After serving as the Coordinator of International Student Services for the last decade, Sylvia Bearden Braden has retired from her position within the Intercultural Development Department in order to focus on her family full-time.
After working several years in social services, Braden joined Lipscomb as an international recruiter in 2007. She later transitioned into a position with the Office of Student Life as the Coordinator of International Student Services in 2011.
According to Lisa Steele, Assistant Dean of Intercultural Services, the departure is bittersweet. While saddened to lose Braden, she feels that this is an opportunity to make needed changes within the department in an effort that she feels will grow and enhance the group.
The mission of the Intercultural Development Department is to assist students by serving as their advocate and mentor, to equip students with positive coping skills and to provide a safe-haven of belonging for students.
The department is committed to fostering an inclusive environment for students by striving to ensure the participation of Lipscomb’s under-represented students in university life.
“Exciting changes are coming soon,” Steele said. “We decided that it would be a good time to revamp the position. We also changed the name of the position, so it’s now called Program Coordinator of Intercultural Development.”
Lipscomb senior admissions counselor Dolly DeLong will assume the position of Program Coordinator in the fall of 2017.
“The difference is that it will be a much less technical job now,” Steele said. “Rather than more focus on paperwork and visas, it will focus more on student life and activities now.”
Steele also said that this does not mean that the individual club activities will disappear.
“We will still have programming for the individual cultural groups, like Hispanic Heritage month, Black History Month and WOW (Welcome to Our Worlds) week,” she said. “Those will continue, but for the future, everyone will be invited to everything so we can all come to the table.”
DeLong has been the admissions senior recruiter of Lipscomb for the past six years. Her mother is Indian, and she has international experience, having spent half of her life in India and half in the United States.
She will assume her new position in June.
The Department of Intercultural Development will host several events this semester, including MASK Chapel each week, a WOW world buffet in March, an International Fashion Show and Salsa Dance Classes.
“We want to begin to merge the programs together under one umbrella,” Steele said. “There are currently over ten clubs and it started off because there was a specific need for each group to have their own separate organization.
“The new person will do programming for the entire department as a whole. In the monthly MASK Chapel everyone comes together, and it will be similar to that. We don’t want to exclude any cultures. It’s a slow transition, but we want to have total unity of diversity.”
For more information on upcoming events, contact Steele at (615) 966-5210 or visit the department’s website.