High School Physics Day was recently held on campus as 20 students from Cheatham County High School visited Belmont’s School of Sciences department for chemistry and physics demonstrations and two hours of lab experience. The students performed lab experiments alongside Belmont students and Belmont faculty members Dr. Robert Magruder, Dr. Christian Thomas, Dr. Scott Hawley and Dr. Steve Robinson.
School of Sciences Hosts Local High School Students
Dr. Fisher to Co-Chair Mayor’s Project for Student Success
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean today announced the members of Project for Student Success, a 40-member group convened to develop action steps to reduce the dropout rate of students in area public schools. The project includes parents, students, education professionals from all levels, government officials, and members of neighborhood groups, faith-based organizations, non profits and the business community. Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors and President of Belmont University Bob Fisher will serve as co-chairs.
“I have had numerous conversations with both the vice mayor and President Fisher about reducing the dropout rate and they share my deep desire to give every student that comes through our public school system a chance to have a future and to be a productive citizen in our city,” Dean said.
Four sub-committees of the project will each focus on one of the key factors research has shown to contribute to students dropping out of school: chronic poor academic performance, student risk factors, lack of family or parental support, and community risk factors. Recommendations will be presented to the Mayor’s Office by June 2008.
CMT Music Awards to Be Held at Curb Center for Third Straight Year
Country music’s biggest stars will once again rock Nashville’s Curb Event Center at Belmont University when the “2008 CMT Music Awards” premieres live on Mon., April 14, 2008 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CMT and CMT.com. 2008 marks the third time that the CMT show and its live red carpet pre-show will be broadcast from Belmont University, and the announcement comes on the heels of recent news that the Curb Event Center will host the 2008 Town Hall Presidential Debate in October.
The CMT Music Awards program remains country music’s only fan-voted award show. The first round of nominees will be announced Tues., Feb. 5, and fan voting will begin on CMT.com. Final nominees will be announced in early March. The awards show and related programming garnered an impressive 9.1 million viewers for last year’s premiere, and more than 31.6 million different total viewers saw repeated airings of the “2007 CMT Music Awards.”
McFadden Selected for ACIS National Team
This semester American Collegiate Intramural Sports (ACIS) launched the “ACIS Campus Rep Marketing Internship” program on more than 50 campuses, offering students at participating universities the chance to earn college credits while gaining brand marketing experience with Fortune 500 companies such as P&G, GM, Nike, Philips, Microsoft and many more. Belmont senior Reid McFadden, a Communications Studies major and an intern with the Beaman Student Life Center, was recently selected to the 2007 ACIS Campus Rep Nationals Team, winning a trip to New Orleans Dec. 27-Jan. 1 to assist the ACIS Team at the Pontiac ACIS Flag Football Nationals. McFadden was one of only five campus reps from around the country chosen to participate in nationals.
Free Will Baptist Bible College Joins Belmont’s Nursing Consortium
Free Will Baptist Bible College has joined the Partners in Nursing Consortium, a long-term partnership between Belmont University, HCA’s TriStar Health System and other select Tennessee colleges and universities that seeks to address the growing shortage of registered nurses in Tennessee.
Through this consortium Free Will Baptist students who are accepted into the program will earn an Associate’s of Science of Biology degree in two years at Free Will Baptist and will then transfer to Belmont, where all of their credits will apply toward a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Initially, eight spots will be reserved in Belmont’s nursing program for Free Will Baptist students, with the first cohort to begin in fall 2009. For their clinical experiences students in this program will have the opportunity to work within the HCA’s TriStar Health System hospitals as well as other local clinical agencies.
Belmont University Provost Dr. Dan McAlexander said, “We are delighted to welcome Free Will Baptist Bible College to the Partners in Nursing Consortium, knowing they will bring well-equipped students to a program that is playing a vital role in efforts to meet the growing need for nurses in Tennessee and the nation.”
Gwaltney, Crowder Featured on DVD
The Baptist Center for Ethics (BCE) recently announced the release of a 13-minute DVD, “The Nazareth Manifesto,” that explores Luke 4:18-19 and features insights from Dr. Darrell Gwaltney, dean of the School of Religion, and Dr. Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, assistant professor in the School of Religion.
Gwaltney, Crowder and several Baptist pastors will be studying the text together from various ethnic and cultural perspectives when various Baptist groups from across North America gather together in Atlanta in January. The DVD costs $12 and is available for order at the BCE Web site. Other Luke 4 resources offered by BCE include a free, online Bible study, The Agenda: 8 Lessons from Luke 4. The resource includes a student’s and leader’s guide authored by prominent North American Baptists, and a Bible study commentary authored by the faculty of the School of Religion at Belmont University.
McKay, Baruzzini Receive Awards from Diversity Forum
On Nov. 29 at an event at Opryland Hotel, Director of Human Resources Sally McKay and Director of Organizational Development Deborah Nunn Baruzzini received awards of appreciation from the Middle Tennessee Diversity Forum Advisory Council for their work in organizing the Forum’s quarterly meeting this past spring. The March 6 meeting was hosted by Belmont University in the Frist Lecture Hall of the Gordon E. Inman Center and featured a keynote presentation by Toni Riccardi, CEO of RED, a consulting firm providing diversity and inclusion consulting, coaching and training. Riccardi, a retired partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers where she served as PwC’s first Chief Diversity Officer, spoke on “The Challenges of Change and Inclusion.”
Jacky Akbari, founding chair of the Middle Tennessee Diversity Forum, said, “Sally McKay and Deborah Nunn Baruzzini bring leadership and insight to the Middle Tennessee employer community in many ways. We are especially privileged to have them lend support to the Middle Tennessee Diversity Forum. As the demographic population of our community evolves, the HR practices change to reflect the community and constituency we serve. We appreciate and recognize their contribution.”
The Middle Tennessee Diversity Forum is designed for senior leaders of large organizations in Middle Tennessee who seek to benchmark their organizations’ internal diversity initiatives and develop an understanding of how “best practice” companies excel in diversity. Sponsors of the Forum include HCA, Society of Human Resource Managers, Nashville Career Advancement Center, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and Deloitte & Touche.
Campus Celebrates Pete Giordano, Professor of the Year
A reception was held Monday to honor Dr. Pete Giordano, professor and chair of the Psychology Department, who was named last month as the 2007 Tennessee Professor of the Year. Dr. Giordano was selected from more than 300 top professors in the United States. Joined by his family for the celebration, Dr. Giordano and fellow faculty and staff listened to comments offered by Associate Provost Marcia McDonald, Provost Dan McAlexander, interim Arts and Sciences Dean Mike Pinter and Faculty Improvement Group (FIG) representative Sue Trout.
In an earlier press release, Dr. McAlexander noted, “Pete Giordano has been an outstanding faculty member since his first days on the Belmont campus, receiving the high honor of our own Chaney Distinguished Professor award and serving as a former director of the Belmont Teaching Center. Pete is an excellent model of how all Belmont faculty are committed to teach in ways that empower students to learn to their highest potential. His own ongoing commitment to intellectual exploration makes Pete a model of the teacher-scholar, a way of teaching that enables his students to thrive.”
Belmont University professors have received the Tennessee Professor of the Year Award two other times in recent history, in 2000, for Dr. Mike Awalt (Philosophy) and in 2001, for Dr. David Julseth (Spanish).
Dr. Giordano joined Belmont’s Psychology Department in 1989 after receiving his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A past National President of Psi Chi, the honor society for psychology, he frequently teaches courses in such subjects as Abnormal Psychology, Psychology of Personality, Psychometrics and Introduction to Psychological Science. He is also a member of the Belmont Undergraduate Research Symposium Steering Team, Fellow of Division Two of the American Psychological Association and a consulting editor for Teaching of Psychology. In the past year alone, he has received the Tower Award for exceptional contribution to campus life from Belmont’s Student Affairs division and the Academic Inspiration Award from Belmont’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
Hare Selected as Candidate for National Award
Senior men’s basketball student-athlete Justin Hare has been selected as a candidate for the 2007-08 Lowe’s Senior Class Award. This is the latest national honor for Hare in his decorated Belmont career. A 2007 Second Team Academic All-American and twice Academic All-District selection, the Cleveland, Tenn. native was named Atlantic Sun Conference Male Student-Athlete of the Year this past June. Hare sports a 3.86 GPA in his chosen major of exercise science and health promotion.
Hare is one of 30 senior male college basketball student-athletes to be nominated for the prestigious award. The Lowe’s Senior Class Award is presented annually to the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete of the Year in eight sports, focusing on the “Four C’s” of classroom, character, community and competition. From the list of 30 nominees for each gender, a national media committee will select 10 finalists for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award in January 2008. Those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot for a nationwide vote during the NCAA Tournament in March. Fan balloting will be coupled with votes from coaches and media to determine the male and female recipients. Lowe’s, an official corporate partner of the NCAA, will award the winners with trophies during the respective men’s and women’s NCAA Final Four weekends.
Now in its seventh year for basketball, the award has developed into the nation’s premier tribute for college seniors. The award was conceived by legendary sportscaster Dick Enberg, who continues to serve as Honorary Chairman.
Graduating Business Students Score High on National Exam
The College of Business Administration announced today that many of its graduating seniors scored at or above the top 10 percent level on the Major Field Test in Business, an exam produced by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, N.J. The ETS exam has been administered to almost 9,000 students at 181 undergraduate business programs across the U.S.
“Many of our students are now demonstrating that they can score very well when compared to their peers at other U.S. business schools” said Susan Taylor, associate dean of the Undergraduate School of Business Administration. “Their performance is a direct reflection of our focus on delivering a high-quality program and the individual attention our students receive from our highly-qualified faculty.”
Undergraduate students from the Fall 2007 cohort who scored in the Top 10 percent or higher nationally include: Jessica Bowden (Sycamore, IL), Edward Buchanan (Nashville, TN), Jacob Buckman (Louisville, KY), John Ebinger (Frederick, MD), Matthew Erickson (Peoria, IL), Alexander Haemmerlein (Nashville, TN), Niels Jensen (Kirchheim/Teck, Germany), Matthew Kubicek (Mandeville, LA), Raymond Mockmore (Brentwood, TN), Kevin Twist (Ballwin, MO), Christopher Winkle (Maryville, TN) and Rebecca Young (Chatham, IL).
