Belmont University political science graduate Drew Johnson, now a policy analyst with the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation in Washington D.C., has co-authored a study on the budget proposals of the various candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Johnson graduated from Belmont University in 2001 with a BS in Political Science, and also has a Master of Public Policy from Pepperdine University.
His policy study, The Return of Fuzzy Math and Risky Schemes: How Presidential Hopefuls Would Deepen Deficits, is available online here. You can also read Johnson’s op-ed published Monday in the Wall Street Journal online here.
Editors: Drew Johnson photo – Click Here
Belmont Grad Provides Expert National Political Research
Vince Gill Celebrity Basketball Game & Concert Returns to Belmont’s Campus After Two-Year Hiatus
The Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont University announces the return of the Vince Gill Celebrity Basketball Game & Concert on March 22, 2004. Last held in 2000, the event find its home in the new, state-of-the-art Curb Event Center, completed in September, 2003. For one evening, Country music artists gather to face off for a riveting game of basketball (realizing why they need not quit their day jobs) and settle down at the end for an intimate acoustic concert for the fans. During the game a silent auction will also be held, featuring items donated by various artists.
Confirmed artists for this event include Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Trick Pony, Cledus T. Judd, Jimmy Wayne, Pinmonkey, Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel and Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown.
MercyMe, Amy Grant, Bring Concert Tour to Belmont
Platinum-selling and recent American Music Award nominee MercyMe, multi-platinum and GRAMMY award-winning artist Amy Grant, along with multiple Dove Award nominee Bebo Norman will appear in concert at Belmont University’s new Curb Event Center on January 30th as The Imagine Tour launches its two-month, 25-city run in Nashville.
Lloyd Describes Newsroom Diversity Progress
Wanda Lloyd, executive director of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, described what it was like to emerge from the segregated South to become one of the nation’s most successful African-American newspaper journalists in an appearance Wednesday at Belmont University.
Speaking before an audience at the Beaman Student Life Center as the first speaker in the university’s New Century Journalism Speaker’s Series, Lloyd said the race riots of the 1960s were the starting point for many of today’s African-American journalists, as formerly all-white newsrooms sought out minorities to better cover minority communities.
Cusic Publishes Book on Baseball and Country Music
The parallel histories of baseball and country music are the topic of an engaging new book, Baseball and Country Music, by Dr. Don Cusic, a Belmont University music business professor, songwriter and country music historian in Nashville.
Dr. Cusic’s book describes how the histories of baseball and country music ran in parallel tracks through most of the twentieth century, and how “America’s sport and America’s music moved from the fringes to the mainstream, gaining exposure and building heroes, first via radio broadcasts and then on the television screen.” Both baseball and country music evolved with American society through wartime, the Civil Rights movement, and into the age of multimillion dollar superstars.
Cusic’s book, just published by the University of Wisconsin Press, offers an engaging and insightful analysis that addresses race, gender, class, ethnicity, business practices and marketing, performance, media, and the cult of celebrity.
Pitino on Campus
Famed college basketball coach Rick Pitino was on Belmont’s campus Tuesday night. Nashville City Paper has the details. Coverage with photographic proof here
More Josh Turner News
Country Weekly reports on the marriage of rising country music star – and Belmont University graduate – Josh Turner who, it was reported recently, will open for Brooks & Dunn on their upcoming tour.
Outspoken Political Commentator Julianne Malveaux to speak at Belmont
Popular and outspoken political commentator Julianne Malveaux will speak at Belmont University on January 20. Her appearance is sponsored by the university’s New Century Journalism Speakers Series, as part of activities on campus to honor Martin Luther King Day. Click Here for a copy of the New Century Journalism Speakers Series poster.
Dr. Malveaux also will speak at 7 p.m. in the Massey Concert Hall, as the keynote speaker for Martin Luther King Day activities on campus. Her evening speech, titled “Living Her Dream,” is sponsored by the MLK Committee and the Communications Studies Department.
More Coverage of the Missouri Upset
More newspapers around the country are mentioning the upset victory of Belmont’s men’s basketball team over Missouri, including the Chicago Tribune and the South Bend Tribune, both of which carried the recent story from the Los Angeles Times, and a story in the Miami Herald, which also ran on the Knight Ridder News Wire and was published in the San Jose Mercury News which compared the fortunes of Belmont’s men’s basketball program with that of the storied but struggling Indiana program. Excerpt:
The reeling Indiana Hoosiers are only 20 months removed from a national title game appearance, but they’re performing like a team that only recently made the leap to big-time college basketball. Heck, some might consider that an affront to tiny Belmont University, which raised eyebrows last month by stunning Missouri. The Bruins were a NAIA program until making the leap to Division I in 1996.
Nobody is suggesting the Hoosiers have descended to that level. But the situation appears grim at the tradition-steeped school. Indiana isn’t just losing, it’s being blown out.
Perhaps the Hoosiers should take some lessons from Belmont, a Nashville-based school led by the NCAA’s reigning field-goal and free-throw percentage leaders from last season in Adam Mark and Steve Drabyn. Mark is connecting on 63 percent of his shots (he made 70 percent in 2002-03), and Drabyn is hitting 89 percent of his free throws, down from 95 percent.
Belmont (8-3) has never played in the NCAA tournament. But the Bruins appear to have a better chance of doing so than Indiana this season.
Student Financial Services Director Quoted in Magazine
Paula Gill, director of student financial services at Belmont, is quoted prominently in a story in the December 2003 issue of Business Officer magazine. You can view a PDF file of the story by clicking here.
