Several alumni, all members of the band Denver & the Mile High Orchestra, are currently touring as the horn line backing up “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson. Denver Bierman (’99) on trumpet, Chris Gregg (’02) on saxophone and Justin Carpenter (’05) on trombone have been on the road with Clarkson since early July and were scheduled to appear with her on the July 31 edition of “Good Morning America.” For a sample of the horn players addition to the tour, click here.
Men’s Tennis Honored with ITA National Academic Awards
The academic achievements of the Belmont men’s tennis team were honored by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) as they announced their Academic Awards for the 2008-2009 school year. The Belmont’s men tennis team was named an ITA All-Academic team for the eighth straight year. The Bruins, who finished with a team GPA of 3.56, were one of 39 teams honored in Division I and one of three Atlantic Sun Conference squads among the list of schools. In addition, five Belmont tennis players earned the ITA’s Scholar-Athlete Award: Rodrigo Amaral, Renato Antun, Felipe Cirne Lima, Fausto Rocha and Javier Rodriguez.
Former Belmont Golfer Qualifies for 2009 U.S. Amateur
Capping off an incredible summer of golf, former Belmont men’s golfer Brenton Flynn, a Centreville, Virginia native, has qualified for the 2009 U.S. Amateur Championship to be held August 24-30 at the famed Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It marks the third United States Golf Association (USGA) Championship Brenton has competed in during the last three months.
Flynn, a four-year letter winner who graduated in 2006 and currently resides in Nashville, qualified for the country’s oldest national championship last Monday at Victoria National Golf Club in Evansville, Indiana. He posted a 36-hole score of 146 (70-76) to earn one of three spots available at that site.
Rhodes Featured in Tennessean Article on Barefoot Republic
Alumnus Tommy Rhodes (’95) was featured this week in an article in The Tennessean about Barefoot Republic, the multicultural Christian camp Rhodes founded that brings together hundreds of kids from diverse backgrounds. Click here to read the article.
Senik Publishes Article on RealClearMarkets.com
Belmont alumnus Troy Senik (’05) recently had an article published on RealClearMarkets.com. Senik recently served as a speechwriter for the Bush administration and was the second youngest speechwriter in presidential history. Currently, he works for the Center for Individual Freedom. Click here to read the article.
Riechert Serves as Sertoman Convention Speaker
Dr. Bonnie Riechert (Media Studies) was a featured speaker at the 2009 Annual Sertoma Convention July 23-25 hosted by the Nashville Chapter at the Sheraton Music City Hotel. She spoke on “Ten Essential Skills for Surviving and Thriving.” Sertoma (which stands for “Serving to Mankind”) helps people with hearing health issues, promotes freedom and democracy, assists youth, and benefits other community needs. The local Sertoma Chapter also is served by Belmont’s Tower Creative Consultants, the student-run public relations firm.
Belmont Named in Top 25 for Global Student Entrepreneur Awards
The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) has announced the preliminary top 25 nominating schools with the most students in contention for the prestigious award. With nine nominees, Belmont University claims a spot in the list among such schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Purdue University.
GSEA, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) program, is the world’s premiere award for undergraduate students who own and run businesses while attending a college or university. Annually, student entrepreneurs from more than 340 universities and colleges worldwide receive nominations. From the approximately 1,500 nominations, 30 finalists will compete for the top prize at the 2009 GSEA Global Finals Competition at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 18-20.
Nominees from Belmont competed at the International meeting of Delta Epsilon Chi in 2009. This is the second consecutive year Belmont took first place in the Business Plan Competition and first and second place in the Entrepreneurial Challenge at this conference.
Belmont’s Dean of the College of Business Administration Dr. Patrick Raines said, “Entrepreneurship is a core competency in the College of Business curriculum. To have so many students nominated for the GSEA award is another indication that we are accomplishing our mission.”
The Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University offers a hands-on approach to help students hit the ground running. Student entrepreneurs are given opportunities to work in student-run retail spaces on campus or develop their own business ventures with the support of their professors. The innovative program has earned Belmont University recognition for being the 2008 National Model Program for entrepreneurship education by the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and a national Top 25 entrepreneurship program by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review.
Dr. Jeff Cornwall, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, said, “I continue to be amazed by the entrepreneurial spirit of our students. We need this generation of entrepreneurs to help us revitalize our economy.”
Belmont Named a ‘Best in the Southeast’ College by Princeton Review
Belmont University is one of the best colleges and universities in the Southeast according to The Princeton Review. The education services company selected the school as one of 141 institutions it recommends in its “Best in the Southeast” section of its Web site feature “2010 Best Colleges: Region by Region” that posted July 27.
Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s vice president of publishing, said, “We chose Belmont University and the other terrific schools we recommend as our ‘regional best’ colleges primarily for their excellent academic programs. We also work to have our roster of ‘regional best’ colleges feature a range of institutions by size, selectivity, character and locale. We choose the schools based on institutional data we collect from several hundred schools in each region, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of independent and high school-based college advisors whose recommendations we invite. We also take into account what each school’s customers – their students – report to us about their campus experiences at them on our 80-question student survey.”
The 141 colleges The Princeton Review chose for its “Best in the Southeast” designations are located in 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The Princeton Review also designated 218 colleges in the Northeast, 123 in the West, and 158 in the Midwest as best in their locales on the company’s 2010 Best Colleges: Region by Region section on its site. The 640 colleges named “regional best(s)” represent only about 25 percent (one out of four) of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.
Selden Selected for Conference’s Student Newsroom
Journalism major Abby Selden was chosen as a staffer for the Online News Association ONA09 Student Newsroom, which will provide coverage for the organization’s 10th annual conference in October in San Francisco. The 20 students selected will bring a rich, varied set of multimedia skills and fresh perspective to ONA09 coverage, which will appear on the conference Web site, ONAConference.org. Mentored by experienced journalists and journalism professors, they’ll cover people, events and issues surrounding ONA09, using a range of digital formats and styles, including interactive text and graphics, live blogging, slideshows, audio and video.
Littlejohn Authors Two Textbooks
Dr. Ronnie Littlejohn, professor and chair of the philosophy department, is contributing two textbooks to a new religion series from publisher I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. Littlejohn is authoring Daoism: An Introduction and Confucianism: An Introduction.
