Nashville City Paper reports on planning involving Belmont University and its neighbors along Belmont Boulevard for upgrading the streetscape.

Changes under way for Belmont University include a proposed streetscape plan for Belmont Boulevard that includes crosswalks, lighting, landscaping, possible parking scenarios and a stoplight at Compton Avenue. … Improvements would occur from 18th Avenue to Ashwood Avenue, and funding for the project on the school side of the street would come from the university. … Illustrations presented Thursday include landscaping and decorative lighting improvements, with sugar maples and flowering trees lining the street.
“In general terms I think it is great that Belmont Boulevard is getting some attention from the university and hopefully the city putting some money into fixing it up,” Bongo Java owner Bob Bernsteine said. “It is a busy corner in terms of business, students and traffic so it needs some attention,” he said.

Vanderbilt University will be Belmont’s opponent in the first men’s basketball game at Belmont’s new Curb Event Center, Nov. 21. Press coverage in The Tennessean here and Nashville City Paper here. The City Paper also comments on the renewal of the rivalry with Lipscomb University.

BPSports.net reports on staff changes in the Belmont athletic department.

Nashville City Paper reports on a proposed change to Nashville parking ordinances that could impact Belmont University.

Marines flank the casket of Lance Cpl. Gregory E. MacDonald at his burial ceremony Saturday in Massachusetts.

The Burlington Union in suburban Boston has coverage. MacDonald, a 1995 Belmont University graduate, died June 25 in Iraq while serving with the United States Marines.

Is the Atlantic Sun Conference, of which Belmont University is a member, headed for changes as a result of realignment of some of the big university athletic conferences? Perhaps, reports the Associated Press, noting that A-Sun member Georgia State University is expressing interesting in leaving the A-Sun for the Atlantic 10, the Southern Conference or Conference USA.

The 11-team league has six small, private schools that have little in common with Georgia State – Belmont in Nashville; Campbell University in Buie Creek, North Carolina; Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs, North Carolina; Jacksonville University in Florida; newcomer Lipscomb in Nashville; Mercer in Macon and Stetson in Deland, Florida.
Georgia State President Carl Patton says the school would like to be in a league with bigger schools like itself and attract bigger audiences. If changes are afoot in the conference, Patton said, “We need to either bring some other larger schools into the Atlantic Sun, or we need to look into another conference.”
Troy State, the A-Sun’s representative in the 2003 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, will exit the conference for the Sun Belt Conference one year from now.

Another A-Sun member, Central Florida, “also could be moving on as a result of the trickle down effect from ACC expansion,” the AP reports.
Belmont University President Dr. Robert Fisher is president of the A-Sun Conference.

Naples Daily News of Naples, Fla., mentions Belmont University spring 2003 Dean’s List member Sarah Dew. The Pine Journal of Cloquet, Minn., mentions spring 2003 Dean’s List member Teresa Jeffers. The Bowling Green Daily News in Kentucky mentions spring 2003 Dean’s List member Jeffrey Williams.

Nashville City Paper comments on Belmont’s ELS Language Center:

Foreign students are choosing Nashville as a place they would like to visit while they study English, which is why ELS Language Centers, located locally on the campus of Belmont University, is in need of host families for six-eight week periods.
[ELS Language Center Director John] Robinson said many students choose Nashville out of 30 U.S. center locations because the city is more inland and offers Southern hospitality and a safer environment. The center teaches 13 terms of English per year to a variety of persons, including students from Korea, Brazil, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Ecuador wanting to apply to a college or university in the United States.