Susan Barnes chaired and moderated a session on November 12, at Public Relations Day in Knoxville, sponsored by the University of Tennessee College of Communication and Information and the Volunteer Chapter of PRSA, that featured Wendell Potter, senior fellow with the Center for Media and Democracy and a contributor to the Huffington Post. The topic was credibility in health care public relations.
Bowles, Stover Present Papers
Dr. Sarah Bowles and Dr. Andrea Stover from the Department of English attended the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in Atlanta on November 6. Dr. Bowles presented her paper “The Coal Miner’s Daughter Stands by her Man: Country Music and Second-Wave Feminism.” Dr. Stover’s presentation was titled “Writing Against Time: Exploring Issues of Temporality in the Diaries of Virginia Woolf and Sei Shonagon.”
Nursing Students Win Project Blossom Award
Belmont nursing students, along with associate professor Dr. Beth Youngblood, were awarded the 6th Annual Project Blossom Award by the Metro Department of Health. They received the award for serving as event planners and prenatal care teachers in the Teen Conference, for pregnant teens in the Davidson County school system, and the Incredible Baby Shower project.
Project Blosson is an initiative from the Governor’s office to decrease the state’s infant mortality rate. The award is given for playing a major role in “saving babies and eliminating perinatal disparities in Nashville and Davidson County.”
The Belmont group received the award at Nursing Excellence Night on Nov. 15 following the induction on new Sigma Theta Tau members.
Students Inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma
Belmont University’s Chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma held its Induction Ceremony on November 10. The inductees were from the School of Business Administration, Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business and Massey Graduate School of Business. Only business students who earn the distinction of “the Best in Business” during their academic careers qualify for membership. Beta Gamma Sigma is the business school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa in liberal arts education.
The 42 new members are Kathleen L. Alberts, Heather R. Anvik, Jessica A. Betts, Tara A. Blood, Tara S. Bryant, Matthew E. Cannata, Julia Cecere, John P. Conley, Ashley A. Cox, Nicholas Deitmen, Delwyn D. DeVries, Justin R. Entzminger, Michael W. Gardner, Heather L. Germain, John S. Gonas, George M. Grimes, Daniel W. Harris, Laura D. Haupt, Christopher B. Holcombe, Klay T. Kelley, Jeffrey L. Lassiter, Corrina R. Logston, Timothy M. Maglothin, Lisa M. Marshall, Kelsey J. McMahan, Ray W, Mettetal, Brett K. Moffat, Mary Grace Murphy, Sarah F. Olinde, James B. Preston, Katherine S. Rote, Melissa H. Ryan, Scott L. Saunders, Marney Sherrill, Daniel Smith, Keith M. Smith, Stephen W. Soderholm, Shawn M. Sweeney, Courtney M. Swim, Christopher M. Tisdale, Pomai Verzon, and Matthew T. Woods.
These new members join an expanding worldwide network of more than 625,000 outstanding business professionals who have earned recognition through lifetime membership in Beta Gamma Sigma. Students ranking in the top 10 percent of the baccalaureate and top 20 percent of graduate programs at schools accredited by AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) are eligible for this invitation. Beta Gamma Sigma membership is truly an international honor, and these outstanding Belmont students have received the highest recognition a business student anywhere in the world can receive.
Belmont Hosts EducationUSA Advisors on Campus
The College Board, under contact with the US Department of State, selected the Nashville area to host a campus based program for EducationUSA advisors. These advisors–Megan Lewis (Mexico), Odonchimeg Tserendorj (Mongolia) and Kateryna Kanevksa (Ukraine)–are employees of the U.S. Department of State at locations around the world and serve as advisors to international students interested in studying in the U.S. They are the first point of contact for students seeking information about U.S. colleges and universities. In addition to Belmont, Vanderbilt, MTSU, TSU, and Nashville State also hosted advisors.
Flake Advocates for Christian Community Development
The Office of Spiritual Development and the Social Entrepreneurship program partnered this semester to bring Rev. Floyd Flake to campus to discuss Christian community development. A former U.S. Congressman, Flake is the senior pastor of the more than 20,000 member Greater Allen A. M. E. Cathedral of New York. The Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral operates a 30,000 square feet multi-service center, has an extensive business development program, and has rehabbed housing to serve hundreds of the homeless and elderly in their community.
The Greater Allen Cathedral’s operations are now a national paradigm of church-centered, faith based, public/private community educational and economic development, but when Flake first arrived at the church, the congregation and the community were suffering. Residents were moving away because the area suffered from too much crime, poor educational options and a diminishing property value. “My challenge,” Flake said, “was to introduce new ideas to the church, new ideas to an old congregation. We went through our struggles.”
But if the system is failing, that’s when the church needs to step in, Flake remarked. “We must have a sense of purpose. Are we doing this for a reason and what is that reason?”
During his 31-year pastorate, Allen has become one of the nation’s foremost Christian churches and development corporations. The church and its subsidiary corporations operate with an annual budget of over $34 million. The church also owns expansive commercial and residential developments, a 750-student private school founded by Flake and his wife Elaine, and various commercial and social service enterprises, which has placed it among the nation’s most productive religious and urban development institutions. The corporations, church administrative offices, school, and ministries comprise one of the Borough of Queens’ largest private sector employers.
Alpha Gamma Deltas Trick-Or-Treat for a Cause
On Halloween, the ladies of Alpha Gamma Delta went Trick-Or-Treating For a Cause, splitting into small groups and trick-or-treating around Nashville. They raised about $2,500 in four hours for the Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation, which supports juvenile diabetes research, education programs and summer camp scholarships.
Students Place Third in ‘Battle of the Brains’
Belmont senior Cameron Behar and sophomore teammates Brandon Sharp and Kevin Crowl (team Belmont Brute Force) placed third at the 2010 ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Mid-Central International Collegiate Programming Competition held Nov. 6 at Tennessee Technological University. The five-hour contest, sponsored by IBM and known as the “Battle of the Brains,” featured 22 teams representing Vanderbilt, MTSU, UT Knoxville and other area schools. Belmont’s second team, with senior Will Proffitt and juniors Cory Hughes and Trevor Hinesly, placed tenth.
Ethics Bowl Team Selected for National Competition
Belmont’s Ethics Bowl Team recently competed at a regional event in Indianapolis and placed high enough (top 4 teams) to be selected for Nationals in Cincinnati March 2011. Led by Dr. Jennifer Wilgus and Dr. Barry Padgett, the Belmont teams include students Kathleen Bond, Nick Calderwood, Eric Deems, Stas Ghiletchi, Lindsey Ricker, Melanie Bond, Kaitlin Grigsby and Olaf Wasternack. Belmont is one of only 32 teams across the country that will be competing.
The Seventeeth Intercollegiate Ethics Bowlsm will be March 3, 2011 in Cincinnati, OH, as a part of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics’ 2011 20th Anniversary Annual Meeting. Colleges and universities across the United States and throughout the world who qualified in a regional bowl are invited to enter a team of undergraduate students in the national competition. The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB) is a team competition that combines the excitement and fun of a competitive tournament with an innovative approach to education in practical and professional ethics for undergraduate students. In the IEB, each team receives a set of cases which raise issues in practical and professional ethics in advance of the competition and prepare an analysis of each case. At the competition, a moderator poses questions, based on a case taken from that set, to teams of three to five students. Questions may concern ethical problems on wide ranging topics, such as the classroom (e.g. cheating or plagiarism), personal relationships (e.g. dating or friendship), professional ethics (e.g. engineering, law, medicine), or social and political ethics (e.g. free speech, gun control, etc.) A panel of judges may probe the teams for further justifications and evaluates answers. Rating criteria are intelligibility, focus on ethically relevant considerations, avoidance of ethical irrelevance, and deliberative thoughtfulness.
Faculty Present at Tennessee Reading Association Conference
Professors Lauren Lunsford, Rachael Flynn-Hopper, Rhonda McKay, Barbara Hessel and Ragan McLeod from the Department of Education attended the Tennessee Reading Association conference in Murfreesboro November 7-9. Lunsford and Flynn-Hopper presented on “Improving Literacy in the Secondary Classroom.” Flynn-Hopper and McKay presented on “Celebrate Literacy: P.A.R.T.Y. Planning 101 (Parents, Activities, Resources, and Training for Young children). ” Flynn-Hopper and Jennifer Bates, a recent Reading Specialist graduate, presented on “Uniting Families, Schools, and Communities in Literacy Learning.” And Hessel and McLeod presented on “Supporting Reading Independences Through Strategy Instruction.”
The secondary interns from the Department of Education also presented during the poster session and several other interns from the program attended, along with several reading specialists, mentors, student teachers and course-based students.
