The Best Buddies Chapter at Belmont University hosted an event on Oct. 22 to welcome new members. Best Buddies is an international organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships between persons with and without disabilities. This is the second year for the Belmont Chapter. Best Buddies officers, Cait Walker (President, sport science major) and Azad Karim (Membership Coordinator, biology major) with faculty advisor, education Department Chair Sally Barton-Arwood, welcomed our newest Belmont and community buddies at Centennial Park. The group participated in the annual Buddy Walk sponsored by the Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee.

The Speech and Debate team succeeded their best ever showing at the University of Alabama on Oct. 22 with an ever showing at Berea College in Bera, Ky. Top national teams such as Western Kentucky, Eastern Michigan  and George Mason, were in attendance. The Belmont Speech and Debate team came in 3rd place overall. Awards were as follows:

First half of tournament
Eric Schoen
– Dramatic Interpretation, 1st place
– Informative Speaking, 6th place
– Duo Interpretation (with Katie Callaway), 5th place
Nicole Bright
– Prose Interpretation, Semi-Finalist
– Poetry Interpretation, 2nd place
– Programmed Oral Interpretation, 3rd place
– Duo Interpretation (with Katie Callaway), 3rd place
– Overall Competitor (pentathlon) Award, 2nd place
Katie Callaway
– Duo Interpretation, 5th & 3rd place (partners listed above)
Matthew Roberts
– After Dinner Speaking, 5th place
– Extemporaneous Speaking, 3rd place
– Overall Competitor (pentathlon) Award, 4th place
Team Awards
– “Small School” division – 1st place
– Overall Team – 3rd place

Second half of the tournament
Eric Schoen
– Dramatic Interpretation, 1st place
– Informative Speaking, 3rd place
– Impromptu Speaking, 4th place
– Duo Interpretation (with Katie Callaway), 3rd place
Nicole Bright
– Prose Interpretation, 6th place
– Programmed Oral Interpretation, 1st place
– Duo Interpretation (with Katie Callaway), 4th place
– Poetry Interpretation, 1st place
– Overall Competitor (pentathlon) Award, 2nd place
Katie Callaway
– Duo Interpretation, 4th & 3rd place (partners listed above)
Matthew Roberts
– After Dinner Speaking, 2nd place
– Impromptu Speaking, 6th place
– Rhetorical Criticism, 6th place
– Overall Competitor (pentathlon) Award, 4th place
Team Awards
– “Small School” division, 1st place
– Overall Team, 3rd place

Belmont had four representatives, Ayesha Gaffar, Jordan Holt, Patrick Hurt and Rami Nofal, from the College of Business Administration compete in the Eighth Annual CIBER (Center for International Business Education and Research) Case Challenge in late October. Mixed in with students from universities across America and abroad, the students formed new teams and competed against each other by analyzing and presenting an international business case to judges.

Ayesha Ghaffar’s team won their preliminary round competition of five teams and competed in the final round to place third, out of fifteen, in the competition overall. Two other Belmont students were awarded individual awards in the preliminary round among their five teams. Jordan Holt was named “Best Presenter” and Patrick Hurt was named “Best Q&A.”

Belmont was the only university with two students recognized for individual awards.

On Oct. 19, the History Department held initiation ceremonies at the Belmont Mansion for Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. Inductees included Mary Lyn Albritton, Cody Cain, Matt Craft, Seth Granda, Kyle Moyer, Stephanie Downing, Abby Henry, David Suell and Chris Goodwin. Amanda Buckner, Steven Gallo, and Sydney Smith also met the requirements for membership this year but could not attend. The faculty advisor for the group, Dr. Cynthia Bisson, presided over the ceremonies.

The initiation ceremony was followed by a guest lecture from Dr. William Caferro, a leading economic historian of the medieval period in Europe, and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Professor Caferro offered an engrossing look into his research on the Italian City States at the time of the Black Death, specifically the problem of wages across different social groups during the period. His research suggests a challenge to the prevailing view that wages increased as a result of the Black Death (fewer people means a higher demand for labor), opening up some fascinating questions for understanding how markets worked during the 14th century. His talk was entitled “Petrarch’s War and the Meaning of Wages at the Time of the Black Death” and was included in this year’s larger campus theme of Wealth and Poverty.