SEGMENT ONE:

GUESTS: Dr. Bethany Rhoten, new director of the MTSU School of Nursing

TOPIC: For nearly 20 years, Bethany Rhoten has been immersed in healthcare systems across Middle Tennessee before taking the helm Aug. 1 as director of the Middle Tennessee State University School of Nursing in the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences.

She succeeds Jenny Sauls, who had led the school since 2013 and has returned to a faculty position.

Rhoten spent 11 years on the faculty at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, most recently as professor of nursing.

Before her tenure at Vanderbilt, she attended the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, where she earned an undergraduate degree in biology in 2009. She later graduated from Vanderbilt with a master’s in acute care nursing before earning her doctorate there in 2013.

But her research began at the bedside. Working as an intensive care nurse at TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, she watched patients who were treated for head and neck cancer struggle with how illness changed their bodies and their sense of themselves, and she built a decade of scholarship around it.

Learn more here.

SEGMENT TWO:

GUEST: Richard Lewis, associate professor of animation and esports and content creation coordinator, and Kyle Greaney, vice president for the MTSU Esports club

TOPIC: The growth of MTSU Esports and the coming ribbon-cutting ceremony for Esports Level Up Arena and the partnership with XP League of Franklin

MTSU’s competitive gaming community has seen explosive growth amid the rising popularity of gaming, so much so that the university is hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony and grand opening on Tuesday, Sept. 22, of Esports Level Up Arena inside the Student Union Building, as well as the signing of a partnership with XP League of Franklin.

Because of the growth of the MTSU Esports club and interest in competitive gaming on campus, the previous arena space on the second floor of the Student Union Building proved insufficient, prompting the Student Affairs Division to secure a significantly larger space on the ground floor of the building.

And that investment is paying off. One of the MTSU Esports team competed in Clarksville at F2Con recently and won a large trophy and $2,500 dollars for the club.

Competitive gaming has an academic component as well. MTSU added two new esports concentrations last fall that will teach students about aesthetics, ethics, marketing and technology needed to create gaming-related content and streams.

“Esports” is competitive video gaming, and like any other sport, there are multiple levels of competition ranging from high school and collegiate to professional teams that compete in front of packed arenas and are broadcast to global audiences.

The development of the two MTSU undergraduate concentrations — Esports and Gaming Content Creation housed in the College of Media and Entertainment and Esports Coaching offered by Leisure and Sport Management in the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences — has been a collaborative effort with stakeholders across campus to give students pathways to the needed skills and a degree for an industry that was previously unavailable in the region.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average annual pay for a job in the esports industry in the United States is $156,348 a year. Jobs can range from a professional player, content creator, influencer, broadcast manager, social media manager, talent manager, team publicist, coaching, assistant coach, events manager, general manager, game analyst, commissioner and more.

SEGMENT THREE:

GUEST: Dr. Leah Tolbert Lyons, dean of the MTSU College of Liberal Arts 

TOPIC: The launch of the True Blue Character Blueprint

The True Blue Character Blueprint is a campuswide initiative designed to strengthen character education at Middle Tennessee State University by connecting the values of the True Blue Pledge with students’ academic and campus experiences. 

The initiative is supported by a Character Capacity-Building Grant through the Educating Character Initiative at Wake Forest University, providing MTSU with resources to develop a more intentional and unified approach to character education.

Led by the College of Liberal Arts, the True Blue Character Blueprint brings together faculty, staff and students to explore what character means at MTSU and how qualities such as responsibility, civility, resilience and community engagement contribute to personal, academic and professional growth. 

Through faculty development, student programming, guest speakers and campus conversations, the initiative will build a shared framework for character education and create new opportunities to integrate character development throughout the MTSU experience.

The initiative held a kickoff event in early September to raise campus awareness about the effort. Learn more here.