” Sen. Frist concluded.
