(MTSU photo by Andy Heidt)

Award-winning songwriter/producer Luke Laird listens to a question during a return trip to his alma mater April 2 to talk with MTSU students about his booming career.

Laird’s appearance in MTSU’s John Bragg Mass Communication Building was sponsored by the MTSU student chapter of Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Laird, a 2001 alumnus of the College of Mass Communication’s recording industry program, co-produced Kacey Musgraves’ “Same Trailer, Different Park,” which took the 2013 Grammy for Best Country Album in January 2014. The release also won Album of the Year honors at the Academy of Country Music Awards April 6.

Laird is up for the ACM’s Songwriter of the Year as well. That award will be announced Sept. 9 at the eighth annual ACM Honors in Nashville.

Laird has had 14 No. 1 singles since he signed his first publishing deal in 2002 and has written for some of music’s biggest artists, including Tim McGraw, Eric Church, Lady Antebellum, Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, Hunter Hayes, Ne-Yo, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, John Legend and others.