Belmont computer science alumni were recently honored at the 9th Annual NTC Awards.  David Ells (’06), Director of Technology at Watershed LRS, won the 2018 Infrastructure of the Year award and was named as a finalist for CTO of the Year. Sergei Temkin (’07), who currently serves as the vice president, software development team lead at 360 View CRM, was named a finalist for the Developer/Architect/IT Engineer of the Year. Also nominated was Satchel Health for Emerging Company of the Year, for which alumni Grayson Carroll (’13) and Caleb Gregory (’12) work on the engineering team. Carroll is the VP of Engineering for the company.

The awards ceremony was held Jan. 25 at the Wildhorse Saloon. This event is dedicated to connecting, uniting, developing and promoting Middle Tennessee’s rich community of developers and technology entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and institutions with awards in 14 categories.

The Nashville Technology Council (NTC) exists to be a catalyst for the growth and influence of Middle Tennessee’s technology industry. Membership is open to technology companies, technology employers, service providers, educational institutions, government and non-profit companies interested in supporting the growth of technology businesses in Middle Tennessee.

In Washington, D.C., an area where black male students are the lowest-performing demographic on standardized tests, one Belmont alum is committed to empowering his students. Michael Redmond (’13), a graduate of Belmont’s Masters of Arts in Teaching program and a current Doctoral student at George Washington University, is the assistant principal at Truesdell Education Campus. He recently helped students on his campus organize an all-male book club which meets a few times a week before school starts to discuss their reading and their own experiences with race, identity and adolescence. His efforts have recently been featured in the Washington Post.

Since the inception of Redmond’s book club, a similar club has been instituted for girls with the same appetite for reading. These groups have become the most popular clubs at the school, and students are moving quickly through the books lined up for them. “It’s a blessing to be in this predicament, to have kids who are becoming ravenous readers,” Redmond said. “We’re disrupting the notion of what public education can be and what little black boys can do and be.”

Bridges to Belmont recently partnered with a local non-profit, The Bridge Builder program, to host a networking/mentoring dinner for men from Tennessee State University (TSU) and Belmont. The “Men About Business: Mentoring and Networking Dinner,” was co-sponsored with Belmont University’s Bridges to Belmont Program and Office of Multicultural Learning & Experience. The event brought together young, diverse, collegiate men from Belmont’s Bridges to Belmont program and Tennessee State University’s Rho Psi chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. More than 20 young men were afforded the opportunity to meet and network with one another and engage with local professionals, entrepreneurs, educators and leaders from Nashville. The event introduced these young men to professionals who work in their desired career fields and potentially connect them with shadowing opportunities, internships, practicums and eventually full-time employment.

Additionally, all attendees were afforded to opportunity to hear Dr. Thurman Webb’s presentation on “Mentoring: A Model for Success.” Webb, assistant professor of psychology at TSU, has completed extensive research on mentoring and life coaching. Bridges to Belmont, the Office of Multicultural Learning and Experience and the Bridge Builder Program are committed to providing opportunities that will facilitate their transition from young collegiate men to young professional men.

The Bridges to Belmont program was launched in 2013 as a full scholarship program designed to enroll high-potential students from Metro Nashville Public Schools who may not have previously been able to consider Belmont as an option. This program focuses on creating an environment that dedicated to academic achievement, community service and personal development to empower students’ personal passion to have an impact on the world through their education.

English faculty members Drs. Marcia McDonald, Joel Overall and Jayme Yeo were recently featured in the New American Colleges & Universities Newsletter for their creation of “Shakespeare in Nashville,” an online archive of local productions of Shakespearean plays. Students in McDonald’s Shakespeare class collect interviews, photos and videos from local performances, while students in Overall’s class use the data to build the website.

The website is hosted by Belmont’s Bunch Library and was made possible by a grant from the Folger Shakespeare Library in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities. See the full article here. 

On the heels of their success with high school and community outreach, the College of Sciences and Mathematics (CSM) also routinely hosts speakers and events to benefit Belmont students, faculty, staff and the community. This week, Sarah Updegraff, an Environmental Science alumna (’11), visited campus and gave a presentation on “Coral Bleaching and the Great Barrier Reef.”  Updegraff was in Australia working with an ecotourism company during a coral bleaching event in 2016.

In her presentation, Updegraff talked about coral biology, the impact of global climate change on coral reefs and causes of bleaching. Since graduating, Updegraff has worked and traveled in New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia.  She is currently back in the United States, preparing for a graduate program in holistic health care.

Dr. Tim Schoenfeld, assistant professor of psychology, recently had an article published in Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, the official journal of the International Neuroendocrine Federation. The article, titled “Behavioral and structural adaptations to stress,” can be found here.

Schoenfeld said, “In the review, we talk about how stressful experiences affect both behavior and the structure and plasticity of the brain. Although we normally consider the effects of stress to be ‘negative,’ these changes in behavior and brain are adaptive for the organism. What we talk about then is how adult-born neurons in the hippocampus might mediate these adaptive changes, and without them both, behavior and the brain might be less adaptable to the environment.”

Spicer Rudstrom, PLLC and the Association of Corporate Counsel – Middle Tennessee recently hosted a panel discussion entitled “Managing Risk and Creating Opportunity” at Belmont University College of Law. Panelists discussed 2018 changes to tax law, and the resulting implications for business, IT compliance, insurance, cross border considerations and crisis management. Belmont Law Dean Alberto Gonzales gave a warm welcome address to begin the session. Event sponsors also included the Association of Corporate Counsel – International Legal Affairs Committee, the International Society of Primerus Law Firms Client Resource Institute and Belmont Law.

Belmont University was given a shout-out in the latest edition of Seventeen Magazine as Best College for Business Majors. The article reads, “Getting ready to make your mark on the world? Consider your passion, then check out these schools that can help you reach your goals.” It then goes into detail about this year’s student-run shops House Of and Boulevard Record Shop and this year’s Entrepreneur-in-residence, Victoria Kopyar.

Indeed, Seventeen Magazine was right to call Belmont’s entrepreneurship program a Best College for Business. The program has been named one of the Top 25 Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Programs in the country by “The Princeton Review” and has also been recognized as a National Model Undergraduate Program for Entrepreneurship Education by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE). In 2010, the program was featured as one of five schools to consider when studying entrepreneurship by “Fortune” magazine.

Belmont also offers its students The Hatchery, an office environment providing resources and support to help students develop their own entrepreneurial ventures. These resources also include free legal clinics, accounting clinics and practicing entrepreneur roundtables. Students are advised by faculty, staff and local entrepreneurs, as well as the school’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

This year’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Victoria Kopyar, is the founder of women’s golf and activewear clothing brand VK Sport, LLC. She offers one-on-one advising and support and acts as a bridge between Belmont students and the larger Nashville community by bringing in speakers, setting up students with mentors and engaging students through other events in the area.

To learn more about Belmont’s Entrepreneurship program, click here.

Belmont University served as the site for the Metropolitan Minority Caucus’s 13th Anniversary Reception on Monday, February 12 where government officials, local business owners and community leaders celebrated the event’s honorees. The event’s Keynote Speaker was Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne M. Messam, President of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.

This year’s event recognized State Senator Thelma Harper and Former Metro Councilwoman Lois Jordan. Awards were presented by Councilmember Jacobia Dowell.

Belmont students enrolled in Dr. Mitch McCoy’s Spanish class served as event hosts.

Dr. Thandi Dinani, Belmont study abroad director, and Drs. Mitch McCoy and Sally Holt, Belmont faculty who lead the Belmont in Spain – World Religion and Identities Maymester in Spain, recently had articles published in the journal “Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad.”

Dinani’s article, “Faith Development While Abroad Amongst African American Students,” explores scenarios of students exploring their faith while studying abroad. The article also describes how study abroad programs provide opportunities for self-exploration and personal development, enhance cognitive and affective skills and increase cultural empathy and intercultural awareness of participants. Studying abroad has been marked as a natural transition period (similar to leaving home for college, traveling or moving from one community) that provide students opportunities to interrupt reliance on external authorities and reflect on their own value systems and beliefs.

McCoy, assistant professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and Holt, professor in the College of Theology and Christian Ministry, co-authored “Convivencia, Abrahamic Religions and Study Abroad in Spain,” which details the genesis and evolution of their annual Maymester study abroad program.  It describes how they weave international travel with carefully selected readings and classroom discussions to introduce students to the concept of ‘convivencia,’ the living together of Jews, Christians and Muslims in medieval Iberia. Additionally the article considers how Iberian religious plurality influenced daily life and sacred spaces, how it shaped individual and collective identities and how it challenged notions of hospitality and tolerance.

“Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad” is an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal that communicates the latest research on education abroad within a multi-disciplinary forum to reflect on critical issues and concerns for academics and professional practitioners. It is published by The Forum on Education Abroad.

Belmont Masters of Arts in English student Katelyn Ippensen was one of 50 educators honored with a Blue Ribbon Teacher award this year. This program aims to recognize top teaching talent in Metro Nashville public schools. Winners this year include those recognized for their outstanding work in literacy instruction, support of English Language Learners, and teacher leadership.

Those honored will be recognized at a reception in March and celebrated through a month-long city advertising campaign.

The Belmont Vision won many awards at the annual Southeast Journalism Conference last week at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. The conference consisted of 45 schools from across the Southeast, 30 of which submitted 412 entries, according to 2017 Best of the South Report. Eleven members of the Belmont Vision staff attended the conference and took home 9 awards in the Best of the South Competition for content posted on their website from November 2016 – November 2017.

Individual winners include:

• Zach Giklchriest, 4th place, College Journalist of the Year and 6th place, Best News Writer
• Bronte Lebo – 5th place, Best Feature Writer and 3rd place, News Writing
• Sara Scannel – 6th place, Best Public Service Journalism
• Melissa Kriz – 2nd place, Best Opinion-Editorial Writer and 2nd place, Copy Editing
• Paris Lawson – 8th place, Best Sports Writer
• Hunter Morgan – 4th place, Best Press Photographer
• Rebecca Arnold – 2nd place, Best Special Events Reporter
• Jason Saitta – 1st place, Radio News Reporting
• Caroline Cathey and Aggie Smith – tied 3rd, TV News Reporting

“Finding the In-Between,” a podcast run by the Belmont Vision that focusing on sharing the stories of the Belmont community, won 2nd place for Best College Audio News Program, Vision staffers won five awards for on-site competitions at the conference and The Vision also won 4th place for Best Overall.

Melanie Adams, executive director of the Center for Executive Education, recently spoke at a Nashville Medical Group Management Association (NMGMA) meeting in an interactive presentation about “Coaching through Change.” Her presentation invited the attendees to think through best practices, pitfalls and effective communications strategies to help guide organizations through transformations. Her presentation was later featured in an article in Nashville Medical News.

In her role at Belmont, Adams leads the Center for Executive Education’s team of facilitators, curriculum designers and program staff in developing programs and instructing leaders within the center’s programs.

A number of dedicated students with exemplary academic records were recently inducted into Psi Chi, the International Honor Society for psychology. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Timothy Schoenfeld, a new faculty member in the psychology department with a specialization in neuroscience. He gave an inspiring talk to the students, encouraging them to learn from failure, persevere, continue to be involved in research and take advantage of opportunities provided by the psychology department and psychology faculty.

The list of inducted students includes Shaylynn Bradbury, Elise Cloffelter, Rachelle Clousing, Christiana Duerksen, Bailee Ficzere, Dorothy Hicks, Jordan Hoffman, Dani Jackson, Hannah Johnson, Gracie Kelly, Daniel Mata, Mariah Meads, Alyssa Peacock, Heather Ribolla, David Sturges, Lillian Tashie, Molly Tatum, Eason Taylor, Alysson Webb, and Anna Wingo.

Dr. Scott Hawley, associate professor of Physics, has been accepted to participate in a program in Oxford, United Kingdom known as “Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II” for the 2018 and 2019 summers. The program is hosted by the SCIO center (Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford). Hawley’s proposed research topic of “Christian Responses to the Ascendency of Artificial Intelligence” will involve collaborating with University of Oxford faculty and other Christian scholars from around the world to address challenges and opportunities posed by the increasing prevalence and power of Machine Learning (ML) systems and their impact on society.

Hawley began developing a passion for ML after attending a conference in 2014 where he identified key technologies likely to affect the careers of future students. Since then, he has worked with students applying ML techniques to solve problems related to acoustics and signal processing. He also maintains that ML has made him a better teacher. “There are many similarities between training AIs and training humans,” he said. The fields of Education and ML can benefit from these similarities.

The joint agreement between Belmont University and the other institutes and agencies will also involve supplementing existing Faith & Science initiatives at Belmont and will provide funding for an undergraduate student in Humanities to serve as Hawley’s research assistant and study abroad in Oxford. Students interested in the paid research assistant position should contact Dr. Hawley directly at scott.hawley@belmont.edu. Those interested must be majoring religion, philosophy, honors or computer science, graduating in 2019 or 2020.

The program is sponsored by a grant given by Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II, a project run by Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford, the UK subsidiary of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, with funding by Templeton Religion Trust and The Blankemeyer Foundation.

Georgia Hiatt, a senior social work major, recently published a reflection on trauma-informed approaches to social work for Open Table Nashville (OTN), where she interns.

In her post, Hiatt reflects on an over-night shift she took at one of OTN’s resource shelters and the safety she felt in the midst of her team. She wrote, “It’s exactly this trauma-informed and relational approach that attracted me to Open Table Nashville in the first place.” As a student preparing for a career in social work, Hiatt went on to reflect on how OTN has allowed her to nurture her abilities to be a supportive friend and build healthy bonds.

Honors student Crystal Lemus has always had a passion for health and writing. Recently, she decided to combine both passions and write two children’s books titled, Angie the Acting Alligator Adjusts to Alzheimer’s Disease, and Freddy the Feverish Fish Fights Against the Flu. Both books are part of Lemus’s “Learn and Adjust” book series. The books follow the stories of animals and their journey’s specific health symptoms. Given their condition, they are then faced with a tough decision on how to react and how they will let the diagnosis affect their everyday life.

“The only times individuals tend to think about these conditions are when either they or loved ones are going through it,” Crystal wrote. “But I believe that children need to be exposed to what others feel and think in relation to these conditions, and this is just one outlet of doing so.” As a bilingual student herself, Lemus believes that these resources should be accessible to most, if not all, children and has published both books in English and Spanish.

While the books are available to children through Amazon.com and local libraries, Lemus is working with Tennessee’s Department of Education to make sure they are available to every child in the state. “Just because I want to be a health provider does not mean that I have to wait until then to do so. My job as an aspiring physician is to make my own resources and make them available to all that may be in need,” Lemus said.

Lemus is an Honors neuroscience major on a pre-med track. She plans to attend medical school upon graduation and hopes to write more books for the series in the future.

Belmont Law students witnessed first-hand how the state appellate court works as the Tennessee State Court of Appeals heard two cases in the Baskin Center Feb. 13 in front of Judges Richard Dinkins, Frank Clement, Andy Bennett and Neal McBrayer. After both cases were heard and court was adjourned, Assistant Professor of Law Jeffrey Usman presented several questions to the judges in a panel format. The judges provided legal writing advice for appellate briefs, and oral argument advice. The two cases heard were SUGAR CREEK CARRIAGES v. HAT CREEK CARRIAGES, ET AL. and BETHEL UNIVERSITY v. TENNESSEE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ET AL.

Simone Marshall, Belmont Law 2018, Chicoya Smith, Belmont Law 2018 and Lesley Smith, Belmont Law 2020, were recently awarded Napier-Looby Bar Foundation Scholarships. These awards are presented to current law school students based on academic achievements and community engagement. Three of the four coveted scholarships were awarded to current Belmont Law students.

The awards were presented at the Napier-Looby Bar Foundation’s 14th Annual Barristers’ Banquet and Awards Program. Event attendees included elected officials, judges, and members of the Nashville bar.

Belmont University’s Musical Theatre production of Parade was recently selected as a semi-finalist in the musical theatre division of The American Prize awards. The production was named as a finalist in both the Best Direction (Associate Professor David Shamburger) and Best Conductor (Instructor Jo Lynn Burks) categories for the November 2016 production.

The American Prize will announcing finalists in the coming weeks. More information on this national competition can be found here.