by Ellen Butterfield | May 9, 2018 | Galleries
Recent graduate Ellen Butterfield recounted one of her “most fulfilling” Lipscomb experiences by sharing a daily journal and collection of images she shot on film while in Guatemala for a spring break mission trip. Read the full story...
by Ellen Butterfield | May 8, 2018 | News Slider, Opinion
Serving with Lipscomb Missions in Guatemala was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my college career. I always expected service and missions work to be physically challenging or difficult, but I was unaware of the incredible experiences that happen working far outside your comfort zone with an incredible team of individuals. The images below were shot on film during our spring break missions trip in Guatemala. Saturday, March 10, 2018. We were already on a bus by 2:31 a.m. this morning. Each member of our team took a pre-packed bag of medical supplies to check and took what we needed for our week abroad in our carry-ons. The first image of our group leaders was taken during our first layover in the airport at about 10 a.m. We didn’t end up in Guatemala until after 3 p.m. that day. 3:19 pm. Our group split into two groups, one of nursing students who went to Clinica Ezell, and one group who went to the mountains in Chichicastenango to work in mobile clinics in rural Guatemala. I was in the Chichicastenango group, so we had an additional multiple-hour bus ride up the mountains. Upon arrival, we enjoyed our first group devotional with the local mission team, and then we went to sleep. Sunday, March 11, 2018. We rode to church in the backs of pickup trucks today, where we got to worship and spend time with the locals. We played ninja with the children at church and got to eat pizza and socialize with our brothers and sisters in Christ. That evening, we returned to our hotel...
by Ellen Butterfield | Apr 5, 2018 | Arts and Entertainment, News Slider
Lipscomb University theatre students are teaming up with the Nashville Repertory Theatre to perform Inherit the Wind — a work discussing creationism and evolution being taught in schools — at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Inherit the Wind is a fictional recreation of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial, in which Dayton, Tennessee, schoolteacher, John Scopes, is tried in court for teaching evolution, instead of creationism, in a classroom. Emily Meinerding, a senior acting major, plays Rachel Brown, the daughter of the minister and girlfriend to Bertram Cates, the fictional version of John Scopes. Meinerding says this play is particularly relevant to our society currently. “I think that there is a lot of polarizing situations in our culture as it is,” Meinerding said. “This play is one that encourages people to be open-minded, not to accept all, but to listen to all, to evaluate all, to read into things before you make decisions.” This production will run through Apr. 21 at the Andrew Johnson Theater. Tickets are available through the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s website, starting at $25. Chapel Credit is available to students for attending April 6 with a talkback led by Dr. Randy Spivey. “Come in with an open mind whether you’re an evolutionist, or a creationist or somewhere in the middle,” Meinerding said. “Just be open to the idea that maybe things aren’t as cut and dried as you believe; things are more gray than we might realize.” Photo courtesy of Lipscomb...
by Ellen Butterfield | Apr 3, 2018 | News Slider
Lipscomb University, a Church of Christ school, doesn’t dismiss classes campus-wide for Good Friday, but maintains it has a good reason for doing so. Since the university keeps its students in classes on Good Friday, many out-of-state or international students stay on campus over Easter, without sufficient time to travel home to celebrate with their families. Lipscomb University President Randy Lowry was out of town over Good Friday, so he was unable to comment this year. Last year, Lowry commented he would give the time off if he thought students would actually celebrate the holiday. “If we dismissed for Friday, what would students go do?” Lowry said last year. “If students said, ‘I’m going to go celebrate Easter, and spend the day in meditation and prayer, or at a Good Friday service,’ or whatever, I’d let you out of school in a moment. I don’t believe they’d do that. I believe they’d take a three-day weekend, they’d go home, and there’d be something lost here because our community was not together to celebrate.” The campus celebrates Easter throughout the week with many Resurrection Week activities on campus, with additional chapel opportunities, speakers and worship events. “I think it makes more sense to say, as a community, we’re here on Good Friday,” Lowry said. “We’ll have a service, which we haven’t always done on Good Friday, and invite the community to come be a part of that.” This year, to explain why class is held on Good Friday, the administration, through Kim Chaudoin, the Assistant Vice President with University Communication and Marketing, issued the following statement to Lumination: “In the...
by Ellen Butterfield | Feb 10, 2018 | Arts and Entertainment, BREAKING NEWS, News Slider
Lipscomb University’s Department of Cinematic Arts is undergoing drastic departmental changes after over $25,000 worth of lenses, cameras and accessories disappeared from the department at the end of January. Chair of Cinematic Arts Melissa Forte reached out to cinematic arts students on Jan. 30 in an email informing them of the incident, and asking for the return of the equipment so the department wouldn’t need to involve the police. “We are not taking this lightly,” Forte said in the email. “The value of this equipment is very high and the security of the remaining equipment very important.” Since the Cinematic Arts department has existed for only three years, a theft of this magnitude is a crushing blow to their resources. However, this is not the first theft within the department. Both a Mac computer and money from an office were stolen previously, so the department is now altering their checkout policy in order to safeguard against further theft. Students will no longer be allowed to use departmental Macs to edit at night, as they will be kept under lock and key. Further changes have yet to be announced. Lipscomb security was contacted for all key logs and surrounding video footage of the time, but nothing conclusive has yet arisen. The basement of Sewell has yet to be fitted with cameras as the area is awaiting renovation by the theatre department, for the cameras would not only take months to install and connect, but they would cost around $8,000 to install. Security is hesitant because they would only to have to redo the installation with the theatre renovation. Lumination reached...
