Governor Haslam speaks at Nashville Business Breakfast

Early Friday morning inside Allen Arena, Lipscomb hosted the first Nashville Business Breakfast of the fall semester. Tennessee’s newest governor, Bill Haslam, was the featured speaker of the event. Others speaking at the event were SGA president Daniel Wakefield and Lipscomb president Randy Lowry. Amongst the numerous white collar businessmen and women were several members of the Lipscomb faculty. Walt Leaver, Jim Thomas, Tom Seals and Joe Ivey – to name a few. Several of those in the audience were present for the first time. This was pointed out during the introduction when it was announced that the crowd at Friday’s breakfast was twice the size of any other they had seen in the past. Wakefield officially started the event by offering an invocation. Following him was President Lowry who pointed out the audience’s only federally elected official, congressman Jim Cooper. Lowry highlighted the accomplishments of the university over the recent months and told a very light-hearted story about his predecessor, Steve Flatt. Turns out, when renovating Fanning over the summer, workers found several lost items behind the bookshelves in the rooms of the dormitory. One of the items was a letter written by Flatt. The letter was to a girl. A girl that, turns out, is not his wife. Lowry was quick to point out that it was not anything sinister, for Flatt had not yet met his wife. Lowry then introduced the day’s featured speaker, Gov. Haslam. Haslam was greeted with a standing ovation. He began in normal speaking fashion with a joke. “It’s great seeing everyone show up for something like this at the beginning of...
Lipscomb coaches reflect on Summitt’s legacy

Lipscomb coaches reflect on Summitt’s legacy

Hard nosed, honest, tough and a leader. All the words have been used to describe Coach Pat Summitt for over 30 years. Now, just days after she announced that she had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, those words have never rang truer. Coach Summitt has been the head coach of the Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee since she was 22. Yes, some of her players were older than her. She drove the van to away games. She and her players slept in locker rooms because money was tight. Some ladies even made the team based on the fact that they owned a vehicle. For Coach Summitt, those were the tough times. Now, Lady Vol fans and admirers of the Basketball Hall of Fame coach are calling this a hard time. Summitt refuses to, though. “There will be no pity party,” Summitt told the Washington Post in an interview on Sunday. “I’ll be sure of that.” Summitt says she had felt that something was off for a while, saying she “just felt something different.” Once her Lady Vols were eliminated from the Regional final of the NCAA tournament she visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. seeking any sort of explanation to why she had these lapses of memory. Those lapses were everything from forgetting what time she needed to be at the gym, losing her car keys more than once per day and forgetting what type of scheme or play to run at a certain time during a game. “I think last year there was some adjustment in games,” Lipscomb’s women’s basketball coach Frank Bennett said....

Letter from the editor: 2011, A new year

Hello faculty, friends and fellow students of Lipscomb University. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Hunter Patterson, Lumination’s editor in chief. My staff and I are looking forward to a great year. Being at such a fine institution, we journalists have a lot of exciting stories to tell and events to chronicle. Whether it’s about one of our NCAA sports teams, professors publishing books or writing about one of our countless students who are impacting the world, we consider ourselves grateful. Like many of you, I am excited that school has started back. Also, I am excited that my peers have accepted me as editor of this news site that is truly for students and by students. It is our goal to make Lumination the place to visit when you want to know something about campus. Soon, we will have a calendar of events that you will be able to reference to know the dates of anything and everything that is happening on campus. We have also partnered with Lipscomb In Motion and the athletics department to keep you, the students, in the know. You know, informing you about the important stuff; chapel credits, t-shirts and most importantly, free food. I’d also like to thank you for visiting the site. I know that I speak for not only myself, but for the rest of my staff as well, when I say we all really appreciate it. I’d like you to invite you to follow us on Twitter, too: @luminationnet Here’s to a good year! You’ll be hearing from us quite often.  ...

Men’s Basketball schedule announced

With only four returning scholarship letterwinners on his roster for this season, Coach Scott Sanderson has utilized every opportunity in the 2011-12 men’s basketball schedule to get his young team ready for the postseason. In a normal season, the Bisons would play 29 games plus an exhibition. This season however, Lipscomb uses two separate NCAA exemptions to boost this number to 30 games behind an exhibition and a five-game foreign tour for a total of 36 contests. After opening the season with home games against Fort Valley State University (Nov. 11) and Gardner-Webb (Nov. 13), Lipscomb will participate in the Cancun Shootout, a four-game exempt tournament that only counts as three games towards schedule limits. The Cancun Shootout actually starts in the United States and not Mexico with the Bisons traveling to Illinois (Nov. 17) and Illinois State (Nov. 19). Lipscomb will then fly from Chicago to Cancun to play two games in the “Mayan Division” against SIU Edwardsville (Nov. 22) and either Hampton or Sacred Heart the following day. Lipscomb opens a four-game home stand with Austin Peay on Monday, Nov. 28. Lipscomb defeated Austin Peay twice last season restarting an old rivalry between two teams an hour apart that hadn’t played each other for nearly half a century. The Bisons open conference action against Mercer (Dec. 1) and Kennesaw State (Dec. 3) before hosting UT Martin (Dec. 6) in a final home game before spending the next six weeks on the road. Lipscomb plays their third and fourth Ohio Valley Conference opponent in a three-week period when traveling to Tennessee Tech (Dec. 10) and Murray State (Dec....

Lipscomb Dems plan to re-emerge on campus this semester

On the day after an agreement has finally been reached to extend the federal debt ceiling, both Republicans and Democrats can rejoice the government has avoided a possible default. While congressional approval is still required, America has seen bipartisanship win once again. And bipartisanship is exactly what Thomas Whisenant wants on Lipscomb’s campus. Resurrecting the Lipscomb Democrats club, Whisenant is ready to give democratic students a louder voice on campus. “I felt like there was an absence on campus for students with a more democratic political view,” Whisenant said. “Being a student who is a democrat, it is nice to have a group of people there to get your voice heard.” It’s not just about promoting democratic views for Whisenant, though. While that is high on the list, there are more important things. “We want to present to people that politics are not a bad thing,” he said. “Politics is something that we need to be involved in. Just because Washington seems hostile and difficult doesn’t mean they have to be here [on campus].” As far as the group’s formation goes, this is not something new. For those that are seniors this year, you may remember the 2008 election. During that time and during the campaign, there were groups for Republicans and Democrats. However, since then, both groups have disappeared. With the reformation of Lipscomb Dems, Whisenant hopes to reach out to different groups and help the community at the same time. “I think that it’s important that we make sure that Lipscomb comes before the Democrats,” Whisenant said. “We want to be a group that gives back and...