by Camryn Given | Aug 18, 2020 | News, News Slider
Lipscomb President Randy Lowry said he “was a little bit surprised” by the interest in the summer class “Surviving and Thriving in Uncertain Times.” “We had about 200 students who took the course,” said Lowry about the new class he, with the aid of nine faculty members, taught online to incoming freshmen. Of course, due to the pandemic, the class was offered online and free of charge. The students gathered virtually to listen to the speaker, ask questions, engage in small-group discussions and take part in other activities. Lowry said the course, offered July 6-17, filled a need that he thought must exist. Knowing most of these freshmen have not had classes since around March when schools and universities nationwide shut down due to the pandemic, Lowry correctly predicted that some incoming freshmen might be anxious to get tastes of the Lipscomb educational experience. “I just had an idea that our incoming freshmen … must be bored and must want to get started,” said Lowry. The class was structured so that for the first part of the day students would have two 15- to 20-minute mini-lectures — or, as Lowry described them, “TED Talks” — from either himself or from another one of Lipscomb’s educators. A 15-minute video created by the College of Entertainment & the Arts was inserted into the programming for a change of pace. After the presentations from the faculty, there would be a live chat that allowed students to ask questions. Lowry described the Q&A sessions as very popular and said there were more than 100 questions. He said the students seemed “to be absolutely...
by Erika Plunkett | Aug 14, 2020 | COVID-19, News, News Slider, Sports
Lipscomb volleyball head coach Brandon Rosenthal was being hopeful that a season on the brink of COVID extinction would be rescued when he was interviewed recently. Now that the season has been postponed — the ASUN on Friday announced it was halting all fall sports because of the COVID epidemic and hoping to reschedule them for the spring — his and his players’ hopes have been dashed. Or at least delayed. In the interview prior to Friday’s news, Rosenthal said being “resilient” is a key factor for the team because the pandemic already had thrown the games and even practice into an uproar. At the time, possibilities being tossed around included playing only in-conference or moving the season into the spring. In making Friday’s announcement, ASUN Commissioner Ted Gumbart, called it “a huge disappointment.” “Anyone who follows college sports understands the dynamics that brought us to this decision, but that doesn’t mean we like it. My feelings right now? COVID stinks. If you weren’t putting my words into a public release, I might put it another way.” The postponement of competition in conference-sponsored fall semester sports includes men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball. So far, the basketball seasons for men and women remain unaffected, at least in terms of scheduling games. Scheduling will be a big issue for the fall sports, though, now that they have to wait until spring, if the disease allows for play then. “We will make every effort to provide a quality competitive experience for our fall student-athletes during the spring semester,” Gumbart said in the conference press release. “We’re...
by Mckenzi Harris | Aug 13, 2020 | Galleries, News, News Slider
While the focus has been on adapting to the challenges brought on by COVID-19, Lipscomb also has been plenty busy this summer with more construction than in the last 15 years. The campus has a new parking garage, updated residence halls, a new turf football field at the Academy, updates to academic buildings and there’s even a new Chick-fil-A. August 2020 was the deadline for a new “200-spot parking garage,” announced by President Randy Lowry in the 2018-19 convocation. “The parking garage will be finished on time,” said President Lowry in a recent interview with Lumination. And no only will it be done in time, but it has 400 spaces instead of the previously mentioned 200 spaces. “Most of the parking done by residential students in the Stokes area, behind Stokes School will be able to happen on campus,” said Lowry. “That’s a huge step forward in convenience and also maybe in security, although we don’t have major problems over there (at Stokes). “I hope that people like the looks of it, and if you don’t look twice, it looks like an academic building,” said Lowry. The outdated freshman women’s dorm, Elam, has been updated to bring it up to modern times. “It was built about 60 years ago. It was in need of not just a little fix-up, but we took it down to the concrete and built the entire thing back,” Lowry said. Students living in Elam will no longer have the traditionally styled community bathrooms but now have private communal baths. “We built back a series of private baths,” said Lowry. “You’ll have your own shower, sink,...
by Gunnar Eng | Aug 10, 2020 | News, News Slider
Lipscomb is responding to the COVID pandemic by instituting LipscombFLEX, a classroom model that will accommodate health protocols and still allow students and faculty to interact. “The goal of the LipscombFLEX method is that students should receive an equivalent experience whether they are physically in the classroom or learning online,” said Andy Borchers, Lipscomb University professor and coordinator for fall classroom accommodations. LipscombFLEX will use video conferencing, new cameras, microphones, and online platforms to allow faculty to teach both students in the classroom and remotely online. Instruction has the option to be either all at the same class time or in asynchronous methods such as online written discussion groups or collaborative web platforms. “The new LipscombFLEX model essentially has every professor preparing for face-to-face class, but also fully preparing to be remote and online if they need to be,” said Lipscomb President Randy Lowry. Borchers describes a three-part plan for applying this modified Hyflex (short for “hybrid’’ and ‘‘flexible’’) model in education for the fall semester. “First, we inventoried all of the classrooms, to see how many students we could seat following the 6-feet limitations, which came out to about 30 percent to 50 percent capacity,” said Borchers. “Then we identified 40 classrooms across the campus that are going to receive a ‘Zoom Room’ installation,” Borchers said. “It will mean having a camera mounted typically on the ceiling with microphones, allowing teachers a mixture of students either physically in the room or remote.” More than 60 percent of students enrolled in classes will be in one of the “Zoom Rooms’’ on campus, while the other 40 percent will be divided...
by Erika Plunkett | Aug 2, 2020 | News, News Slider, Sports
Staying in touch with his basketball team during this COVID summer has been so unpredictable and new that it’s been like “building the bridge as we go,” said coach Lennie Acuff, describing the frustrations and adaptations that have been necessary to try to get the team ready from a distance rather than the sidelines. “It’s just really been like nothing we’ve ever encountered,” said Acuff. “We work really hard to stay in contact with our guys. We do Zoom calls once a week with them, and then we are also trying to recruit, which has been really hard.” By this point in the summer, the upcoming year’s team has typically been together for over a month, living on campus in the month of June for summer classes, practices and basketball camp. But this year, Acuff has not even been allowed to enter his office for almost four months. “Tomorrow’s going to be the first day we’re going to be allowed to go back to the office,” said Acuff on Tuesday, July 30. “So we’ve been doing everything remotely. It is for sure something we’ve never experienced, and I hope and pray we never have to again.” Coaches and staff already face challenges to stay connected virtually with the returning players. It is a more difficult task when it comes to the incoming players, according to Acuff. “It’s hard — really, really, really hard. I think that there’s only so much you can do on the phone,” said Acuff. “We signed two kids early in November that we know really well: Tommy Murr and Will Pruitt. “We know them well...
by Camryn Given | Jul 30, 2020 | COVID-19, News, News Slider
It’s no secret that college campuses will look different this semester. With safety at top priority, Lipscomb has created some new ways for students to eat on campus. There have been new dining options, a full-service Chick-fil-A and even a healthy snack bar added to Bennett in preparation for students’ arrival in the fall. “We will be doing some fairly dramatic changing in terms of food service,” said President Randy Lowry in a conversation with Lumination about dining at Lipscomb this fall. Lowry talked about four specific changes that students will notice come August. The first “dramatic change” Lowry noted was the limiting of seating in Bison Cafe to half of its usual capacity, in order to follow social distancing guidelines. To accommodate for this loss of seating, there will now be seating available in two additional spaces: Room 1891 and downstairs in Shamblin. Not only will there be a reduction in seating, but the serving of the food itself will no longer look the same either. That’s where the next two major changes come into play. “There will be no self-service in the cafeteria,” Lowry said. “Everything will be served to you.” The Bison Cafe won’t be changing what food is served, just how the food is served. These modifications will limit contact between those in the cafeteria to reduce the spread of germs. “We will have a very robust grab-and-go kind of concept that will be introduced,” Lowry said. There will be an area where students can pick up pre-portioned food in addition to a cafeteria-style station. Not only will this be safer for students, but it will...
