The Belmont University speech and debate team won several awards at the “Border Wars” debate and events tournament held at Kansas Wesleyan University last week. Out of the 20 schools competing, the Belmont team was recognized as the overall first place individual events team and the second place individual events/debate team. Eric Schoen, Kate Tully and Nicole Bright were named the top overall individual events competitors. Click the more button below to view all of the awards received by Belmont students.
Belmont Speech and Debate Team Cleans Up in Border Wars Tournament
College of Law Opens Application Cycle for the Charter Class
On Mon., Feb. 15, the Belmont University College of Law will begin accepting applications from individuals who seek to join the Charter Class. The Charter Class will enroll in August of 2011. The College of Law wishes to enroll a highly qualified and diverse student body.
Applicants are required to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and register with the Law School Admission Council’s Credential Assembly Service. Furthermore, applicants can choose an Early Decision option or Regular Decision option. Please review the College of Law Web page for more details about these options and further information about the admissions process.
Leukemia Didn’t Beat Belmont Senior
Belmont women’s basketball senior LaWanna Holiday (Henderson, Tenn.) was the subject of a feature story in the February 11 edition of The Tennessean.
Holiday sat down with reporter Mike Organ to detail her ongoing battle with leukemia and return to the basketball court after her diagnosis last summer.
Click here for the complete story.
‘Fast Food Nation’ Author Eric Schlosser to Speak at Belmont
Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of the award-winning documentary Food, Inc., will speak at Belmont University on Mon., Feb. 15 about the health, security and sustainability of the nation’s food supply. The 7 p.m. event will be held at Belmont Heights Baptist Church (2100 Belmont Blvd.) and is free and open to the public.
As an investigative journalist, Schlosser tries to give a voice to people at the margins of society. His aim is to shed light on worlds that are too often hidden. Schlosser’s first book, Fast Food Nation (2001), helped start a revolution in how Americans think about what they eat. It has been translated into more than 20 languages and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. Schlosser also served as an executive producer and co-wrote the feature film Fast Food Nation (2006), and he was a co-producer of the award-winning documentary, Food, Inc., a film about how complicated and compromised the once simple process of growing crops and raising livestock has become.
Schlosser’s visit is part of Belmont’s ongoing campus-wide academic theme for 2009-10, “A Paradise Lost.” Special events and lectures are being presented to help students, faculty and staff engage a myriad of questions surrounding issues of sustainability, broadly defined. Issues covered throughout the year include exploration in topics such as the environment, ecology and interactions between and among organisms and their surroundings.
Click here to read an interview Schlosser did last week with Chapter16.org, which previews his Belmont University visit.
Belmont Alum Nominated for Grammy Award
Belmont alumna and adjunct instructor Julie Cox (’95) was in a cast of artists nominated for a Grammy award for her performance with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in L’Enfant et les Sortileges. The performance was a contender for the best classical album category. Cox holds a bachelor of music degree in vocal performance from Belmont and teaches theater and choir at Father Ryan High School. She has performed with the Tennessee Repertory Theater and Nashville Opera and will perform Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Nashville Symphony and the Nashville Ballet this spring. The Tennessean did a story on Julie’s nomination which can be read here.
Business Students Place in TVA Investment Challenge
The Tennessee Valley Authority recently announced the annual results of the TVA Investment Challenge, naming Belmont College of Business Administration investment students the fifth-ranked performers out of 24 regional schools. As such, the College will receive more than $5,000 from profits earned for the year. Under the direction of Dr. John Gonas and graduate student Joseph Mosby, students outperformed the S&P 500 index by 11.84 percent in 2009. As of Dec. 31, 2009, the student-managed portfolio was valued at $297,161 (up from $214,866 at the end of 2008).
According to Gonas, “The students did all the work and have simply made great choices over the past year. I teach a top-down investment discipline and then allow them to add their own quantitative and qualitative analysis that fits within our investment policy…ultimately leading to them building a case for buying or selling a stock. Their understanding of the current economic environment, sector and industry trends, and fundamental analysis is enabling them to making good long-term investment decisions.”
The investment portfolio is managed primarily by students in an undergraduate laboratory course format. Each class of new students spends time learning practical investment strategies while making transactions in the portfolio. The class format is designed to allow finance students to hone their skills in a “real world” environment and allow other students across campus to build their own investment disciplines. Participation is open to all students.
College of Business to Receive TNCPE Interest Level Recognition
The College of Business Administration (COBA) at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., has earned Interest Level Recognition in the annual Excellence in Tennessee program administered by the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (TNCPE). A certificate will be presented to Belmont COBA representatives at the 17th annual Excellence in Tennessee Awards Banquet on February 24 at the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs in Franklin, Tenn.
Belmont University’s College of Business Administration is an AACSB International-accredited private business school that offers graduate and undergraduate degrees, as well as non-degree programming in areas such as accounting, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, general business, information systems, leadership, management and marketing.
Dr. Patrick Raines, dean of the Belmont College of Business Administration, said “ The process of applying for recognition by the TNCPE encourages organizations to pursue standards for excellence in their operations. It is indeed meaningful to us in our quest for excellence in the College of Business to receive Interest Level Recognition and to be among Tennessee’s leading organizations.”
Through an annual evaluation and assessment process, TNCPE recognizes organizations that have achieved the highest standards of excellence in their operations and results. The program uses the Criteria for Performance Excellence established by the Baldrige National Quality Program as the evaluation tool.
Awards are presented in four categories: Interest Recognition (the beginning level), Commitment, Achievement and the highest level – the Excellence Award.
“Organizations that pursue a TNCPE Award know that success is achieved through the combined efforts of every employee and a shared commitment to quality and leadership,” said Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. “This recognition validates these companies’ commitment to success through sustainable efforts that produce measurable results. TNCPE recognition is a dedicated means to accomplishing this.”
Luray Offers Advice on Being a ‘History Detective’
Elyse Luray, one of the stars of PBS’s “History Detectives,” spoke at Belmont Wednesday on “A Behind the Scenes Look at the TV Series ‘History Detectives.’”
“History Detectives,” which is in its eighth season on PBS, revolves around four experts who conduct investigations to determine the historical significance of folklore, antiques, family heirlooms and everyday objects. Luray said the experts try to explore items “that show a larger window into American history.” She revealed that about 90 percent of the show’s investigations come from viewer submissions.
“Open your eyes to what you have right at your doorstep,” Luray advised the audience.
Luray has personally conducted more than 50 investigations for “History Detectives.” She has examined a coin shot by Annie Oakley, a piece of Amelia Earhart’s plane, the sunken S.S. Portland and a silver cup from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
Luray then described the research process used by the show, encouraging the audience to become their own history detectives. The process revolves around five steps: First, journal everything you know about the object and include items, theories and checklists. Second, examine the object, looking for markings, signatures or anything distinctive. The third step is to research the object; however, Luray advised against relying on the Internet. “Primary resources are the most important thing when you are doing research,” she said. Unfortunately, popular Web sites like Google and Wikipedia do not generally provide primary sources. Luray prefers using libraries and archives. The fourth step is interviewing experts, librarians or any other person who may know more than you do. Finally, the history detectives conduct experiments on their items to determine how old they really are.
Luray graduated from Tulane University with a degree in art history and worked at Christie’s Auction House in New York where she appraised the props from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the “Star Wars” films. She handled the auctions of possessions of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Steven Spielberg, Bob Marley and Marlon Brando. She also auctioned off a pair Judy Garland’s ruby slippers. Luray was a consultant on “Antiques Roadshow” before joining the cast of “History Detectives.”
Overton High School Comes to Belmont
On Sat., Jan. 23, Overton High School students and faculty were guests of Belmont, through the Pencil Partner program, at the ETSU basketball games. Everyone enjoyed the games, and the students had fun hiding behind their Bruiser masks. Several Belmont departments worked together to make this event possible. The Belmont Athletics Department donated the tickets and Bruiser masks, the Bookstore offered a half-time door prize gift, and the Department of Education worked with Overton on the publicity, distributing ticket vouchers and tickets.
Minister Recounts Memories, Lessons from Haiti
Woodmont Christian Church Children’s Minister Trey Flowers was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti before, during and after the earthquake that devastated the island nation on Jan. 12. This morning he shared his experiences and his perspective with students gathered in Neely Dining Hall as part of the Spiritual Development Speaker Series.
Flowers and seven other Woodmont members were part of a mission team that was working in orphanages and schools prior to the earthquake, and he emphasized the extreme poverty and need present in Haiti before this latest disaster. He recounted how one orphanage visited by he and his team consisted of only three small rooms but housed 40 children and possessed only one-third of a bag of grits to feed the entire group. “The people of Haiti are strong, resilient and compassionate,” he said, but he is haunted by the knowledge that now, “Every one of those children we met are either trapped in the rubble or are living out in the street… Even when the news coverage ends, the need will not.”
In addition to his work at Woodmont Christian, Flowers is a student at Vanderbilt University, where he is pursuing a Master in Divinity concurrently with a Master in Public Policy. Flowers commented that, due to the nature of his work and his education, he thinks about God all the time. Yet it was through the people in Haiti that he began to see what it means to have faith in the middle of a crisis.
“The night after [the earthquake] was so scary. During the aftershocks you could literally hear two million people screaming at once. But then every single time, after the aftershock ended, we would also hear them singing, singing songs to God.”
