Dr. Merrie King, Associate Professor of Education, was awarded a self-guided one-week Teacher Residency by the Nancy M. and Douglas M. Yeager Family Foundation, in partnership with the Fetzer Institute and in cooperation with the GilChrist Retreat Center. The dates are July 2 – July 9, 2007. The residencies provide selected teachers with the opportunity to spend a quiet week of reflection, writing, reading and planning for the following school year and beyond. These residencies are based on Nancy Yeager’s lifelong interest in and commitment to childhood education. Her love of teaching inspired her family to establish these residencies at GilChrist Retreat Center. This is the fifth year that the residencies are being offered.
Belmont Student Places 2nd Runner Up in Miss Tennessee
Belmont student and music performance major, Tucker Perry, finished second runner up in the Miss Tennessee Pageant held in Jackson, Tenn., on June 23. Her title of Miss Metropolitan Tennessee automatically entered her into the statewide competition of which the winner competes for the Miss America title. Perry’s platform as Miss Metropolitan is Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Sturgis Edits Latest Title on C.S. Lewis
The Mythopoeic Press announces a new title coming soon: Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis, edited by Amy H. Sturgis, adjunct instructor at Belmont University.
This volume provides a broad sample of the research presented at the “Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis” international conference held at Belmont University on November 3-5, 2005. The contributing scholars reflect a truly interdisciplinary discussion representing the fields of literature, theology, history, and popular culture. The assembled essays offer insights on the messages of C.S. Lewis’s fiction and nonfiction, the dramatic adaptations of his work, the influence of his faith, and his relevance to related fantasy literature and authors as contemporary as J.K. Rowling. These diverse contributions combine to offer a better understanding and appreciation of the life and legacy of C.S. Lewis.
Essays in this volume cover topics such as The Chronicles of Narnia, adaptations, Lewis and literature, Lewis and faith, and related authors. The volume will be available in the summer 2007. Click here for additional details and ordering information.
Belmont Launches Study Abroad Program in Japan
Belmont’s inaugural travel-study program to Japan recently returned to Nashville after a three-week program abroad. A group of 10 students led by Dr. Jonathan Thorndike (Honors) and Dr. John Paine (English and Foreign Languages) joined a group of five students from Michigan State University at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture. The theme for the course was “The Modern Samurai: 20th Century Japan.”
The program featured a combination of traditional class time with visits to a variety of sites representing ancient and modern Japan. The group toured the historic Asakusa market district of Tokyo as well as the high-tech enclaves of Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Akihabara and Harajuku. They also visited ancient Buddhist and Shinto sites in Kamakura, Nara, Kyoto and Otsu. Students were given the opportunity to take in a baseball game in Osaka and a sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo. The group also spent time in reflection at the International Peace Park and Museum in Hiroshima.
The Belmont group received a special invitation to visit the Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo, where they viewed an impressive collection of European artwork. They also toured the Nissan Oppama assembly plant in Kanagawa. On their last evening in Tokyo, the Belmont students met with a group of Japanese Belmont alumni so they could compare notes on experiences in Nashville.
Belmont is planning a second Japan travel-study program for May of 2008. The program will be led by Dr. Paine, Dr. Andrea Stover, and Dr. Thorndike. The focus of this program will be “Kyoto: Capital of Japanese Culture” and will be conducted during 19 days in Otsu and Kyoto, Japan. The purpose is to introduce students to “deep Japan” based on a study of selected texts and on site visits to Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Nara. In addition to the study and temple and shrine visits, students will have the opportunity to study works by Basho, the greatest of haiku poets, and Nobel Prize winner Kawabat’s novel set in Kyoto.
Dr. Stover will offer a writing course in conjunction with the program and this fall Belmont will off Japanese language as a regular academic course of study.
Belmont Student Wins SUNY Award
Belmont student Stephen Strother was awarded the “Spirit of Conference” award for his paper entitled, “Montaigne, Plato, Philosophy and Death” at the 12th Annual State University of New York Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. This year, there were 68 submissions from 41 institutions in 20 states, including Canada. Of the 68 submissions, 35 papers were chosen by blind review. Since Belmont students began attending this conference in 2000, Belmont has won an award each year.
Strother also received first place in the annual Stacy Awalt Essay Award Contest at Belmont for his paper entitled “A Return to ‘Kripkenstein’: Skepticism, Rules, and Paradox.”
Tennessee House of Representatives Honors Belmont University
Belmont University’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, American Idol finalist Melinda Doolittle (’99) and Miss USA 2007 Rachel Smith (’06) were recognized today for outstanding achievement by the Tennessee General Assembly, spearheaded by local representative, Brenda Gilmore.
Belmont president Dr. Bob Fisher, men’s basketball head coach Rick Byrd, women’s head basketball coach Tony Cross, director of events administration/commercial music coordinator Jeff Kirk and associate dean of the school of social sciences Thom Storey were in attendance as House Resolution 141 was read before the House members.
Both basketball programs reached the NCAA tournament in 2006-07, two of five Belmont teams to win Atlantic Sun Conference championships this academic year. The Belmont athletics department continues to enjoy unparalleled academic success having earned the Atlantic Sun All-Academic Trophy five years in succession.
Doolittle graduated from Belmont in 1999 with a degree in commercial voice from the School of Music. She performed in the highly regarded Commercial Music Showcase while a Belmont student. Doolittle performed in the semi-finals of the sixth season of American Idol and finished third on the top-rated reality TV show.
After graduating from Belmont in December 2006, Smith was crowned Miss USA in March. While a Belmont student, Smith served as managing editor of The Belmont Vision, Belmont’s student newspaper, interned for The Oprah Winfrey Show for eight months and traveled to South Africa to work with students at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy after graduating.
Belmont Book Award Winner Announced
At right: The Belmont Book Award, given for the best book on country music, is presented at the annual International Country Music Conference at Belmont University. Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash, with picture editor F. Lynne Bachleda, won the award for calendar year 2006. Pictured, left to right, are F. Lynn Bachleda, Eddy Arnold, Paul
Kingsbury and awards chair Don Cusic.
Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash and published by DK Publishing has been announced as the winner of the Belmont Book Award. The award given annually by Belmont University honors the writer and the editor of the Best Book on Country Music. The presentation occurred on Friday, May 25, at a special awards luncheon held during the International Country Music Conference held at Belmont May 24-26.
The book Will the Circle Be Unbroken is a project of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Foundation, whose photos were used extensively in this comprehensive history of country music.
“This book joins a line of distinguished books about country music since we inaugurated this award in 1996,” founder and chair of the Belmont Book Award, Don Cusic, said. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken represents the best of scholarly research in country music and the editors, Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash, are outstanding authors of previous books. In fact, Alanna Nash’s biography of Colonel Tom Parker and the Country Music Encyclopedia edited by Paul Kingsbury were previous winners of this honor.”
The award is determined by a blue ribbon panel of experts. Books published in the previous calendar year are eligible and a wide variety of books on country music are considered, from scholarly studies of various aspects of country music to biographies and autobiographies.
Belmont Cornerstone Class Survey on Religion Published
The First Amendment Center sponsored the 2005 survey of religion news coverage in United States newspapers, undertaken by Pam Parry, APR, public relations program director at Belmont University, and 40 students in Parry’s junior cornerstone class titled “God in the News.”
Parry and the student researches revised a survey first conducted in 1999. The revised survey was mailed to newspaper editors, who were asked to complete the written survey and return it by mail. The Belmont students are listed by name in the acknowledgments of the study on the First Amendment Center Web site.
Click here to see the results of the Belmont students’ study.
Baseball Season Ends With 7-6 Loss In Conference Championship
Belmont (34-26) needed one win in two games on Saturday, but came up short against Jacksonville, dropping the doubleheader 10-4, and 7-6. Brady Manifold, Matt Reynolds, Kane Simmons and Daniel Wagner were named to the all-tournament team, as the team went 3-2 at the A-Sun championship.
In game one, Jacksonville struck first with two runs in the bottom of the first, and the Bruins managed just one hit through the first three innings. In typical Bruin fashion, Belmont tied the game in the fourth inning. Ben Petsch led off with a single and Derek Wiley moved him to third with a double. Kane Simmons followed with a sacrifice fly. Brady Manifold drew a two-out walk and Carlo Testa legged out an infield single to score Wiley and tie the game at 2-2.
JU led off the bottom of the fifth with a walk and a double. The Dolphins then regained the lead with a sacrifice fly, but stranded a runner at third, as the scoreboard read 3-2 through five. The Dolphins’ offense came alive late, as the team added three runs in the seventh and four more in the eighth to take a 10-2 lead.
Matt Reynolds led off the ninth with a single, and Wilson Tucker reached with a hit as well, before Derek Wiley drove in both runners with a double to center field. The runs would be the team’s last in the game, and made the score 10-4.
A-Sun first team member Charles Lee made the start for Belmont and threw 6.1 innings. He struck out two batters to move into sole possession of the career strikeout record, with 235 in his four years. He walked five batters and allowed five runs on six hits. It was his first loss as a starter, as Lee moved to 8-2 on the season.
Jimmy Stanley pitched the final 1.2 innings, and allowed five runs on eight hits. Stanley did not strike out any batters, and walked two.
Belmont took an early lead in game two, as Packy Elkins drew a walk and scored on a Wilson Tucker double in the bottom of the first. JU tied it in the top of the second, before Belmont scored two more runs in the second. Daniel Wagner doubled and scored on a Carlo Testa single. Testa scored on Packy Elkins’ single up the middle.
Jacksonville tied in the top of the third, but Kane Simmons launched his fifteenth homerun of the season over the right field wall to give the team a 4-3 lead through three. Pete Clifford struck again, however, with his second homerun of the day. The two-run shot put JU in the lead at 5-4 in the fifth inning.
Belmont squared things in the sixth, as Carlo Testa doubled and came in to score on Packy Elkins’ single to left field. JU scored in the seventh, but the Bruins tied it at 6-6 in the bottom of the frame. Jacksonville would score one more time, with a pair of two-out hits in the eighth to take a 7-6 lead. The one run lead would be enough as the Bruins were retired in order the final two innings.
Ben Meador started game two, and threw five innings. He allowed three earned runs, five total, on eight hits. He walked two and struck out three batters.
Josh Moffitt came on for the sixth inning and allowed one run on three hits over two innings of work. He did not walk any batters and struck out one. Eric Diaz allowed one run on a walk in just one third of an inning of work. He took the loss to finish the year at 1-2. Chris Manning closed out the game, allowing just one hit over 1.2 innings of work.
Belmont’s season ends with a 34-26 record. The team graduates 11 players this season.
Belmont, Doolittle Featured on MTV
MTV recently interviewed Dr. Jeff Kirk and Dr. Bob Fisher for a story on 1999 School of Music graduate, Melinda Doolittle. Click here to see the story which aired on MTV News.
