by Crystal Davis | Sep 11, 2012 | News Slider
Students participating in formal rush this week are experiencing new changes to the rush process. Campus Life instituted the changes for this semester, hoping to give more students opportunities to be involved in Greek life on campus. Sam Parnell, director of Greek life, said during the spring 2012 semester that 110 students received bids, and 37 did not. Three of those students who did not receive bids were ineligible due to “academic/institutional requirements.” Five hundred undergraduates make up Lipscomb’s 13 social clubs. Parnell said campus life doesn’t “monitor the criteria the social clubs use to pick their members. We are changing the process to allow more students the opportunity to be in a social club.” “The major change is having students list their top choices of social clubs in which they wish to rush,” Parnell said. “If a student doesn’t get sent a formal bid for their club of choice, then they still have other chances to make it in to an alternate choice.” With the new system, students rank their top three choices of clubs, and then are placed in the highest ranking club that extends a bid to them. According to posted eligibility requirements, all students must be in good academic standing and have completed one semester as a full-time student at Lipscomb to rush. Freshmen have to achieve a GPA of at least 2.5, and other undergraduates must earn a GPA of 2.0 or higher. Other requirements include attending four open rush events, three club prospective events and all formal rush events for which you receive an invitation. The men’s (Sigma Omega Sigma, Delta Nu, Tau Phi, Gamma Xi, Sigma Iota Delta) and women’s social clubs (Gamma Lambda, Pi...
by Crystal Davis | Sep 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
The Well, a coffee shop with a special mission, opened its doors this summer in Green Hills. This trendy new spot for students to lounge and study has a slight twist. It’s a non-profit organization geared toward ending poverty. The Well is tucked away on Richard Jones Road in Green Hills, just across from Trader Joe’s. The coffee house donates its proceeds to help create sustainable solutions for people without water and food across the world. Adjunct Bible Professor Rob Touchstone and five other men comprise the board of directors that essentially runs the booming new business. “It’s a way of addressing poverty in the world,” Touchstone said. “This is our effort to give back. “Our goal here is to be a non-profit missional coffee house where we’re giving away all of our profits to try and alleviate poverty by bringing sustainability to different parts of the world, mainly in Africa.” While it’s only been open for a little over a month, The Well has already completed one project to give back. Touchstone said the coffee shop’s proceeds bought a new washing machine for an infirmary–essentially a nursing home–in Jamaica. Touchstone said he was enrolled in Earl Lavender’s missions graduate course about five years ago when he was asked the question, “What would the church look like outside the walls of the church building?” He challenged his group of friends to tackle this question head on. Touchstone said his goals for The Well were to “take down the religious barriers that sometimes get put up by church buildings, stained glass and formal religion and to try and get in to the...
by Crystal Davis | Apr 12, 2012 | Opinion
I’m one of the not-so-young students here on campus, so I experience some things younger, normal-aged Lipscomb students might not – like losing your life, your meaning, your point of being here. I’m almost 25, a Lipscomb senior with an Associate of Science, and I’ll be receiving my Bachelor of Arts this fall. I’m what you call ‘extremely indecisive about life.’ After a lot of soul searching, I first decided I wanted to be a doctor. I had my heart set on being a pediatrician. I got through a few random courses at a small community college and then finished my Associates degree at another community college in Franklin. I came to Lipscomb still intending to pursue my pre-medical coursework. Then my world fell apart. At 23, my parents decided to divorce after 32 years of marriage. My father told me about it as we were sitting in the hospital while my mother was having surgery to remove a tumor the doctors thought was cancerous. It wasn’t, thank God. You would think, being an adult, the divorce wouldn’t hit me as hard as it would a child, but not only did it hit me – it knocked me over, beat me up and threw me back down. I had no idea how it would change me forever. The divorce consumed me. The whole process ended up being pretty nasty. I was pushed and pulled on both sides, as my parents started to treat me more like an equal than a daughter. I wasn’t shielded from any information or opinions. I ended up mediating their divorce and settlements just to get...
by Crystal Davis | Mar 30, 2012 | News Slider
You would think walking in to a Green Hills movie theater at 10:25 on a Sunday night that it would be empty. Not that night! It was full! Friends with Kids, the new movie with several members of the Bridesmaids cast, had minimal promotion in Nashville, but apparently it was a smash. Newcomer Jennifer Westfeldt and Jason Scott find themselves the only single people in a group of close-knit friends. The movie addresses that sensitive time of people’s lives when they make the transition between life without major responsibilities to life with families and kids and all that comes after. Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm and Chris O’Dowd round out the cast and provide most of the comic relief. Westfeldt and Scott play best friends who decide they want to have kids after their close friends have children and embrace married life. The movie addresses the good times and the rough times throughout the journey of Westfeldt and Scott having a child and raising it in a divorced-parent-like style. It gives some alternative views of how to raise a family in a non-traditional lifestyle. It’s not something most people are familiar with coming out of a Christian school, but it has become more and more the norm in the last couple of generations. This R-rated film includes some scenes with semi-censored sexual activities, which may be offensive to some people. There’s an abundance of foul language, not appropriate for a younger audience. I think all of these situations are intended to be funny and thought provoking; the director tries to produce a bigger picture–a romantic comedy wrapped up in the...
by Crystal Davis | Mar 8, 2012 | News Slider
With some musician friends in town for the week, I knew I’d be in charge of entertaining. Entertaining means late nights for me. I don’t do late nights well with my class schedule, but sometimes you’ve got to step out of the box and have some fun. We all went to this great little hidden restaurant called City House in Germantown. There were about 15 of us all gathered around this long table situated in the middle of the main dining floor. We jumped at the chance to order one big dinner that we would all share. After 30 seconds of contemplation we ordered 10 pizzas consisting of zucchini, hot sauce, pork and cheese. We also got five bowls of fried octopus and calamari. I know, gross! Actually, though, it was really good. The owner cooked in the kitchen, which was open for everyone on the main dining floor to see. After we ate, we sat there for about 10 minutes holding our stomachs and talking about how amazing the food was. My friend was boasting about how amazing City House was because he picked it. We nodded in sarcastic agreement. We were too stuffed to argue. After dinner, we got a few taxis into town to find a spot to hang out away from the country bars and restaurants downtown. I’m not much of a “hang out in a crowd and get pushed around” type of girl. Nor do I like having to scream at my friend to have a conversation. Therefore, we decided to go to Patterson House on Division St. in Nashville. It’s a really cool...
