Mike Pinter, of Mathematics, served as an onsite external reviewer for the Department of Mathematics and Physics at Carson Newman College on Oct. 8 through 10.  In addition to visiting with faculty and students from the department, Pinter met with the provost and president. At the conclusion of the onsite review, Pinter jointly prepared with an internal reviewer a report that offered suggestions and recommendations for strengthening the department’s offerings and programs.

Chemistry Professor Kim Daus  has had a chapter accepted for inclusion in an American Chemical Society Symposium Series volume tentatively titled Using Food to Stimulate Interest in the Chemistry Classroom.  The submission was an invited chapter based on Daus’ presentation this summer at the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education.  Daus’ chapter is titled “Better Eating through Chemistry: Using Chemistry to Explore and Improve Local Cuisine.”

Bonnie Riechert, associate professor and chair of the department of public relations, participated in the Public Relations Society of America Southeast District Leadership Rally on Nov. 4 in Charlotte, N.C. The event drew officers and committee chairs from 11 PRSA chapters from Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Riechert, a district officer in 2011 and 2012, led the training session for chapter secretaries and treasurers, ethics officers and accreditation chairs. PRSA is the largest professional organization devoted to public relations, with more than 21,000 members including 2,400 members in the Southeast District.

Psychology Professor Lonnie Yandell presented a poster as part of a Pre-ISSOTL conference symposium. The symposium was held prior to the meeting of the The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (ISSOTL) held in Canadaon Oct. 24 through 27. The Pre-ISSOTL symposium, titled The International Perspectives on Undergraduate Research And Inquiry: A Scholarly Discussion, was sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR).

Yandell’s poster was titled “Integrating Research Across the Psychology Curriculum.” During the day-long symposium the participants explored how undergraduate research effects change in higher Eeucation and how a variety of changes in Higher Education affect undergraduate research. Posters played a key role in the seminar and viewing and discussing posters was central to a number of the sessions.

Psychology Professor Pete Giordano served on a Guest Editorial Advisory Board for a special issue just published by Psychology Learning and Teaching, an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to the sharing of good and innovative learning, teaching and assessment practices. The topic of the special issue is titled: Globalization and the Teaching of Psychology.  Click here to view it.

Registered Nurse Krystal Huesmann recently returned from the Dominican Republic, where she and her daughter, Olivia, taught classes at a local school through “Food for the Hungry.” They also met the child their family sponsors there.

Nurse Practitioner Lisa Scholl led Team Belmont in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer annual walk for American Cancer Society.  There were about 80 participants, and $555 was raised for breast cancer research.

Research Librarian Jenny Rushing Mills presented a paper and poster at the Library Assessment Conference in Charlottesville, VA, Oct. 29-31, titled “Project RAILS: Rubrics, Results, & Recommendations.” Along with librarians from Syracuse, Towson and the Universities of Washington and West Virginia, Mills presented the initial results of Project RAILS (Rubric Assessment of Information Literacy Skills). The purpose of the project is to help librarians assess student information literacy skills exhibited in “artifacts of student learning” like research papers, worksheets or portfolios. At Belmont, rubric assessment of information literacy skills has been conducted in nursing and pharmacy courses and in First Year Writing.

On Oct. 22, Dr. Jonathan Thorndike of the Belmont University Honors Program delivered a lecture in the MTSU Honors College series on “The City.”  Thorndike’s presentation was titled “Kyoto: Saved by the Americans but ‘Destroyed’ by the Japanese.”  Thorndike discussed Kyoto history and architecture and how the US targeted the ancient capital as a potential target city for the atomic bomb at the end of the Second World War. However, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had visited Kyoto and was a student of traditional Japanese culture. He argued that Kyoto should be spared from bombing because of its architectural significance.  Thus, Kyoto is one of the few Japanese cities today that still has many pre-war buildings including 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites.  Kyoto is a place of famous temples, shrines, festivals and gardens coexisting uneasily in the same city that boasts of post-modern buildings like the JR train station and the corporate headquarters of Nintendo, Kyocera and Rohm Semiconductors. In that sense, people say that Kyoto was saved by the Americans but “destroyed” by the Japanese economic miracle.