IMPORTANT NOTE: These are the archived stories for Belmont News & Achievements prior to June 26, 2023. To see current stories, click here.

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Belmont Garden Shares Fresh Foods with Community

Paul Chenoweth
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Sophomore Bryan Yates interned this summer to provide Dismas House residents with produce from the Belmont Community Garden.

A few months ago, sophomore Bryan Yates had never before seen or tasted okra.

By the end of summer, he was an expert not only on okra but also in organic gardening, harvesting produce and using it to prepare meals.

Yates became the first Belmont Community Garden intern this year as part of an effort to strengthen ties between the University and the Dismas House, a nonprofit organization that provides transitional housing and support to former convicts. He worked in Belmont’s garden daily and took its organic tomatoes, onions, okra, kale, squash, zucchini and cucumbers to Dismas House in exchange for room and board there.

“This summer internship was about taking care of the Belmont Community Garden, a small garden at the Dismas House and creating and growing relationships with the guys there,” said Yates, who is studying audio engineering and technology. “It was kind of intimidating at first, but I lived on a farm in the past so I knew a little about it. It was a really great experience, and I still go back (to Dismas House) to visit and have dinner with them.”

Chemistry Professor Kimberlee Daus proposed a Belmont garden on a vacant lot with a letter to administrators in 2008. Once approved, her honors analytics class did chemistry tests on soil, researched what types of plants would grow there and developed plans for the garden. A first-year seminar class built raised beds and did initial planting in 2009.

“What we have built on is the idea of community sharing and partnership and for students to learn about food production, sustainability and in a creative learning environment that is interactive,” said Adjunct Professor Charmion Gustke. Students in Gustke’s first-year service learning class must spend at least five hours in the garden and students in her English 1010 class prepare meals at the Dismas House using harvest produce from Belmont’s garden.

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Campus Connects with Community Organizations

Paul Chenoweth
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Belmont students and employees networked with Nashville nonprofit organizations Wednesday during the Community Connections Fair.  The fair is designed to flood Belmont’s campus with information and people from community organizations to share volunteer opportunities.

“It is really important for students to get what is going on in the community and for people to participate,” said Polina Sologub, a sophomore from Ukrane studying international economics. She took interest in the Lupus Foundation of America after a family member was stricken with cancer. She now volunteers for the foundation’s Mid-South Chapter and worked at its booth during the Community Connections Fair to encourage her peers to also get involved.

“Volunteering will help the organization to grow, and the organization helps patients to grow,” Sologub said.

More than 60 nonprofit organizations throughout Middle Tennessee set up booths in Neely Hall, including Monroe Harding, Nashville CARES, Conexion Americas and Sports 4 All Foundation.

“We host this fair annually because a lot of students want to know about opportunities to volunteer in the community, to encourage faculty to find partners for service learning and to give the entire campus an opportunity to learn about where their charitable contributions go in the community,” said Tim Stewart, director of service learning. “And the organizations here benefit so much from the opportunity to meet and network with other nonprofits in the community.”

The fair also gives students an opportunity to apply skills they learn in the classroom in a hands-on setting, such as marketing, public relations and education.

“In a lot of nonprofits, you have one person wearing a lot of hats, so we really rely on students and volunteers to help us with our work in the community,” said Belmont alumna Liz Zinke (’07), now walk coordinator for the Mid-South Chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America.

CAS, Law Provide Volunteers for Hands on Nashville Day

Paul Chenoweth
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The 20th anniversary for Hands On Nashville Day, a fund-raising and community service event for Hands On Nashville (HON), took place on Sept. 24. Forty-eight College of Arts and Sciences faculty, staff, students and family members worked side by side with ten other Belmont students to create two Belmont teams for HON Day. In addition, three CAS faculty members donated funds to cover the HON donation request for students who couldn’t afford to make a donation. This was the largest Hands On Nashville Day on record.

One Belmont team worked at Smithson-Craighead Middle School, where Education Assistant Professor Myron Oglesby-Pitts is principal, and the other team worked at Haywood Elementary School along with some teachers and students of that school. The volunteers had a great time getting to know the teachers and children they were servicing.

The groups spent the morning spreading mulch, trimming bushes, painting hallways, door frames, window frames, doors, classrooms, portable classrooms, playground equipment and a storage shed. Belmont representatives worked hard taping, painting, raking and moving mulch, but everyone was full of smiles and laughter, having a great time enjoying good company and knowing the work they were doing would have a positive impact on the school’s learning environment.

Several comments were made about how insignificant the work seemed, until the volunteers stepped back at the end of their volunteer time and looked at the whole project. The classrooms, hallways, main entry and grounds had been transformed, appearing fresh and like new.

Six members of Belmont’s Chapter of the Mathematics Association of American and Association of Computing Machinery (MAACM) participated in Hands on Nashville. They went to Charlotte Park Elementary School and painted, spread mulch and planted flowers.

College of Law Students Serve the Community
The Lawyers’ Association for Women (LAW) also hosted a community service day project in conjunction with Hands on Nashville.  The organization was created to provide opportunities for women lawyers to build a network between one another, both socially and professionally.  Within the professional arena, LAW promotes career opportunities for women lawyers, as well as encouraging women’s active participation in existing bar organizations and women’s nominations to the bench.  LAW partnered with Hands on Nashville to serve at an underserved Metro Nashville school. 

LAW invited students from Belmont’s College of Law to participate in this day of service.  Betsy Appleton, Brittany Dugas, Callie Hinson and Kimberlee McTorry, all members of the charter class, participated in the community service project.  The students completed handiwork, such as painting and landscaping at a Metro Nashville School, while networking with the members of LAW.  The College of Law students were excited to participate in this organization’s day of service, as well as give back to the community that will be their home for the next three years.

Barnes Elected to PRSSA College of Fellows

Paul Chenoweth
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Public Relations Instructor Susan Barnes was elected secretary of the Public Relations Society of America College of Fellows. The Fellows is a selective group of senior practitioners and educators who have at least 20 years of experience in public relations and have earned accreditation.

Convocation Lecture Brings Dr. Al Gini to Belmont

Paul Chenoweth
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College of Business Administration Dean Dr. Pat Raines chats with guest speaker Al Gini.

“In work, we create both the product and the person,” noted speaker Al Gini said during his convocation lecture Wednesday titled “Work, Identity and Self.” A professor of business ethics and the Chair of the Department of Management at Loyola University in Chicago, Dr. Gini spoke on the impact of work on the human spirit, not just the impact on the wallet.

He said that as a society, we rarely invite reflections on the nature of the work we do; rather, we’re only trained to work and expected to perform. Dr. Gini said in that routine we lose the most important aspect of work, creating ourselves.

He said he believes there is a direct correlation between our quality of life on the job and off. Since individuals spend so much time working, if the work is not enjoyed then chances are day-to-day life won’t be either. Dr. Gini concluded his lecture noting, “Don’t give up on your integrity… don’t let that happen to you.”

Belmont Co-Hosts Nashville’s First Annual Fringe Festival

Paul Chenoweth
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Nashville’s Actors Bridge Ensemble, a professional theatre company in full time residence at Belmont, is hosting the first annual Sideshow Fringe Festival: Music City’s Progressive Performing Arts Event Sept. 29-Oct. 2. The first of its kind in Nashville, the festival joins the National Association of Fringe Festivals and is part of the city-wide Artober celebration.

Organized and led by three Belmont theatre alumni–Jessika Malone, Mitch Massaro and Jackie Johnson–the festival’s 41 events will be held at Belmont’s Troutt and Black Box Theaters, as well as at Bongo Java’s After Hours Theatre and on a Belmont-Hillsboro neighborhood stage. Over 50 percent of the actors and volunteers for the weekend are current Belmont students.

According to the Nashville Scene, “Actors Bridge Ensemble paves the way for Music City’s entry into the genre, providing a forum for aerial dancers, jugglers, fire eaters, magicians and puppeteers, plus Caffeinated Theatre (a live-theater version of the 48 Hour Film Project), stand-up comedy, original scripts and storytelling, and one-woman shows from singer Annie Sellick and writer-choreographer Gabrielle Saliba. Music, visual art and workshops are also part of the celebration.”

Passes can be purchased online for the entirety of the four-day weekend, and individual tickets for performances can be purchased at the door. The outdoor festival activities are free to the public. For more information about the festival or to see a complete schedule, click here.

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn Kicks Off Copyright Forum

Paul Chenoweth
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U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn presented a briefing on the Commerce Committee’s anti-piracy efforts to Belmont University students, faculty and administrators sitting alongside Nashville songwriters Thursday at the Quonset Hut Studio on Music Row.

“It is imperative that we look for ways to give you some certainty that you are going to have some protection under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and some consistency and for you to know what those enforcement mechanisms are going to be,” Blackburn said.

Photo Credit: Donnie Hedden

In updating industry insiders and educators on music piracy and other copyright issues, she directed their attention to the Protect IP Act moving through the U.S. Senate and soon to be introduced in the House of Representatives chamber.

The legislation, also known as the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011, aims at disrupting the business model of rogue websites, especially those registered outside the country.

“We need to send the message loud and clear that the United States is going to stand with protecting our creators and protecting the product that they create and that they are compensated for that creation,” Blackburn said.

She also applauded the recent work of Tennessee legislators to make it a misdemeanor to share passwords for subscription-based streaming sites like Netflix and Rhapsody.

“People must realize the Internet is not the Wild West,” she added. “The Internet is a marvelous virtual marketplace, and it allows many of our innovators access to a global marketplace.

Photo Credit: Donnie Hedden

As social networking websites and music clouds evolve and may merge, Blackburn also said it is important for lawmakers to evaluate end users and connect their uses of entertainment and technology to compensation for creators rather than evaluating technology, which is constantly changing.

The Copyright Forum brings real world marketplace and legislative information and events to Belmont’s campus. Belmont’s students and faculty will in turn provide energy, ideas and feedback to help shape the future of the music industry.

“The overarching mission of the forum is to advance the American copyright debate by encouraging participation from all of the stakeholders, from all sides of the music entertainment industry. To do so, we intend to and will embed copyright in the day-to-day curriculum at the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business,” said the college’s Dean Wesley Bulla.

The Nashville Songwriters Association International and Belmont University announced in July a collaboration to host copyright and intellectual property forums to discuss solutions for the huge illegal file-sharing problem devastating the entertainment industry.

Hinton Appointed to APTA Finance and Audit Committee

Paul Chenoweth
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Dr. Cathy Hinton, School of Physical Therapy professor, was appointed to the American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) Finance and Audit Committee.  The APTA is the national organization that represents physical therapists within the United States.  The appointment is for a four-year term, and the committee is tasked with providing the Board of Directors of the APTA with advice and counsel regarding financial commitments in light of the association’s strategic plan.  To provide that overview role, the members of this committee are involved with review of the association’s income, expenditures and investments.

Simulation Event Exposes Belmont Students to Realities of Poverty

Paul Chenoweth
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Dozens of students participated Monday in a simulation event in the Maddox Grand Atrium intended to show the realities of poverty

On Monday, student leaders from throughout the Belmont community participated in a poverty simulation event co-hosted by the Honors Program’s Leadership Studies program and Catholic Charities. The highly interactive simulation was intended to give students a small taste of what life is like on an extremely limited income. For one hour, participants were asked to join the nearly 40 million U.S. citizens who live with incomes below the poverty line, and through role-playing they faced some of the many challenges that confront real low-income families. 

The simulation opened with representatives from Metro Social Services and Catholic Charities sharing statistics on poverty throughout the world as well as locally. Students were then assigned “roles” and “families” and spent the next hour—broken into four 15-minute weeks—attempting to go to work, pay bills, send children to school and deal with unexpected hardships.

Metro Social Services Dinah Gregory explained, “This simulation is intended to help students identify with the poor. Poverty can happen to any of us at any time.”

Junior nursing major Jennifer Thompson took part in the event, which was titled “Knowing Our Neighbors: Coming to Understand Poverty in Our Community.” During the simulation she played the role of a married grandmother who took care of two grandchildren; the grandfather in the family had mobility issues so Jennifer worked full-time while the grandchildren attended school.

“I’ve done evaluations like that before but not one so personal where you are physically carrying out those roles,” Thompson said. “I knew it was hard and stressful, but being put in that situation made a world of difference… [It was challenging] trying to balance all the errands necessary to accomplish in one day, with work, getting food, paying bills, etc. It was extremely difficult to pay all the bills, and by the fourth week we were evicted and the granddaughter was in jail.”

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Debt Slavery Continues Cycle of Poverty

Paul Chenoweth
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Modern circumstances of poverty emulate debt slavery structures from Biblical times, Dr. Mark McEntire told students during a Monday morning convocation using the Old Testament to examine the University’s 2011-2012 theme of Wealth and Poverty.

“Although many of you do community service, that (work) deals with the pain and poverty caused by this system (of debt slavery),” said McEntire, who teaches Old Testament and Hebrew in Belmont’s School of Religion. Instead, students should go beyond volunteerism and find solutions to eliminate the cycle of debt and poverty.

His lecture began with an examination of Hammurabi’s Law Code, which is one of the oldest legal texts and the first text to regulate poverty more than 3,800 years ago. Law No. 117 defines debt slavery as a means for the poor to work to pay back what they owe.

Written 1,000 years later, the Covenant Code laid the regulations of debt slavery in Exodus 21:2-6. A man serves for six years and becomes free on the seventh year, similar to the principles of Sabbath. Written two hundred years later, the Deuteronomic Code includes women in debt slavery regulations in Deuteronomy 15:12-18. Later in the Holiness Code in Leviticus 25:39-44, the poor working off their debts go free and are returned to the land of their ancestors in the Year of Jubilee.

“In the Bible, we have a description of a culture where there have always been slaves, and slavery will always exist. There are only simple improvements,” McEntire said. “Here, slavery and economic hardship are connected together exclusively with explicit regulations. These texts may have the power to help us focus our questions and reveal answers that we otherwise might not see.”

Although cattle slavery, or involuntary servitude, is illegal or hidden in most parts of the world, debt slavery is built into modern laws, similar to Biblical texts. McEntire drew comparisons between Biblical debt slavery and modern bankruptcy laws.

“We should ask, ‘who is our system for?’ and ‘what is it designed to do for people?’” he challenged students to consider.

This academic year, many academic lectures and programs explore the origins and effects of wealth and poverty as well as the social and ethical implications of each. The EthixRox convocation series will continue Oct. 31 with a Wealth, Poverty and New Testament convo and in November with a Hunger Breakfast.

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