Belmont University's fast-growing community of nearly 4,500 students comes from almost every state and more than 25 countries. Belmont is committed to premier teaching with a focus on success in the real world. Our purpose is to help students explore their passions and develop their talents to meet the world's needs. With more than 70 areas of study, eight master's degrees and two doctoral degrees, there is no limit to the ways Belmont University can expand an individual's horizon.

Over the past five years, Belmont University's student body has grown from just under 3,000 students to 4,481 in the 2006-07 school year. With over 70 majors for students to choose from, tomorrow's top nurses, educators and business executives are getting their start at Belmont University. As enrollment steadily increases, so does the quality of each new class. This year's freshman class has an average ACT score of 26. A third of the freshman class ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. As Belmont grows, the university has made a real commitment to maintaining its rich tradition of academic excellence in a Christian community of learning and service.

One of Belmont's consistent success stories is its world-renowned music and entertainment/music business programs. Several big names in the music industry got their start at Belmont: 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.

Students who have passions outside of the music industry also have a home at Belmont. Popular areas of study include the nationally recognized entrepreneurship program, New Century Journalism, Public Relations and Nursing.

As Belmont's academic program offerings grow, so too does Belmont's physical campus. One of the most exciting and innovative additions to campus is the Financial Trading Room located in the Jack C. Massey Business Center. This state-of-the-art room includes a digital stock ticker, data wall, TV monitors and workstations. Students can simulate financial transactions and even complete real transactions under the guidance of their professors. Belmont University is the only college or university in Tennessee with an active electronic financial trading room.

The Gordon E. Inman Center home to the College of Health Sciences & Nursing opened in September, 2006. The $22.5 million facility houses Belmont's nursing, social work, occupational therapy and physical therapy programs. The Partners in Nursing consortium is a partnership between Belmont University, HCA's TriStar Health System and other select Tennessee colleges and universities. This partnership was created to address the growing shortage of registered nurses in Tennessee. It is a perfect example of Belmont's mission to intersect its students' passions with the world's needs.

Belmont's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Belmont was named in the Top 10 universities in the South in the master's category in U.S. News & World Report's 2007 edition of America's Best Colleges. For the fifth year in a row, Belmont athletics received the Atlantic Sun Academic Trophy.

Belmont University takes seriously its place in the world as a Christian university by challenging its students, faculty and staff to look at the hardest circumstances and ask, "What can we do?" Students are encouraged to go out and engage and transform the world, locally and globally. They do this through disaster relief trips to the tsunami-stricken areas of Asia and 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 that have taken them to the Ukraine and Brazil.

At Belmont University, every student is told 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 are committed and dedicated to preparing and encouraging students to find their passion and use it to change the world.