As I was considering where to study Education and Teaching, I was looking for a place that was on the edge of all that is going on in Metro Nashville Schools. After being a teacher for 3 years in a private school, I knew that I was being led to offer excellent education to children in other areas of town, and in the school system. This led me to look in to Belmont, and the New Teacher Project.  The New Teacher Project seeks to provide teachers for high need schools in order to close achievement gaps and create a culture of educational excellence. This summer, Belmont partnered with Nashville Teaching Fellows and the New Teacher Project to bring over 80 teachers to high need schools in Nashville. This partnership means that Belmont is the school where these teachers are practicing and perfecting their craft. We are in a cohort of 12-15 other teachers who meet for classes twice a week. We are learning how to be better teachers. We are getting a certificate to teach in either Pre-K-3, K-6, 4-8, or 7-12. There are Math, Science, Spanish, Elementary, English, ELL, and Social Studies teachers. There are also Exceptional educators. As an Elementary teacher, my cohort is in a literacy class as well as a Science and Math methods class. We also have one-on-one mentors that reach out to us during the school year to help make our first year in public school, a great one.

To the Top…

…That’s where Belmont has been headed.  Since I first stepped foot on campus my freshman year in 1999, to today, Belmont has undergone some incredible changes.  The student body has increased more than 50%.  The school has added amazing facilities for it’s students, staff and alums.  The business school became accredited.  We hosted the presidential debate.  Our athletics continue to get national attention…the list goes on and on and on…  The reward has been Belmont’s ability to break into the rankings of top universities, and in turn, an increased value of the diploma that everyone remembers walking away with.

These accomplishments have been made possible by not only the wonderful faculty and staff of the university but also the commitment by alums around the globe to continually share their support for the university through participation at events and commitment to giving back.  As a way of support, not everyone still lives in Nashville and can go to the amazing programming put together by the Young Alumni Council, but regardless of where you live, you will be able to support the school’s continued movement in the rankings by participating in annual giving.

As a finance alum, I didn’t believe it when I was first educated on how the giving really effects the schools progression in the rankings.  I naturally assumed, that if I didn’t have $1.0 million to give, that my gift wouldn’t be enough to even “move the dial” with the university.  When I was told that the rankings focus more the alumni percentage of giving (the number of givers rather than the value of their gifts), I was shocked!  The gist of the story is whether you are able to give $1 or $1 million, you still count as 1 alumni giver, and the more givers we have as a percentage of our alumni base, the more progress we make in the rankings and more valuable your DIPLOMA becomes!  (moral: it’s not what you give, but that you give)

(Here comes the part where I speak “finance” and relate how annual gifts to the university make good investment sense)  As Belmont continues to excel on a national level, the diploma from the university will open more doors in all of our careers.  On average, these doors will lead to higher wage earning opportunities that will undoubtedly justify your commitment to give.

If you’ve kept your contact information up-to-date with the school, you’ve probably recently received a phone call from students taking part in the annual giving campaign.  My guess is that you might have screened the call because it wasn’t a number stored in your phone.  If you did answer the phone, I hope that you were able to contribute to the “To the Top” cause by making a gift.  However, if you didn’t receive a call or happened to miss the call, you still have the opportunity to make your contribution through the website (CLICK HERE).

Being a Belmont Alum is GREAT!!  It is so great because you make such long lasting relationships and friendships.  This past weekend, Renease Perkins '07 and Shandra West '07, visited me in Oxford, MS where I attend law school.  It was a great time.  I met Renease my senior year in high school when we both came to Belmont to interview for the Hearst scholarship and from there we have been the best of friends.  Shandra and I met the first week of orientation and realized that we live on the same floor in Kennedy Hall.  It was great for them to come and visit me in Oxford.  I was able to expose them to my life in law school and the Ole Miss culture.  There was a big football game that weekend where Ole Miss played Alabama.  Lots of Ole Miss and Alabama fans in town!  We went to "the grove" which is typical Ole Miss football culture and then a night on the town square.  It is great to share your life after Belmont with friends from Belmont.  It was also great to catch up on life with one another and we had a blast the entire weekend.  They were definitely exposed to small town Mississippi, SEC football, and my life as a law school student (especially when they saw my, according to them, boring looking law school books) ;)!!!  I love them dearly!!  Its a great when your college friends want to come and spend time with you where you are in your life now.  I believe Belmont helps foster these types of relationships and friendships to continue!!

Brittani Kendrick '07

Two recent Belmont grads are trying to break out of their restaurant dining shells.  Ben Palos (2007) and Traci Goldenberg (2009) have set out to dine at Nashville’s local and unique restaurants that we often forget about or do not consider.

Ben writes: “Tracy and I are going to visit a locally-owned restaurant in Nashville once a week that neither of us have visited before. The trick is that every week the restaurant has to begin with each subsequent letter of the alphabet, starting with "A" until we reach "Z."

You can follow Ben and Traci on their blog as they eat their way through the alphabet.  So far the pair have tried The Acorn, Batter’d & Fried & Caesar's Ristorante Italiano.

After each dining experience the pair reports back their findings and scores each restaurant based on: Price, Location, Food Quality, Drink Quality, Service and Ambiance.  You can check at their blog at http://alphabedibleadventures.blogspot.com/or follow them on twitter http://twitter.com/alphabedible. 

I look forward to trying their discoveries and as Ben put it, “answering the question that always seems to stump us--"Where are we going for dinner?"