Honors Associate Professor Kristine LaLonde was named a finalist for the Nashville Business Journal‘s 2013 Women of Influence Awards in the inspiration and mentor category. LaLonde coordinates and teaches the courses for the Honors leadership studies program, Project LEAD. Project LEAD works with students to help them become more effective and engaged citizens through study, discussion, and community-based projects.
Award winners will be named March 1 during an awards luncheon at Loews Vanderbilt Hotel.
Dr. Ronnie Littlejohn, chairman of philosophy and director of Asian Studies, will give two public talks in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Distinguished Lecture Series at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash. on Feb. 25 and 26. The two talks examine the records of the numinal experiences of the masters of the dao contained in Daoist classical and canonical texts. Littlejohn explores the connections between the experiences and the physical locations in which they occurred: underground chambers, caves, and grottoes. In addition to linking these activities to seminal texts such as the Daodejing and Zhuangzi, he argues that this connection continues throughout later Daoist lineage histories. He also explores comparisons between Daoist and similar experiences recorded of Biblical and ancient Greek figures.
English Assistant Professor Gary McDowell has two essays forthcoming in SLAB and The Bellingham Review. Both essays are excerpts from a memoir-in-progress. He also has poems that will be published in literary journals Salt Hill, Bateau, Linebreak, and The Georgetown Review. McDowell will read and discuss the poems from his forthcoming book, Weeping at a Stranger’s Funeral (Dream Horse Press, 2014), Feb. 23 at The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900 in a talk titled, “Household Fire and Other Poems.”
English Instructor Charmion Gustke ‘s article “Luck and Success Are Very Different Things”: Lessons from the Bank Vault”will appear in the forthcoming scholarly issue of The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review, feathering essays to celebrate Knopf’s publication of The Letters of Willa Cather
Hanlen helped take Belmont to the NCAA Tournament in 2011 and 2012.
Former Bruin men’s basketball point guard Drew Hanlen, who graduated from the entrepreneurship program last May, is receiving widespread attention for his nationally recognized basketball training program, Pure Sweat Basketball. Hanlen’s program was recently featured in an NBA.com online news article titled “Young workout guru pushes his clients toward the NBA.” As the NBA draft approaches, Hanlen’s training camp has received increased attention. Since Hanlen began the program while a senior in high school, he has helped a number of players secure their spots in the professional league, and many of his clients continue to train with him even while still in the NBA.
Now, teams are contacting Hanlen directly and soliciting his advice on individual players. Hanlen estimates that nearly half of all teams in the NBA have some representative in contact with him. “It was important to me to provide proof, with statistics and video, not just opinions,” Hanlen told NBA News. “Everyone has an opinion these days, and you can’t listen to every one of them. But the facts speak for themselves.”
In the article, Hanlen shows great respect and gratitude for men’s basketball Head Coach Rick Byrd and Director of Compliance Heather Copeland, who both supported his efforts on and off the courts and helped him navigate NCAA rules. The former Bruin also attributes much of his business success to his training in Belmont’s entrepreneurship program. His application of the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis method distinguishes him among similar programs. “I figured if Fortune 500 companies were using SWOT, it would be a great concept to define how players can maximize their talent,” Hanlen said to NBA News.
Research and Instruction Librarian Claire Walker co-presented a session at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Feb. 6-8. This conference focused on higher education teaching excellence and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Walker helped lead the session titled “Authentic Teaching: Lessons from Instruction Librarians,” which discussed best practices and strategies for development as an authentic teacher.
Hayley Lewis, a sophomore music business major, was crowned Miss Walking Tall on Sunday, Feb. 3. Miss Walking Tall is one of nearly 40 pageants in Tennessee. Winners of each pageant go on to compete for the Miss Tennessee title in June. The pageant was a first for Lewis, who decided to enter just weeks prior to the event. Lewis also received a scholarship as part of her prize. She has already began making appearances as Miss Walking Tall at various philanthropic and social events and will continue to do so over the course of the next year.
On Feb. 13 internationally acclaimed opera singer Denyce Graves sat down in the Massey Performing Arts Center for a conversation with longtime journalist Harry Chapman, who now serves as Belmont’s director of development and major gifts. Graves, who will be performing at the McAfee Concert Hall with various School of Music ensembles tonight, discussed her personal story.
Graves spoke with Harry Chapman before a crowded MPAC.
Graves described her entire career as being her “mother’s fault.” She explained that each week her mother assigned her and her siblings a new activity. “One week would be sewing, next week would be something else.”
Eventually, her mother realized the potential of her children and formed the Inspirational Children of God, and the musical group would perform at the family’s local church. However, it wasn’t until Denyce’s brother, the lead singer, became ill that she reluctantly took his spot in the group.
“My mother pushed me onto the stage, and at that point, you can’t really say no,” she recalled. From then on, Graves’s passion for music flourished as she continued to sing for the church. She fondly remembers the church as her “first audience” and “nourishing ground.”
Congressman Lamar Smith speaks to students at a convo in Beaman A&B.
U.S. Congressman Lamar Smith shared his “three-prong approach” to combating the theft of intellectual property with a full room of Belmont University students this past Monday, Feb. 11. The event, sponsored by the Center for Business Ethics, was an academic lecture convocation titled “Internet Piracy: Copyright Infringement and Compensating Creativity.” Representing Texas’ 21st congressional district since 1987, Smith recently proposed legislation with the purpose of hindering the negative impact of foreign websites that consistently engage in illegal acts of digital piracy. Smith described SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and how the legislation primarily focuses on the prosecution of foreign-based websites.
Smith’s three-prong solution includes public education to the negative effects of copyright infringement, technological advances that allow artists to be paid fairly for their work and legislation that allows federal enforcement. Smith explained, “Theft of intellectual property can affect anyone in this room in one way or another.”
Several students from Belmont’s College of Law asked questions relating to copyrights and recent cases from their class studies. Second-year law student Franklin Graves commented, “It’s important for Belmont to host this type of event. They bring focus to the artist, the creator, the people the legislation truly affects. From a law student’s perspective, it’s great to hear a pro-copyright voice.”
Stacey Lindsley, third year doctoral student in the School of Physical Therapy, explains her poster to Belmont PT alumna Lauren LaCourse.
Faculty and students from Belmont University School of Physical Therapy recently participated in the annual Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) held in San Diego, Calif.
Dr. Mike Voight was one of the presenters for a two-day pre-conference course focusing on injury assessment and management in golf. Approximately 100 clinicians from around the world were in attendance. During the conference, Voight presented the sections research award in his role as editor in chief of the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy and was roasted as a past president of the sports physical therapy section in conjunction with the section’s 40th anniversary celebration.
Dr. Cathy Hinton was a co-presenter for a session entitled” Knowing What is Right Does Not Equal Doing What is Right: Taking the Next Step.” The session focused on the responsibility of leaders in clinical practice and education to establish themselves as role models in PT practice, including the complexities of managing difficult situations with equally compelling choices.
Dr. Renee Brown collaborated with recent graduate Dr. John Hackett and Penny Powers, director of the Seating and Mobility Clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to present a poster entitled “Clinical Education in Seating and Mobility: Designing and Implementing a Specialty Affiliation.”
Brown also presented a poster in collaboration with Tamara Garvey, an adjunct instructor in the School of Occupational Therapy, entitled International Inter-professional Cultural Training which described the Guatemala medical services trips and the changes in cultural competence due to this immersion experience.
Student research by third-year PT students was presented in a poster on Changes in Functional Mobility Outcomes of Individuals Receiving a New Seating/Mobility Device. Students involved in the research included Stacey Lindsley, Virginia Fly, Spencer Tomlinson, Lacey Little and Miranda Law.
More than 9,000 physical therapy professionals from around the nation attended the 2013 meeting.
Honors Associate Professor Kristine LaLonde was named a finalist for the Nashville Business Journal‘s 2013 Women of Influence Awards in the inspiration and mentor category. LaLonde coordinates and teaches the courses for the Honors leadership studies program, Project LEAD. Project LEAD works with students to help them become more effective and engaged citizens through study, discussion, and community-based projects.
