School of Music alumnus and adjunct faculty member Chester Thompson will be awarded the Curtain Call Award Thursday night at a concert in his honor. The award is presented annually to a School of Music alumnus in honor of achievement in the field of commercial and popular music. The concert and award presentation will be at 7:30 p.m. in Massey Concert Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
From jazz to rock or pop to gospel, Chester Thompson has surpassed the boundaries of musical genres. He has performed and recorded with artists as varied as the Weather Report, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Genesis/Phil Collins and Ron Kenoly. Chester has been a member of the Belmont faculty since 1998.
Previous Curtain Call Award winners include Josh Turner, Ginny Owens, Jill Phillips Gullahorn, Will Denton, Fleming McWilliams, Melodie Crittenden, Jozef Nuyens, Gordon Mote, Tammy Rogers King, Bernie Herms and Chris Rodriguez.
Thompson to Receive Curtain Call Award
Alumna Named AP Bureau Chief for South Atlantic Region
Michelle Williams, a 1989 graduate of Belmont and current Advisory Board member for New Century Journalism, has been named chief of bureau for the South Atlantic region of the Associated Press (AP). The former chief of bureau for AP in Arizona and New Mexico, Williams will now oversee AP’s news and business operations for Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. She will be based in Atlanta.
Williams, 43, began her AP career in 1989 as an editorial assistant in Nashville, Tenn. She later became a reporter in Milwaukee, where she covered serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. She later served as correspondent in Chattanooga, Tenn.; supervisory correspondent in San Diego; Tennessee news editor; and news editor and assistant bureau chief for Texas before becoming bureau chief for Arizona and New Mexico in 2007.
Before joining the AP, Williams, who grew up in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., worked as a reporter at The Lebanon Democrat >(Tenn.) and The Tennessean in Nashville.
Daus and Riechert Present at Gulf-South Summit on Service Learning and Civic Engagement
Two CAS faculty members were among presenters at the March 3-5 Gulf-South Summit on Service Learning and Civic Engagement held on the campus of the University of Georgia. Kim Daus, chemistry, and Bonnie Riechert, public relations, each gave competitive poster presentations. Daus was a co-presenter with John Gonas, finance, of “Breaking Out of Silos: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Developing and Coordinating an Integrated Service-Learning Project.” Riechert’s presentation was “Learning by Doing: Bringing Service-Learning into Public Relations Campaigns Classes.” Also attending from Belmont were Marcia McDonald, Jimmy Davis, Tim Stewart, Bernard Turner, Joyce Searcy, and students Josh Maisner and Tim Harms. Stewart and Turner were presenters in concurrent sessions. The theme for the conference was “People, Place, & Partners: Building and Sustaining Engagement in Critical Times.”
Computer Science Student Presents Paper
Jordan Williams, a Belmont senior and computer science major, will present a paper at the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Mid-South Conference (CCSC-MS) in Searcy, Arkansas on March 26-27. The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum for the exchange of information on computing and computing education. Jordan’s paper, “Information Retrieval Optimization In A Large Full-Text Index,” summarizes some lessons learned building an online web search engine in Ruby. Jordan’s interest in web programming will come in handy when he begins a full-time job with Amazon.com after graduation this May.
Sowers Named President of Tennessee Occupational Therapy Association
Dr. Jeanne Sowers, assistant professor of Occupational Therapy, was recently elected as the 2010 President of the Tennessee Occupational Therapy Association (TOTA). The statewide association supports and encourages the provision and availability of quality occupational therapy services to enhance the occupational performance of consumers in Tennessee through communication, education, professional development, advocacy and legislative involvement. TOTA aims to be a model for state occupational therapy associations in enhancing occupational performance among consumers. There are more than 2300 licensed practitioners of occupational therapy in the state of Tennessee.
Dr. Sowers has practiced as an occupational therapist for more than 20 years and has served in diverse roles within the profession. As a practicing clinician, Dr. Sowers’ experience is in the area of adult physical rehabilitation. She has published and lectured at local, state and national conferences on various subjects including the provision of occupational therapy in the hospital intensive care unit, ergonomics and rotator cuff dysfunction. In addition to her new role as President of TOTA, Dr. Sowers serves the Nashville community as a board member for Homeplace, Inc., a group home sponsored by Belmont United Methodist Church.
Parry Receives Honorable Mention
Pam Parry, associate professor of journalism, has received an “honorable mention” in the graduate category of the 2010 Kathanne W. Greene Award, an annual essay competition sponsored by the Committee on Services and Resources for Women at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. The award is for her paper titled “Second Fiddle, Not Second Rate: Associate Role Obscures Anne Williams Wheaton’s Contributions to Public Relations.” She will be recognized at the university’s Women’s History Month awards ceremony on March 31. Parry is working on her doctor of philosophy degree from Southern Miss, and her research on Wheaton is a part of her dissertation on the public relations strategy of the Eisenhower administration. Wheaton was the first woman to be appointed an associate press secretary to a sitting U.S. president.
Author Ron Hansen to Speak at Belmont
Acclaimed novelist Ron Hansen will speak at Belmont University Wed., March 24 at 10 a.m. in the Neely Dining Room. Hansen’s visit is being sponsored by the Office of Spiritual Development and the Department of English. The event is free and open to the public.
Hansen is an award-winning novelist whose books include The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (now a movie starring Brad Pitt), Mariette in Ecstasy, Hitler’s Niece and Exiles. He is the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. Hansen is also a deacon in the Catholic Church and a fellow of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. A native of Omaha, he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for Nebraska, a collection of short fiction.
Clark Honored by Sporting News
Belmont University men’s basketball freshman Ian Clark (Memphis, Tenn.) was named Atlantic Sun Conference Freshman of the Year by Sporting News. This comes a week after Clark was named Atlantic Sun Conference Freshman of the Year, Second Team All-Atlantic Sun and a unanimous selection to the Atlantic Sun All-Freshman Team by the league office. Click here for more on this story.
Rick Byrd Named Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year
Belmont University men’s basketball head coach Rick Byrd has been named Atlantic Sun Conference Coach of the Year by CollegeInsider.com. After losing five seniors to graduation following the 2008-09 season, Belmont was picked to finish anywhere from fourth to seventh in the Atlantic Sun Conference standings this season by various preseason publications. But in molding a roster comprised of 10 underclassmen, Byrd led the Bruins to a share of their third Atlantic Sun Conference Regular Season Championship in the past five years.
Moreover, in winning 14 league games this season, Belmont joins 2008 National Champion Kansas in an exclusive fraternity as the only programs in the nation to win 12 or more regular season conference games each of the past eight seasons. This marks the latest in an impressive list of career honors for Byrd. Including Belmont’s NAIA years and stints at Maryville College and Lincoln Memorial University, Byrd has been named district or conference coach of the year eight times.
Byrd’s previous awards from CollegeInsider.com include being named a finalist for the prestigious Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award in 2008 and National Coach of the Week in 2007. Prior to the season, Byrd was named one of the Top 10 ‘Under the Radar Coaches’ in America by Athlon Sports.
The Knoxville, Tenn. native ranks 14th among all active NCAA Division I head coaches in career victories with 580. Byrd shared Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year honors with Campbell’s Robbie Laing. CollegeInsider.com is a leading college basketball website and a preeminent online source for mid-major basketball. CollegeInsider.com has conducted the Mid-Major Top 25 Poll for the past decade.
Philosophy Students Publish Papers, Present at Conferences
Philosophy major Alyssa Hennig recently published her paper, “What Really Happened in Plato’s Lysis,” in Kennesaw State University’s OtherWise, an online Philosophy journal (2009 Issue, available at the following address: http://otherwisejournal.net/contents.html). Three other Philosophy majors were accepted to Undergraduate Philosophy conferences. Brian York presented “Plato and Vedanta: The Necessary Bond Between Metaphysics and Ethics” at the Midsouth Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, hosted by The University of Memphis (March 5-6). Bethany Somma also attended this conference with her paper, “A Phenomenological Critique of the Frege-Russell Theory of Language.” Bethany will deliver this paper again at the SUNY-Oneonta Undergraduate Philosophy Conference in Oneonta, New York (April 15-17). Also at SUNY-Oneonta, Keith Johnson will present his paper, “Music and Philosophy.”
