This guest op-ed was written by Hope Dennis. Dennis is the student president of Belmont’s HOPE Council and the chaplain of the Black Student Association. She is a faith and social justice junior. — Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African American astronaut who was a woman, once said, “never be limited by other people’s limited imagination.” The truth is, now just as ever, in America we lack Black visibility which is negatively affecting the Black identity. And Belmont is not exemp

After the Belmont University men’s basketball team defeated the University of Tennessee Martin in a late January game, the stands emptied with haste, leaving only a few faithful fans behind. The Curb Event Center was lifeless and cold by comparison as another team began its pregame warmup. This team made history bringing in a first-round win in the NCAA tournament. With an accomplishment like that in the books, students must have been jumping up and down in blue and red to ch

“We are a Christ-centered, student-focused community, developing diverse leaders of purpose, character, wisdom and transformational mindset, eager and equipped to make the world a better place,” reads Belmont University’s new mission statement. If this university wants to continue on this new “Christ-centered” trajectory, the past actions of recently returned trustee Lee Beaman directly conflict with President Greg Jones’ vision for Belmont’s future. During his highly publici

Belmont needs to do better. The release of the university’s COVID-19 vaccination rates Tuesday showed only 63% of students received vaccinations against the virus. The university strongly encourages the vaccine on a voluntary basis, but as case numbers start to rise once again at Belmont and beyond — this time with deadlier, more contagious variants in the mix — it’s clear that strong encouragement isn’t enough. The upward trends in case frequency tell an all-too-familiar sto

It’s a big year for the Belmont Vision. This semester, I’m proud to announce the Belmont Vision will be introducing our own series on diversity at Belmont, publishing the stories and perspectives of students, faculty and staff of various walks of life through articles written by Vision staff members and first-person editorials. This initiative has been more than a year in the making, and our staff is excited to bring those stories to the student body starting in the middle of

Who’s up for a trip to Mars? In reality, the odds of a 21-­year-­old college student like myself actually going to Mars are probably pretty slim, but at least now I have a chance. NASA announced that it is going to have an open application period for future astronauts giving some lucky commoner a chance to fly past asteroids or even land on the Red Planet. So obviously, I’m going to apply. I don’t have the any of the college degrees that it asks for per se, but I’m sure NASA 

Everyone’s heard the phrase “less is more” yet we have more stuff than ever before. The self-storage industry in the U.S. generated $27.2 billion in annual revenue in 2014. This means people spend almost $30 billion just to store all of their extra stuff. So not only do we pay for stuff, but we pay even more to hold all of it because we have too much. The HGTV series, “Tiny House Builders,” constructs houses 200 square feet or less. The builders get away with shoving everythi

We’ve all seen it a million times: a wanted man runs breathlessly through a wooded area pursued by howling dogs, dodging megawatt spotlights at just the right moments and deftly evading capture until the good guys show up and immediately apprehend him. This is the scene we are used to seeing, the one at the end of all our favorite shows. It gets our blood pumping to see the good guys get the bad guys and everyone go home happy. But what about the extras? What about the peopl

Whenever I tell people that I go to Belmont, their reaction is one of curiosity. I have no musical talent to speak of, I’m not interested in music business and I’ve never even touched an audio board. Why would a guy with plans of being a journalist decide to go to a school which focused on majors that would never apply to him? The first time I heard of Belmont was in a postcard near the end of my junior year of high school. At the time, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go for

Disclaimer: Some college students are barely getting by day-to-day and are paying with the little they have to be at this university. This article does not belittle that reality. You may think you’re a “poor college student” if you ate ramen noodles one night during the semester, bought a flannel at Thriftsmart or spent too much money on OrderUp, but the truth is, you’re not. In fact, you–or your parents–pay approximately $40,000 a year for a meal plan in the Taj Mahal of caf

Can You Help Fill Our Blank Space? In the past fifteen months, Belmont has experienced the opening of beautiful new living and learning spaces in the form of the Wedgewood Academic Center, the Johnson Center and Two Oaks Residence. In some of these cases, the move to the new space has created vacancies that could be repurposed for other campus community needs. Recently, I sent out a campus-wide email inviting all members of the Belmont community to engage in a process to g

It was tough leaving my home behind when I went to college, but luckily I was able to bring a huge part of my life with me: soccer. Now a senior, I am about to say goodbye to that, too. I have played the sport since I was 5 years old, but it was never a hobby for me. Beginning in fifth grade I traveled most weekends for tournaments and practiced after school. It was all consuming. My involvement only grew as I got older, and I found myself at tournaments in Florida for every

After the opening of the Johnson Center last week, for the first time while I have been at Belmont, there will be no cranes, blastings no road closures and no more Frisbees lost to the giant hole in the middle of the lawn. There will finally be a pause on the construction and we can fully appreciate our campus. Belmont has grown rapidly in the last 15 years. We have new buildings, lost some old ones and have grown exponentially in student population. Belmont truly has been bu

Editor’s note: The following is a piece submitted by a group of Belmont students who are Muslim. The views and opinions expressed in this letter do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Belmont Vision. Letters to the editor help us accomplish our mission of expressing “student news, student views.” The Vision welcomes readers to submit letters to the editors through our email at belmontvisionnews@gmail.com. As Belmont University continues to diversify its stud

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed your break and are returning to campus rested and ready for spring. As I mentioned in my most recent Vision 2020 email update, a Vision Council comprised of 10 student leaders identified by SGA and Senior Leadership are meeting throughout the semester to engage in conversation about plans and actions to achieve the priorities of Vision 2020. If you’d like to hear more about the council, visit SGA’s pages on Facebook and Bruinlink or contact o

1984 has arrived 31 years late. In November 2014, Tennessee State University’s student publication ran coverage of a shooting that happened near the school and involved students. Soon after, TSU’s administration began shutting down the information flow to the paper little by little, rendering it essentially useless. But TSU isn’t the only college facing pressure from its administration. Delta State University in Mississippi also faces the destruction of its newspaper and jour

On the afternoon of Feb. 5, Student Government Association President Jeanette Morelan received an email from Braden Stover, the chairman of the Judicial Review Board, the group which deemed Morelan’s actions unconstitutional. Stover will oversee any upcoming impeachment proceedings. The email condemned Morelan’s use of the SGA Facebook page to comment on the Bill of Impeachment against her and he expressed how he was displeased with Morelan’s treatment of the board. “I strong

Last week I was trained by a SEAL. In a self-defense course required for all female student-athletes, I learned various Krav Maga moves to help protect me in a compromising situation. Going into the night, all I could think about was how unfair the whole situation was. On the night of the college football national championship game, here I was, forced to attend a two-hour self-defense course. And worst of all, the male athletes didn’t have to do it. After attending the course

I cut left, cut right, nail a perfectly driven ball past the helpless keeper and watch it slam into the net. I can’t believe I scored the winning goal. But the game hasn’t even started yet. I saw the goal in my head while going through my pre-game visualization routine. Visualization is a common tactic used in professional sports because of one simple concept – if you see it, you can do it. The same idea also applies to non-athletic related instances as well. Students can ben

As anyone from The Tennessean will tell you, Anne Paine is a tough nut to crack. When I started at the Nashville daily newspaper last year, Paine was the dean of the newsroom. The environmental reporter had been at 1100 Broadway for decades and had seen more than her share of her reporters and interns. Little did I know I had an ace up my sleeve. When I told her my adviser said ‘Hi,” her head popped up from her corner faster than I had seen yet. “You know Linda Quigley?” she