Dr. Martha Buckner was selected as an Item Writer for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensure Examination (NCLEX). The national Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), headquarted in Chicago, is responsible for developing and administering the NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN licensing exams.
Martha Buckner, Ph.D., RN, assistant professor of nursing at Belmont University, was selected by NCSBN to participate on the NCLEX item development panel session held in Chicago August 14 – 17. Buckner was one of 15 nurses from across the nation to be selected for this prestigious assignment. She was nominated by the Tennessee State Board of Nursing on the basis of background and nursing expertise.
All nurses in the United States and its five U.S. territories must take the NCLEX. The licensing exam identifies those candidates who demonstrate minimal competence to practice nursing at the entry level. Passing the NCLEX exam is one of the requirements necessary for attaining a nursing license.
Buckner also recently defended her doctoral dissertation and has completed her doctoral coursework.
Buckner Selected as Item Writer by NCSBN
Belmont Full-time Undergraduate Enrollment Grows 60 Percent in Six Years
Belmont University announced its fall 2006 enrollment at 4,481 students at the end of the registration period, marking an increase of just over 50 percent since 2000 when the school enrolled 2,976 students. The administration and Board of Trustees set a goal to enroll 4,000 students by 2007; last year, Belmont broke that milestone two years ahead of schedule when 4,319 students enrolled for the fall semester. The Belmont student body is currently comprised of 707 graduate students and 3,774 undergraduates.
“Our sixth consecutive year of record enrollment, higher qualifications of incoming students and jump to the top 10 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings have all given the Belmont community cause for celebration,’ Belmont President Dr. Robert Fisher said. “Providing every possible opportunity to our students is the main focus of Belmont’s talented faculty and staff and our continued successes are validation of all of these efforts.”
Since 2000, Belmont’s full-time undergraduate enrollment has increased by 1,267 students, or 60 percent over six years. The average ACT score for the 2006-07 freshman class is 26, up one point from last year. Nearly 40 percent of new freshmen at Belmont were in the top 10 percent of their graduating class, while 69 percent finished in the top 25 percent.
Belmont University rose five spots in the latest annual ranking of America’s best colleges and universities in U.S. News & World Report and is now ranked 10th in the South in the “Best Universities – Masters” category. The rankings are based on several quality indicators including student retention rates, graduation rates, student-faculty ratios and scores on college entrance exams.
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“State’s colleges see enrollment rise” – The Tennessean, September 11, 2006
“Belmont announces enrollment growth” – Nashville City Paper, September 12, 2006
Bulla Named Dean of The Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business
Dr. Wesley Bulla has been named Dean of The Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont University. Bulla has taught at Belmont for 16 years and most recently served as associate dean and an associate professor in the Curb College.
“It is an exciting time to be a part of The Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business. As we have grown from a program to a school to a college, the faculty and staff have built a great platform to diversify our programs for our students that fit into the larger context of the entertainment industry,” Bulla said.
Bulla has worked in the music industry for over 25 years. He has published songs with 1010 Music, Millhouse Music and EMI Music Publishing. Bulla has also earned engineering and production credits for Liberty, Mercury-Polygram, BMG/RCA, Curb/MCA, Primer Records and many independent record labels. Most recently, Bulla produced the Dove award-winning In Bright Mansions for the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, released as a joint project between Curb Records and Belmont’s Acklen Records.
“After conducting a national search for this position and reviewing an outstanding pool of candidates it became apparent the best person for the job was already doing outstanding work as interim dean,” Belmont Provost Dr. Dan McAlexander said.
Bulla holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance from UNC-Greensboro, a master’s in music education from Belmont and a doctorate in Hearing Science from Vanderbilt University. In addition to his duties at Belmont, Bulla serves on the Nashville chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS) Producers & Engineers Wing committee, the local Audio Engineering Society (AES) and the board of directors of the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association.
The Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business enrolls over 1,200 students in three majors: music business, audio engineering technology and entertainment industry studies. Belmont owns and operates the award-winning Ocean Way Studios and the historic RCA Studio B. Alumni of the Curb College include Brad Paisley, Trisha Yearwood, Julie Roberts and Lee Ann Womack.
Belmont Student Appears in Movie
Belmont senior Melvin “Maestro” Lightford is in the cast of the Michael W. Smith movie, The Second Chance, which was filmed in Nashville. He was president of the Black Student Association for 2005-06 school year, and his band, SoulForce, was in the Best of the Best Showcase this spring. To find out more about the movie, click here.
Jacobs to Serve on NACE Task Force
Patricia Jacobs, Director of Career Services, was asked to serve on the National Association of Colleges and Employers Career Services Professional Outcomes Task Force. The task force is responsible for reviewing the outcomes of the Career Services Assessment/Professional Standards Task Force and developing a tool for self-audit of career services operations based on the criteria outlined in the Professional Standards Workbook that can be used as part of annual institutional reporting.
School of Music Adjunct Tops Country Charts
Bryan Clark, School of Music adjunct, is a member of the bluegrass band Honeywagon, which is listed in the top ten on Country Billboard this week. He sings lead vocals and plays the guitar and dobro in the band. To visit their Web site, click here.
Harrington to Chair MIOTF
Michael Harrington, Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business, has been asked to chair the College Music Society’s first-ever Music Industry Outreach Task Force (MIOTF). The MIOTF was created through the initiative of College Music Society president Taylor C. Harding. The task force aims to foster a liaison with the music business and entertainment industry, and to identify and address goals in common between the music and entertainment industry with academia. The group is composed of innovative, renowned and dynamic figures in the popular and classical music worlds and covers all aspects of the contemporary music and entertainment industries and academia.
O.N.E. Club Coordinates Recycling on Move-In Day
The Belmont O.N.E. Club, which stands for Our Natural Environment, coordinated a recycling effort on move-in day. The O.N.E. Club made arrangements with Metro Public Works to have large recycling machines on campus. Students and biology faculty members, Dr. Steve Murphree and Dr. Darlene Panvini, worked all day to move boxes and other recyclables to the bins.
Hawley Featured on Computing News Service
New physics faculty member, Dr. Scott Hawley, was featured for his computer simulations of binary black holes in both HPCWire, a high performance computing news service, and the main page of the Texas Advanced Computing Center where the simulations were performed.
Byrne Publishes Second Book
Professor Joe Byrne, Belmont Honors program, has released his second book, Daily Life during the Black Death. Published by Greenwood Press in July 2006, Daily Life extends his study of the medieval plague into the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, focusing on how epidemic disease affected everyday life in Europe and the Islamic world. Belmont graduate Meaghan Minnick (’03) edited the manuscript, proofed text and prepared the index for the volume. His chapter, “The Pesthouse,” was presented in an early form at the 2005 national Sixteenth Century Studies Conference held in Atlanta last October. He was part of a panel dedicated to his mentor, Professor Helen Nader, an expert on Spanish history who retired from the University of Arizona this spring. During July and August 2006, Byrne participated in an institute on “Jews in Medieval Christendom” sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. This five-week program was held at the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in Yarnton near Oxford, England.
Byrne has also been engaged by Greenwood Press to edit its forthcoming Encyclopedia of Plague, Pestilence and Pandemics, whose publication date will be in mid-2008. Greenwood approached Byrne on the strength of his previous works for the press, The Black Death (2004) and Daily Life during the Black Death (2006). Byrne accepted the challenge in part because he will be able to do much of the editorial work during his sabbatical during spring term 2007. The contract calls for a two-volume, alphabetized, interdisciplinary reference work of some 400,000 words. The editorial board Byrne has chosen includes Dr. John Parascandola, former historian for the U.S. Public Health Service and current president of the American Association for Medical History, Dr. Bill Summers of Yale University’s School of Medicine and Department of History, and Dr. Ann Carmichael, Co-Director of the Indiana University Center for Medical History, both of whom hold doctorates in history and medicine.
