by Mignonne Bryant | May 19, 2016 | News Slider
Summer has just begun for Lipscomb students, and many are already busy with travel, new internships, jobs and summer classes. Leah Gwin, a senior digital marketing and international business double major at Lipscomb, recently left to travel to Cape Town, South Africa to visit her cousin and experience African culture. Gwin’s 16-hour flight left on May 12, and she will be in Cape Town for about 18 days before coming back to the United States. “For the past few years, I have been half-joking with my parents saying I’d love to visit my cousin for a graduation present. Turns out, my parents are awesome and decided to buy me a plane ticket to South Africa to celebrate my graduation,” she said. Gwin is no stranger to travel. She studied abroad in Vienna in 2013, visited many places around Europe and also traveled to Tanzania, Africa, twice to minister to local villages. “Going to Cape Town will be completely different from my past experiences in Africa because it was founded by the British and has a mix of African and European culture and also has economic challenges right now,” Gwin said. Gwin was also excited to swim with sharks in the African waters at sunrise. “My cousin and I will be picked up at 3 a.m., put on wet suits and then load in a boat to go jump in the water with the sharks when the sun rises,” she said. Lindsey Benson is a sophomore exercise science major at Lipscomb who will be a camp counselor at Camp Big Fish in Chattanooga this summer. “I have about 15 incoming kindergarteners, and...
by Mignonne Bryant | Mar 28, 2016 | News Slider
A mobile medical unit travels along the winding roads of the Baja peninsula in Mexico. A church elder and translator accompany five Lipscomb students and two medical providers. They stop at an impoverished neighborhood where a man lies bedridden, with no way of getting to the clinic. The group assesses the man, provides him with the medicine he needs and then prays for him. A group of 26 Lipscomb students along with a team of medical providers (including certified doctors and nurse practioners) went to Baja California, Mexico for missions this spring break. They saw 536 medical and dental visits in two small, rural communities: Manaedero and El Zorillo. The team set up a clinic in one of the local churches to offer medical aid to the surrounding, impoverished communities from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. most days. The clinic included registration, triage (the allocation of medicine to patients), doctor medical bays and a dentist bay, and a pharmacy to fill prescriptions. Pre-med, pre-nursing and pharmacy majors had the opportunity to work in the clinic and gain a hands-on understanding of the medical industry, travel to the homes of people who could not visit the clinic and take care and form relationships with local children at the clinic and also at vacation bible school. Medical leader James Parnell works at Sumner Medical Center as an emergency physician and is also a clinical instructor of emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University. He said he has lost count of how many times he has been to Baja – 17 or 18 times now. “I always joke that its infectious and you go...
by Mignonne Bryant | Mar 22, 2016 | BREAKING NEWS, News Slider
Lipscomb students studying abroad in Vienna, Florence and London are safe and accounted for after Tuesday morning’s terrorist attacks in the Brussels international airport and metro station, according to a university spokesperson. And just as is the case for citizens in Brussels, the strategy right now is to shelter in place. “No one is scheduled for travel during the week, and weekend plans will be evaluated in a few days,” said Kim Chaudoin, assistant vice president for communication and marketing. Three bombs total went off Tuesday morning – two at Zaventem airport, killing at least 11 people, and one at the Maelbeek metro station, killing at least 20 people, according to Belgium’s health minister. Some international news sources have put the number as high as 34 dead so far. ISIS — the so-called Islamic State — has claimed responsibility for the attacks. It was more than a little too close for comfort for some Lipscomb students who had been at the scene of the terrorist slaughter just a day before. Lipscomb sophomores Liv Bell and Ashley Harman and junior Courtney Craun were traveling from Paris to Florence and had a flight out of Brussels to Milan early Monday morning. The students arrived at the airport at 4:30 a.m. and departed to Milan at 9:30 a.m. “We woke up this morning with the news about the attacks and were shocked,” Bell said. “Some of the videos and pictures show where we were sitting, and that just blew our minds.” Belgium has been called the “hub of terrorism” by experts in counter-terrorism. The attacks took place just four days after the main organizer of the November 2015 Paris attacks,...
by Mignonne Bryant | Mar 17, 2016 | News Slider
Sprinkles Cupcakes has swiftly become a 12th Avenue South attraction and continues to integrate into the bustling Nashville community. Its success can be attributed to its many sweet treats – cupcakes, cookies and ice cream. But the cupcake ATM is one inclusion that sets it apart and has customers coming back for more, even after store hours. “The cupcake ATM is a completely automated machine where you can place an order for up to four cupcakes, swipe your card and watch as the robotic arm retrieves your boxed cupcakes, cookies or brownies,” said Molly Moore, assistant manager. The ATM has especially drawn in university students in the area who are looking for quick and convenient service. Olivia Thomas is an elementary education junior at Lipscomb University who enjoys visiting Sprinkles with her friends. “I love having the cupcake ATM convenient to me at all times,” Thomas said. “It’s super nice because even if there is a long line inside, you can get one quickly from the ATM located outside.” Besides a top-notch customer experience – with friendly greetings from employees, the smell of waffles in the air and rainbow colors on the walls – Sprinkles prides itself in offering freshly made products, according to Moore. “Sprinkles is a one-of-a-kind experience where we bake our cupcakes and cookies fresh on site everyday using the finest ingredients such as Madagascar bourbon vanilla, fresh bananas, Belgian chocolate and never any artificial ingredients or preservatives,” Moore said. Moore said the cupcake flavors rotate on a weekly menu. Employees hand-frost each cupcake and top it with dots or imported sprinkles from France. Customers can...
by Mignonne Bryant | Oct 17, 2015 | News Slider
A group of students walk into Spar, a grocery store in Vienna, Austria. They take time to scan the store to find out what they need for their mission of mercy: Rice, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, peas, carrots and so on, ingredients for the meal they are going to cook that evening for the thousands of refugees huddled in Vienna’s central train station. After paying for the groceries, it’s time to get to the station. Lipscomb students spending the semester in Vienna, Austria, aren’t blind to the suffering of what surely is one of the largest humanitarian crises of all time: The thousands upon thousands of Syrians who are fleeing their strife-torn homeland. The students studying abroad spend some weekends exploring Europe, but they are also spending other time doing what they can to help the men, women and children who are flooding into Austria in pursuit of sanctuary and peace. Students from Lipscomb and Oklahoma Christian universities have formed the Refugee Aid Committee. They are actively working with Train of Hope, an association made up of volunteers who provide food, clothes and more to the refugees at the station. “There were several of us who went to Frau Swann, our director, and told her we wanted to be involved,” said Morgan DeLong, a sophomore at Oklahoma Christian. “We wanted to help the refugees. Seeing it first-hand kind of motivated a lot of that.” Every day, thousands of refugees come through Vienna’s central station, Hauptbahnhof. Some stay overnight, waiting for family members or for paperwork before continuing the journey. Rather than staying afraid for their lives in their homeland, they are leaving it all behind to come to Europe, with literally the...
