by Katie Bianchini | Nov 8, 2016 | News Slider
Lipscomb Department of Communication students welcomed award-winning television host Ashley Eicher for the final Media Masters event of the semester. Eicher now hosts The Ram Report on the Rolling Stone Country website, but said she weathered many ups and downs before she began her career. “I had to chase the dream that I felt like I was supposed to be doing,” Eicher told the audience. “From my perspective and my faith I just had to trust God and say, ‘OK, you’ve got this.’” She went through a 10-month unemployment period early in her career that changed her perspective on her vocation and taught her to lean on God. “I kept praying like, ‘Why am I a nanny right now,’ or, ‘When is this going to end,’ but I really needed that entire 10 months to change my attitude,” she said. “It knocked down my pride and gave me a reality check.” Junior Josie Burlison said Eicher’s message encouraged her as she pursues a career outside the journalism and media realm. “Going into something like interior design, you have to build up the clientele and there’s not always that steady income,” she said. “So I liked how she talked to us about that period of unemployment.” Eventually, in 2006 Eicher started her on-camera career as the host of ABC and the CMA’s first web series on the CMAs and CMA Music Festival. Since then, she has hosted with well-known personalities such as Luke Bryan, Jake Owen and Chuck Wicks. Eicher told the students that good television hosting comes from developing good conversational skills, being themselves and having more fun. “It...
by Katie Bianchini | Oct 25, 2016 | News Slider, Sports
Junior Brianne Hoglin opened an email from Assistant Athletic Director Dr. Linda Garner that offered her an opportunity she could not turn down this past March. The email explained application details for the annual NCAA Career in Sports Forum, a conference that invites just 200 student-athletes nationwide to learn about possible careers in athletic leadership. At the time, Lipscomb had never sent any applicants to the forum. However, that did not stop Hoglin, a track and field athlete with a goal to coach a collegiate team herself, from sending in her application. Two months later, the conference selected both Hoglin and former Lady Bisons pitcher Kelly Young, who graduated in May 2016, to attend. “It opened my eyes to the role of a coach as a servant leader,” Hoglin said. “The reality is that most head coaches started from the bottom and rose through a serving attitude.” On Sunday, Hoglin refreshed her thoughts from the summer’s conference at the Women in Athletics Leadership Panel at Vanderbilt’s McGugin Center. “I was reminded of the same attitude they talked to us about: if you have a passion for something, you have to go do it,” Hoglin said. “Usually the main person standing in your way is yourself. “It also reminded me of the depth of commitment a position in sports requires,” Hoglin continued. “It’s not always glamorous and glitzy; it’s a lot of work. But it’s fulfilling if your heart is in it.” Vanderbilt panelists included Tennessee State University’s Athletic Director Teresa Phillips, Vanderbilt’s Deputy Athletic Director Candice Lee, Nashville Predators’ Executive Vice President Michelle Kennedy, SEC Associate Commissioner Tiffany Daniels...
by Katie Bianchini | Oct 8, 2016 | News Slider
On Friday night, the Lipscomb Student Activities Board transformed Bison Square into a dance floor, complete with twinkle lights and a DJ, for the annual Swing in the Square event. While most students who attended did not have extensive dance backgrounds, several couples danced like they had jumped straight out of the ’40s. Freshmen Audrey Inmon and Johnathan Sottek whirled around the floor, completing flips and twists in beat with the big-band music. “Swing is definitely a different type of dance than we do today,” Sottek said. “It’s more respectful…it’s one you have to think about more because you have to count rather than just move around.” Inmon said she danced in musicals as she grew up in Memphis; Sottek said he practiced his moves at Centennial Park swing dancing events last summer. Both agreed that an event like Swing in the Square gives students a valuable opportunity to learn how to dance. “A lot of dance today is more just chaos, but with this you have to work with the person across from you and can’t just yank [your partner] around,” he said. “It takes a lot more communication.” The swing era lasted from around 1935 to 1946 in the United States. Artists like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday played popular jazz and big band music that encouraged the sugar-pushing, lindy-hopping dance style. “It’s kind of a cool look back in history,” Sottek said. “You don’t really think about that while you’re doing it, but it was the dance of an era, so to go back and visit that can be really cool.” Inmon said...
by Katie Bianchini | Sep 15, 2016 | News Slider
Currently, it’s hard for Lipscomb students to see beyond the chain link fences and road blocks that signify the closing of yet another parking area on campus. However, by fall 2017, the lot behind the Village will offer more than just parking spaces to upperclassmen with the opening of a brand new residence hall. While the building does not yet have a name, Sam Smith, Dean of Student Life, said Lipscomb has big plans for the new structure. “The best way to help students understand the design of the new building is to ask them to think of the Hampton Inn,” Smith said. “The new building will be a beautiful living space that will promote community through its design.” Smith has spent the last couple of years visiting 20 other college campuses from California to Massachusetts, looking at a variety of dorm options. He said he hopes with his research that Lipscomb can provide students with the best space to live. “There will be around 174 beds in the new residence hall, and each hall will have a mix of community areas for the residents to interact with each other and build relationships,” Smith said. “The lower level will include office space, a full kitchen, a classroom and a beautiful courtyard.” While not a co-ed dorm — keeping with Lipscomb’s standards — the new hall will have a flexible building design to allow both males and females to live in different wings. Smith said he and other staff members hope to name the structure in the coming months. Options include: the name of a historical figure from Lipscomb’s past,...
by Katie Bianchini | Sep 9, 2016 | News Slider
Lipscomb women have two unique opportunities to cultivate community and vulnerability through Delight and Zion Bible studies. Originally started by two Belmont University students five years ago, Delight Ministries holds meetings at over 70 universities in the United States, now including Lipscomb. Junior Hailey Gilliland felt called to start a Delight group at Lipscomb after falling in love with the devotionals herself. “I just remember reading the devos and feeling like they were so real and relatable,” Gilliland said. “A lot of people feel like there’s things they can and can’t say on campus and Delight is just one of those things that opens the doors to share struggles with each other.” Senior Erin King, a leader for Delight, said she is excited about the way the group will impact women at Lipscomb. “We want to be unified under the fact that we’re all broken and we’re all struggling with different things,” King said. Beyond weekly reading from a devotional book, the Delight program offers ideas about building community in other ways. Delight participants will have opportunities to work on service projects together, spend time with a prayer pal on “Delight Dates” and meet up for events. “The goal is to create community…not a social event or something surface-level, but something that goes a lot deeper than that that’s founded on Christ,” King said. Besides Delight, Lipscomb upperclassmen host Zion, a Bible study for freshman women. Junior McKamie Walker said Zion helped her feel comfortable at Lipscomb during her freshman year. She and several friends wanted to re-start the group this year to help younger students in the same way. “It...
