Students Host Environmental Science Fair

As part of the Environmental Science Capstone course taught by Dr. Darlene Panvini, students hosted an Environment Fair on the last day of classes. The students presented posters on a variety of topics including fracking, community gardens, tree ordinances, exotic pest plant management in state parks, land protection in Tennessee and global climate change. The Our Natural Environment (O.N.E.) club, Belmont’s Environmental Club, also hosted a bake sale and raised over $100 to donate to a local environmental organization.

Quidditch Club Looks to New Year

Bruins on Brooms, Belmont’s Quidditch club, has been recognized as a Division II Team by the International Quidditch Association (IQA). Next year, the group will have a fully-scheduled regular season within its conference which guarantees the players at least nine games. This year, due to scheduling problems, the team was only able to hold four official matches, which they were responsible for coordinating on their own. Next semester will mark the first time the IQA has put together an international conference-based regular schedule.

This year, the team was invited to participate in the Quidditch World Cup as a rookie team. The tournament took place on April 19 and 20 in Kissimmee, Florida. Unfortunately, due to financial restrictions, the team was unable to make the tournament. However, they are hopeful that next year they will be able to qualify through the regular season, as they will lose their rookie status.

Physical Therapy Students Hosts Health Fair

Belmont doctor of physical therapy students hosted a two-hour health fair at East Cheatham Elementary on April 5. All 33 students in the class of 2014 were involved in the fair.

“The Health Fair is a win-win situation for East Cheatham Elementary students as well as Belmont students,”said East Cheatham Elementary teacher Lacritia Sanson. “Older students get to experience what it is like to teach others.  Younger students get great information on eight different subjects in a short amount of time.  I even overheard one of my elementary students saying to another student that she would like to go to college one day.  Thanks Belmont for you open doors to our community.”

School of Science Students Conduct Summer Research Across the Country

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the National Science Foundation. REU projects involve students in meaningful ways in ongoing research programs or in research projects specifically designed for the REU program. Several School of Science students have been awarded these highly competitive internships for the summer.

• Victoria Lim, a junior with a double major in Chemistry and Mathematics, is a recipient of one of the 2013 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Scholarships. Vickie will be interning with Croda, Inc. in Edison, N.J.  The 10-week program, with a stipend of $6300, will involve “working in a world-class product laboratory with Croda Applications and Product Claims scientists to formulate and evaluate the effectiveness of prototype personal care products containing Croda ingredients. The candidate will gain expertise in formulating skin care cosmetics and in hair care product claim methodologies such as scanning electron microscopy; measuring hair fiber tensile and hair fatigue strength; and analyzing dynamic mechanical colorimetry and calorimetry. Internship work will result in a future co-authorship in a personal care industry trade magazine.”

• Rebecca Newton, a graduating senior, Pathways scholar and Chemistry major and Mathematics minor, was selected to receive an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellowship. ORISE provides undergraduate participants with a better knowledge of their anticipated field of study. Participants conduct authentic research while networking with researchers and fellow students. Rebecca will do research work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga. during the summer of 2013. Her supervisor and mentor is Dr. Udeni Alwis in the Tobacco & Volatiles branch. Rebecca will be staying in intern housing at the Emory University campus. As part of the fellowship, Rebecca will receive a monthly stipend of $2,500.

• Marcella Noorman, a graduating senior with a Mathematics major and Physics minor, will be studying this summer in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics (BSM) program, a study abroad program for undergraduates in mathematics. She will be taking mathematics and culture courses in English from Hungarian professors, while taking advantage of Hungary’s history of producing creative and world-renowned mathematicians. The instructors of BSM are members of Eötvös University, the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Budapest University of Technology and Economics, the three institutions known for having educated more than half of Hungary’s highly acclaimed mathematicians.

• Annie Brunelle, a junior Honors Mathematics major, will be participating in a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) hosted by The Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University and funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency. Twenty students were chosen for the REU in Experimental Mathematics to work with mathematics faculty from Lyman Briggs College. Each student will receive a stipend of $3,200, housing, and a meal allowance. Travel money to the REU site and to make presentations at conferences will also be provided. Professors Dan Dougherty, Igor Nazarov, and Aklilu Zeleke will guide the student research. Annie anticipates to be studying “Random Walks on Spheres and Harmonic Functions“, however, the projects are assigned upon arrival to the program.

• Jackson Streeter, a senior Pathways scholar and Mathematics major, will attend a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in Applied Mathematical Modeling at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisc. This program is funded by the National Science Foundation. The research project will last ten weeks and the students receive a $5,000 stipend as well as campus housing, a food stipend and paid travel. Jackson’s project of interest will be Natural Gas Forecasting and he will be working in the GasDay lab to determine how much natural gas customers of WE Energies will need each day for the next week, as well as help predict future usage.

• David Strength, a senior majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics, will be participating in the 2013 Summer Program for Interdisciplinary Research and Education (SPIRE) in Emerging Interface Technologies. SPIRE-EIT is a 10 week research experience for undergraduates program that combines classroom training with hands-on research projects. Iowa State University‘s Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) program are the hosts for this program. The SPIRE-EIT undergrads will form research teams, each team is led by a VRAC|HCI faculty member and assigned a graduate student mentor. Over the course of the summer, SPIRE-EIT undergrads will create new technological solutions to challenges in human computer interaction and present their results at a year-end symposium. Interns will conduct research in the field of Human Computer Interaction while learning and implementing a number of technologies including computer graphics, modeling and painting software, and virtual reality equipment. Students selected to participate in the program will receive housing, a meal plan and a stipend of $5,000 for the summer.

• Angela Gaetano, a junior Pathways scholar and Mathematics major, will be participating in the 2013 summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). It is a 10-week program at Ohio Wesleyan University and is funded by the National Science Foundation. The topic she will be researching with Dr. Scott Linder is Sampling Distribution of Regression Statistics with Data Subjected to Type II Censoring. The participants receive a  $4,800 stipend, a food allowance, free housing, and travel funds.

• Alice Curtis, a junior majoring in Mathematics, will be participating in The Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics (SIBS) funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and NationalCenter for Research Resources (NCRR).  The program held at the University of South Florida, Tampa, is designed to stimulate undergraduate students’ interests in pursuing a graduate program in Biostatistics. Biostatistics is a growing field that has become indispensable in advancing medicine and improving health. Yet nation-wide there is a critical shortage of biostatisticians with postgraduate-level training.  It also exposes the students to exciting career opportunities in health-related fields. Tuition, lodging, food and traveling expenses are all paid for by the program and participants can earn college credit.

Chemistry Students Volunteer at Drug Take-Back Event

On April 27, Belmont students Gerald Offei-Nkansah, Huner Aradini, Phillip Cook and Emily Locke and Chemistry Professor Kimberlee Daus participated in the Dickson County Drug Take-Back event. Taking place on National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, the event was coordinated by Vanderbilt University and the Dickson Police Department. Working alongside faculty and students from Vanderbilt University and Lipscomb University, Belmont students and faculty cataloged and counted more than 50 pounds of medication. The National Drug Take-Back Day, set by the Drug Enforcement Agency, provides a service to community through safe and responsible disposal of unused medication. Additionally, these events help to educate the public about the potential of drug abuse associated with these medications.

Music Education Students Help Middle School Violin Players

Belmont University music education majors Shelby Nichols, Ruby Chandler, Lacy Thurman and Elyse Burke engaged in a service-learning project partnering Technique and Literature for the Violin II with Moves & Grooves, a  Nashville After Zone Alliance (NAZA) program at Croft Middle School. NAZA is a network of established after school providers, each serving middle school students in a different geographic zone and with their own particular focus and mission. Students who participate in Moves & Grooves explore learning through the arts. Belmont’s instrumental music education majors prepared the Moves & Grooves middle school participants for a violin ensemble performance on April 20 for the Mayor’s Awards Ceremony at the Amazing Race and Showcase at Hadley Park Community Center.

Biology Students Recognized for Research Presentations

Announcements were recently made regarding the student research poster awards from the 122nd annual meeting of the Tennessee Academy of Sciences held November 2012. This annual meeting of scientists in Tennessee was held at Vanderbilt University and celebrated the Centennial Anniversary of the organization. Five students in the Department of Biology were recognized for their excellence in presenting their research posters in three sections, competing against graduate and undergraduate students from other Tennessee universities. In addition to a certificate, students receive a year’s membership to the Tennessee Academy of Sciences. The awardees and their research collaborators are:

Cell and Molecular Biology: 1st place – Fatin Jweinat (Dr. Robert Grammer); 2nd place – Lacey Dunkley (Dr. Robert Grammer); 3rd place – Rachel Garland (Dr. Nick Ragsdale)

Microbiology: 3rd place – Shea Harrison (Dr. Jennifer Thomas)

Botany: 2nd place  - Emma Ghulam Jan (Dr. Darlene Panvini)

School of Science Students Win Awards at TAS Annual Meeting

Belmont’s School of Sciences hosted this year’s Tennessee Academy of Science (TAS) Middle Division Collegiate Annual Meeting on April 6.  Dr. Duane Hatch, assistant professor of chemistry, coordinated the event. There were 40 undergraduate presenters from Belmont, Tennessee State University, Fisk University and Austin Peay State University.  There were seven different sessions including chemistry, zoology, cellular/microbiology, botany/ecology, engineering/computer science, mathematics and psychology.

The following Belmont students won awards:
Math: Marcella Noorman, 1st place
Cellular/Microbiology: Fatin Jweinat, 1st place; Lacey Dunkley, 2nd place 
Zoology: Lauren Land, 1st place; Breanna Poore, 2nd place; Anna Beth Jones, 3rd place      
Botany/Ecology: Parth Majmudar, 1st place; Jessica Braden, 2nd place; Rachel Chandler, 3rd place      

Several School of Science faculty served as judges/moderators – from Biology, Darlene Panvini, John Niedzwiecki, Chris Barton, Steve Murphree, Robert Grammer, and Roger Jackson; from Chemistry & Physics, Davon Ferrara and Justin Stace; from Mathematics & Computer Science, Danny Biles; from Psychological Science, Linda Jones.

The Tennessee Academy of Science seeks to promote scientific research and the diffusion of knowledge concerning science; to secure communication between persons engaged in scientific work, especially in Tennessee; to assist by investigation and discussion in developing and making known the material, educational, and other resource and riches of the state; to arrange and prepare for publication such reports of investigations and discussions as they further the aims and objectives of the Academy.

Student Earns Critical Language Scholarship

Belmont University student Deya Maldas has been awarded  a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study the language of Bangla in Bangladesh this summer.

Maldas is one of approximately 610 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received a scholarship from the U.S. Department of State’s CLS Program in 2013. CLS participants will spend seven to ten weeks in intensive language institutes this summer in one of 13 countries to study Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu.

The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. It provides fully-funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences.  CLS Program participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

Consistent with the U.S. Department of State’s goals to increase diversity among international educational exchange program participants, the CLS Program actively recruits in states and regions of the United States that have been historically under-represented in international exchange and encourages students from diverse backgrounds and academic majors to apply. The CLS Program also promotes diversity in the independent review process, and includes readers and panelists from 44 states and 160 institutions, including land-grant public universities, liberal arts colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, Ivy League institutions, and community colleges.  In 2013, 255 professionals, including critical language faculty, area studies specialists, international education professionals, and fellowship advisors, participated in the selection process for the CLS Program.

Belmont Students Win Big at Collegiate DECA International Conference

Belmont University students had a highly successful year at the 2013 Collegiate DECA International Career Development Conference, which was held April 17-20 in Anaheim, Calif. Twenty-five Belmont students competed in the international competition, with 23 of Belmont participants reaching the finals in their respective events, a phenomenal accomplishment given the participation of nearly 1,300 students from the United States and Canada.

College of Business Administration Dean Pat Raines said, “The performance of our College of Business Administration students at the International DECA competition was, once again, outstanding. Their problem solving skills, ability to collaborate and entrepreneurial talents prepared them for a championship performance.”

Belmont swept Entrepreneurship Growing a Business Event category for students who have started their businesses while still in school. Also, for the second year in a row, Belmont students had eight of the top 10 teams in the Entrepreneurial Challenge event and took two of the top three awards.

“Sweeping the top three places in the ‘Growing a Business Event’ speaks volumes about our program.  We focus on helping students start businesses.  This event is designated for students who have actually started their business while still in college,” said Management Professor and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship Jeff Cornwall. Cornwall, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship Mark Schenkel and Center for Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator Lisa Davis serve as advisors for Belmont’s DECA team. (more…)