At Belmont University, the story is different. We aren’t simply surviving these challenges; we're changing the game for how higher education should operate. We are working to reimagine the role of a higher education institution, stretching us in new and innovative ways.

But keeping pace with our evolving world doesn’t mean abandoning tradition—it’s about preserving the strong foundation of faith, agility and leadership that has launched our community to where we are today and building from there. Both preservation and innovation are equally important, and institutions need both to thrive.

Learning to Breathe with Double Lungs

To visualize this duality, think about something you do every day: breathing.

Breathing with two lungs is what helps us not just survive but thrive. While I'm told that we can get by with only one lung, two fully functional lungs allow for deeper breaths, greater endurance, and a richer, more fulfilling life. In the same way, Belmont's approach to higher education leverages the depth of tradition and the breadth of innovation. We don't choose between the old and the new, but use both to provide a comprehensive, dynamic, and impactful educational experience. We call this a double-lung approach.

We seek to integrate our traditional strengths with necessary, innovative expansion—ensuring institutional resilience and societal impact—through the solid foundation of Core Education and the dynamic, future-oriented initiatives of Education Expanded.

  We seek to integrate our traditional strengths with necessary, innovative expansion—ensuring institutional resilience and societal impact—through the solid foundation of Core Education and the dynamic, future-oriented initiatives of Education Expanded.    

Core Education, our first lung, is the bedrock of who we’ve always been, the deep-rooted practices and values that have long defined us. Education Expanded, our second lung, represents our stride into broader horizons, encompassing innovative strategies and community engagement that go beyond the conventional.

Our lungs work in tandem to launch us toward a future where higher education is reimagined and revitalized. This strategy empowers us to navigate the challenges of a shifting educational landscape and positions Belmont as a vanguard in the transformative journey of higher education.

The Active Dynamics of Our Double-Lung Approach

Breathing fully into both lungs is a balancing act. We must commit to what we've long excelled at—Core Education—while broadening how we think about higher education by adding new capabilities and engaging with our community in new ways—Education Expanded. It may not be as intuitive as taking a deep breath, but when done intentionally, it’s just as fulfilling and enriching.

To shift into this way of thinking, we must adjust how we think about our industry, the challenges we face, and those we impact. Let’s break down some key mindset changes that allow us to lean into this approach, blending stability and innovation as we adapt to an evolving university landscape.

• Prioritize Impact Over Activity: Best-selling author and businessman Harvey Mackay is often credited with saying, "It's not about the hours you put in, but what you put in the hours." This is the essence of impact over activity. It can be easy to get caught up in day-to-day tasks and the endless cycle of meetings. But what really counts is the difference we make—in our students' lives, in our research, in our communities. Focusing on impact fills our work with meaning and purpose, allowing us to thrive.
• Sustain a Culture of Collaboration: It’s impossible to enact change in a silo. To breathe with double lungs, collaboration is key. This is a hallmark of our culture at Belmont—we learn from each other and work cross-functionally to accomplish our goals. This collaboration means that our expanded vision influences our conception of the core and vice-versa.
• Commit to Teamwork: Think of our student athletes—how they rely on each other, build on each other's strengths, and accomplish more together than any single one could alone. That's teamwork in action, and it's a powerful model for how we should operate as leaders. By working as teams of teams, we're not just adding numbers; we're multiplying our capabilities and capacity, just as one lung enriches the other.
• Approach New Ideas with Curiosity and Wonder: Approaching with wonder means looking at the world with fresh eyes, always asking, “what if?” It's about curiosity, exploration, and the excitement of discovering new possibilities. This mindset is crucial as we breathe life into both lungs of our institution, exploring traditional avenues with renewed curiosity and venturing into uncharted territories with a sense of adventure. It keeps us agile, responsive, and ready to embrace the new opportunities that come with a rapidly changing landscape.
• Trust and Inspire: As Stephen Covey shares in his book by the same name, the best leaders start with the core belief that people are creative, collaborative, and full of potential. At Belmont, we take this to heart. We believe that each person—student, staff, faculty—is brimming with creativity and potential. Building a culture of trust and inspiration empowers everyone to breathe deeper, reach further, and achieve more.

With these mindset shifts acting as the heartbeat of our institution, we’re prepared and ready to breathe deeply into each of our “lungs”—Core Education and Education Expanded.

Core Education: The First Lung

Our first lung, Core Education, represents the traditional aspects of higher education—rigorous academic programs, fundamental teaching methodologies, and the cultivation of whole-person formation and intellectual growth. These core pieces have always been central to who we are and the work we’ve done since our founding more than 130 years ago. It’s what we’ve been focusing on for generations (and what we must continue to nurture to foster a flourishing academic community).

Belmont’s approach to Core Education is comprehensive. We're focused on developing individuals who are well-rounded, both intellectually and morally, by nurturing the mind, the heart, and the spirit. This is accomplished by:

• Hands-On Experience: Learning at Belmont goes beyond the classroom. We apply theory to practice (and vice-versa) and provide countless opportunities for students to garner real-world experience. We are oriented toward practice in all we do.
• Community Service: Service to others is ingrained in our ethos. We believe in giving back, in learning through helping, and in understanding the wider world through community engagement.
• Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset: We encourage our students to think outside the box and view challenges as opportunities for innovation. Our curriculum integrates entrepreneurial principles across all disciplines, ensuring students learn about entrepreneurship and apply these principles to real-world scenarios. Through initiatives like startup competitions, incubator programs, and partnerships with local businesses, we equip our students not only to join the workforce, but to lead it.
• Orientation Towards Purpose: Higher education at its best has always focused on helping students find their “north star.” That is crucial to equipping students for a rapidly changing world.

Our commitment to Core Education has led to several notable achievements and innovations that surpass the baseline expectations we’ve come to hold for higher education. Our Jack C. Massey College of Business and nursing and music business programs have each recently celebrated 50 years of success. These programs have stood the test of time, constantly evolving to meet contemporary challenges and opportunities. We have also developed new colleges over the last two decades, adding Law, Pharmacy, Art, Architecture, and Fashion Design and, in 2024, a new College of Medicine to our core programs.

We’ve seen outstanding student outcomes across our community, with 96% of our recent graduates finding employment or pursuing further education within six months of graduation—a testament to the effectiveness of our educational approach. Additionally, Belmont’s new Center for Interprofessional Engagement and Simulation, one of the largest of its kind in the country, further enhances our healthcare educational offerings by providing students with hands-on, simulated experiences that mirror real-world clinical settings.

These achievements are further underscored by the accolades received by our programs. Our Music Business program has been consistently ranked among the top nationwide, attracting students from across the globe. Our graduates have gone on to influence and reshape the entertainment and music industry, demonstrating the real-world impact of our immersive and forward-thinking educational practices.

This solid groundwork of Core Education forms the first lung of our approach, providing the strength and stability upon which we can innovate and grow.

Education Expanded: The Second Lung

The introduction of our second lung, Education Expanded, builds on the strong foundation of Core Education, which has already set a high bar.

Education Expanded extends our impact, propelling us into new territories and perspectives and enhancing our ability to meet contemporary challenges. It's about redefining and broadening the scope of what higher education can achieve, complementing the excellent work we've been doing for our students, our community, and beyond.

Central to Education Expanded is the mantra of our Belmont Innovation Labs: Come Together. Learn Together. Solve Together. This philosophy drives our students and faculty to go beyond the confines of the classroom and engage with real-world challenges. By fostering a collaborative spirit, we equip our community to develop innovative solutions to complex problems, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and interdisciplinary approaches.

This work allows us to expand our educational offerings and strategically enhance Belmont's role in various industries. This means engaging with sectors like health care, technology, entertainment, entrepreneurship, social innovation, and more to create new opportunities. We work to connect academic strengths with industry needs, ensuring that our contributions remain relevant and impactful.

• The Hope Summit: A testament to our role as a convener, this yearly conference unites people and ideas to transform conversations into actionable solutions.
• Belmont Innovation Labs: Belmont is building a platform that enables and empowers our community to tackle today’s most complex problems—in the classroom and in the community—by addressing societal needs and driving human flourishing.
• Partnership with the Transformational Business Network: We're expanding our global reach by collaborating with international partners, deepening our impact and network worldwide.
• Christianity through the Arts Initiative: We seek to help catalyze a movement of awe and wonder across the United States through major support from the Lilly Endowment.
• Enhanced Presence on Music Row: Thanks to a historic $58 million gift from Mike Curb and the Curb Foundation, Belmont is set to transform Music Row with the expansion of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. This project, the largest in university history, includes renovating the iconic Buddy Lee Attractions/Capitol Records building and constructing a new facility. This development will preserve Music Row’s rich heritage while equipping students with state-of-the-art spaces for industry immersion and collaboration, cementing Belmont's role as a leader in entertainment and music business education.
• The Belmont/Fisk Social Justice Collaborative: This new initiative will cultivate social justice champions through knowledge and experiences shared between universities.
• Belmont Online: We are launching new programs to encourage educational innovation, attract diverse learners, and cater to the evolving skills needed in today's world. These online offerings make higher education more accessible and flexible, meeting the needs of students wherever they are.

These initiatives serve as a blueprint for transformative change in higher education. By providing these expanded opportunities, we directly enhance access and experiential learning opportunities for our students, making a seamless connection to the foundational principles of Core Education.

This approach empowers universities to transcend traditional academic roles, fostering environments that are agile, responsive, and deeply interwoven with societal needs, positioning universities as key players in global conversations and crafting solutions for contemporary challenges.

Ultimately, Education Expanded is a commitment to leadership in thought and action. It offers a path for universities to lead efforts to cultivate human and community flourishing—ensuring our educational impact extends beyond academic boundaries to support broader societal growth and development.

The Hope Summit: A Case Study in Education Expanded

Want to see Education Expanded in action? Let’s zoom in on The Hope Summit.

The Summit's primary goal is to bring together diverse people—thought leaders, activists, artists and academics—to foster an environment where transformative ideas can flourish. It's a platform where stories are not just told but are used as catalysts for social innovation and human resilience.

This event is a tangible manifestation of our belief in the power of coming together to learn and solve pressing global issues together as a community.

Aligning with Belmont’s strategic vision for 2030, the 2023 Hope Summit underscored Pathway 5—Storytelling That Inspires the World—by empowering participants to employ storytelling as a tool for social impact, shaping narratives that promote hope and fostering positive change.

The success and impact of the Hope Summit presents a compelling model for other institutions to emulate. By hosting such events, universities can position themselves as hubs of social innovation and change-making—providing a platform for addressing global challenges, fostering community resilience and inspiring collective action. The Hope Summit provides dynamic interactions for institutions and networks to foster synergies and multiplier effects. 

  By hosting such events, universities can position themselves as hubs of social innovation and change-making—providing a platform for addressing global challenges, fostering community resilience and inspiring collective action.    

For students, the Hope Summit offers unparalleled access to thought leaders and innovators across various fields, enabling them to engage directly in meaningful dialogue and collaborative problem-solving. This exposure enhances their academic experience while equipping them with practical skills and insights necessary for leading change in their own communities and professions.

Embracing the Double Lung Approach

In the evolving landscape of higher education, the necessity of adopting a double-lung approach has never been clearer. In embracing this double-lung approach, we’ve championed the concept of "traditioned innovation." This philosophy honors our rich traditions and history, while encouraging us to fearlessly pursue new avenues of growth and learning.

This approach has proven to be a game-changer for our teams, and I believe it can be the same for others. By maintaining a balance between traditional education (our first lung) and innovative, expansive strategies (our second lung), institutions can make it through difficult seasons and emerge stronger than before.

The double-lung approach breathes new life into academia, aligns with societal needs, and drives meaningful change. With both lungs functioning at max-capacity, we can collectively look forward to a future where growth, creativity, and innovation are not just possibilities, but certainties—a future where higher education continues to be a transformative force in people’s lives, in communities and in society.