Belmont History
Belmont University sits on 75 historic acres two miles southwest of downtown Nashville, Tenn., a thriving metropolis known worldwide as Music City USA. In the mid-1800s, the land the university now occupies was known as the Belle Monte estate, the Victorian home of one of Tennessee’s wealthiest couples, Joseph and Adelicia Acklen. Their antebellum mansion remains today, flanked by university buildings separated in age by more than a century.
The first educational institution on the estate was the original Belmont College (1890-1913), offering elementary school through junior college education to young ladies. The school merged with Ward Seminary to become the prestigious Ward-Belmont School for Women (1913-1951) and in 1951, with the support of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, the school became the coed Belmont College. Since becoming Belmont University in 1991, Belmont has grown not only in size but in quality. The mansions, gardens and statues of Belmont's historic past now sit side-by-side with state-of-the-art facilities equipped with the best technology and teachers to train today's students with the right tools for real world success.
Belmont University is among the fastest growing Christian universities in the nation with nearly 4,800 students hailing from almost every state and more than 25 countries. Since 2000, enrollment has risen from just under 3,000 to 4,756 students for the 2007-08 school year, marking an increase of more than 60 percent. As enrollment steadily increases, so does the quality and diversity of each new class. Incoming 2007-08 freshmen represented 43 states and seven foreign countries and scored an average of 26 on the ACT.
Academics
In addition, Belmont continues to excel academically and was ranked 11th on the U.S News & World Report listing of “Best Universities” in the South in the master’s category for their 2008 edition of America’s Best Colleges, making Belmont the highest-ranked university in Tennessee in this category. Both Rolling Stone and Time magazines have hailed Belmont's Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business as one of the best music business programs in the country. The Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business has been named the best MBA program in the region, while Belmont’s business administration and accounting programs have been accredited by AACSB International, the premier accrediting agency in that arena.
Located in the heart of Music City USA (Nashville, Tenn.), one of Belmont’s consistent success stories is its world-renowned music and music business programs. Several big names in the music industry started their careers at Belmont including “American Idol” finalist Melinda Doolittle, Christian recording artists Ginny Owens and Steven Curtis Chapman, and country stars Trisha Yearwood, Lee Ann Womack, Brad Paisley and Josh Turner. The annual “Christmas at Belmont” concert showcases performing ensembles from many different genres and has been broadcast nationwide on PBS four years in a row. The University recently added a Songwriting major to its offerings, one of only a few such programs in the country.
Students who have passions outside of the music industry also have a home at Belmont. From international business and accounting to education, sport administration, nursing, journalism and the humanities, Belmont provides avenues of learning for almost any interest.
Belmont's boundaries extend beyond the Nashville campus through its Cool Springs campus and organized programs such as the Washington Center program and music business' Belmont West in Los Angeles and Belmont East in New York City. Study-abroad programs place students in China, Costa Rica, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, South Africa and Spain, among other foreign nations. Also, Belmont serves as a regional site for the East-West Center for the Development of Asian Studies.
Campus Growth
As Belmont’s academic program offerings grow, so too does the physical campus. Recent additions include the 2003 opening of a $52 million entertainment and student life complex which houses the Curb Event Center arena, the Beaman Student Life Center and the Maddox Grand Atrium. In 2005, Belmont opened the first university-based electronic financial trading center, which includes a digital stock ticker, data wall, TV monitors and workstations.
The Gordon E. Inman Center opened in 2006, providing a state-of-the-art $22.5 million facility that houses Belmont’s nursing, social work, occupational therapy and physical therapy programs and will be the temporary home for the new School of Pharmacy. The School of Nursing was recognized earlier this year by Laerdal Medical Corporation as a Center of Educational Excellence in part due to the advanced training the school’s multiple simulation models offer to its students.
Last year brought the inaugural performance in the beautiful new Belmont Theater Complex, featuring the 350-seat Bill and Carole Troutt proscenium theater, a Black Box theater and scene shop. The elegant theater complex now plays host to numerous student productions as well as collaborative efforts with local professional ensembles, including the Nashville Children’s Theatre, Actors Bridge Ensemble, Nashville Shakespeare Festival and the Nashville Ballet.
Fall 2008 finds the university opening a new residence hall in the middle of campus to accommodate 190 freshmen students. The building represents the cornerstone of a larger vision that will entail at least three residential structures in the center of campus, which will provide an ideal learning community for incoming classes.
Athletics
In addition to celebrating academic excellence and phenomenal growth, Belmont boasts 17 intercollegiate sports teams. The Belmont Bruins men's basketball team won its third consecutive Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament Championship in 2008 and made its third appearance in the NCAA National Tournament, losing a heartbreaking game 71-70 to perennial powerhouse Duke. Both Belmont Bruins basketball coaches—men’s coach Rick Byrd and women’s coach Tony Cross—have been with their programs for more than 20 years and have earned more than 500 career victories.
A Christian Community of Learning and Service
In 2007, the university’s formal relationship with the Tennessee Baptist Convention ended. In recent years, Belmont broadened its mission and can now include on its Board of Trustees members of all Christian denominations. In addition, Belmont joined the Lilly Fellows Program’s National Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities, a collective that also includes Baylor University, Boston College, Villanova and Notre Dame, among others.
Belmont is a student-focused, Christian community of learning and service where students hear from their first visit to campus until the day they graduate that they are created for a purpose in life. The Belmont faculty and staff dedicate themselves to preparing and empowering students to find their passion and use it to change the world. The university seeks to show every student how the love of Christ can compel them to lead lives of disciplined intelligence, compassion, courage and faith.
In fact, Belmont students, faculty and staff are consistently challenged to look at the hardest circumstances and ask, “What can we do?” Students are encouraged to engage and transform the world, locally and globally, by participation in disaster relief trips to everywhere from the tsunami-stricken areas of Southeast Asia to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Students serve locally at various relief and community organizations in Nashville throughout the year, and student-athletes take part annually in sports evangelism mission trips to Ukraine and Brazil. Others have taken advantage of what they’re learning at Belmont, incorporating their major studies into various service projects around the world, including working with orphans in South Africa and assisting with physical therapy needs in Guatemala.
With more than 75 areas of study, 12 master’s programs and three doctoral degrees, there is no limit to the ways Belmont University can expand an individual's horizon.
