by Caitlin Galo | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider
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by Crystal Davis | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider
Lipscomb’s communication department prepares its students to be successful professionals, which is evident in Jenny Barker, APR– a Lipscomb alum and public relations practitioner who headed up Gaylord Opryland’s post-flood public relations campaign. On Monday, March 28, the communication department held its regular COMMA (Communications Majors and Minors Association) meeting with Lipscomb alum Jenny Barker as the guest speaker for the night. Barker majored in public relations here at Lipscomb and was a part of the 2004 graduating class. She started her career at Atkinson Public Relations working in crisis management positions. Barker finally landed at Centennial Medical Center where she stayed comfortably as Director of Public Relations until a rare opportunity came her way. In October 2010 she got a call from Gaylord Opryland to assist them with PR in the aftermath of the May 2010 flood. Barker saw this as a “once in a career opportunity” to work with a company in this type of crisis. At the COMMA meeting Barker gave detailed background information about the hotel during the flood and its resurgence. “The biggest fear was that the hotel would lose power,” Barker said. Hotel workers feared that the “miles of tunnels under the hotel that contained the IT and the power supply” would fill up with water and the main power source for the hotel would be lost. Before power was lost, and before water even reached the building, the hotel decided to activate the Alert Pyramid for Gaylord Opryland, a plan set in place in case of some kind of evacuation emergency. Hotel officials realized the severity of the situation and decided to...
by Michael Swinea | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider, Sports
The first season of intramural indoor soccer at Lipscomb University has just heard its final whistle, and according to intramural coordinator Mike Smith, it could not have gone any smoother. “It all really went without incident,” Smith said. “The only thing that could be seen as a problem was using McQuiddy and having to share it with the student athletes when it rained, but if that happened, we just went to the [Student Activities Center], so it really wasn’t a problem.” The amount of student participation was surprising, considering it was the first year of both the intramural sport’s existence and the addition of imleagues.com. Casey Boyer, a senior information technologies major from Palm Harbor, Fla., and member of the Lady Goats intramural soccer team was surprised by the amount of participation. “Everything turned out great because everyone got to play more games,” Boyer said. Smith was overjoyed by the numbers. “There were 14 teams of seven or eight each, so that makes over 100 people participating in intramurals who wouldn’t normally be participating,” Smith said. Almost all student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive about the addition of indoor soccer to the list of intramural options, he said. In a season dominated by basketball, students were quick to jump onto an alternative. “We just wanted to offer an alternative winter sport to basketball,” Smith said. “But with this huge participation and it only costing us the amount we pay the three referees, it’s really a...
by Jeremy Keck | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider
“I look forward to a time that I won’t get to experience, and you won’t either. But decades down the road where other people will look back and see that in this moment, this community did what it was called to do.” Those were Dr. Randy Lowry’s concluding words as he introduced the layout of Lipscomb 2016, his vision of what Lipscomb University will look like in five years, to the student body at The Gathering on Tuesday, March 29. “We’re going to call it Lipscomb Next: Vision for 2016,” Lowry said. “The essence of this entire plan is to invest $125 million into this institution by the time we get to our 125th anniversary, which is 2016.” Lipscomb invested about $54 million into their last plan, making the proposed $125 million dollar investment into their next plan “extraordinarily ambitious.” Notable additions to expect Lipscomb to make in their next plan include: three new colleges, fifty new full time faculty members and thirty new academic programs. Some of the changes that Lipscomb will be undergoing will take years to develop. However, Lowry stated a couple of significant changes are set to take place in the very near future. One change being the renovation of Fanning Hall. “As we think about residence halls, we realize that they are not at the standard that we would like,” Lowry said. “The city’s approval pending, Lipscomb is set to gut out and renovate Fanning Hall this summer. Thanks to a construction crew committing to working on the project 24 hours a day that summer, a renovation that would normally take nine months...
by Kelli Blackshear | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider
It was “The Fight” at the beginning, says John-Michael Elder, explaining a new on-campus worship experience. The sophomore Bible major from Franklin, Tenn., says “The Fight,” as it was deemed at the start, began as “a small group of guys studying the Bible and sharing experiences of the Spirit.” “The small gathering led to thoughts of making something bigger where more people, girls and guys, could come,” Elder said. That new worship gathering he and his close friends started at the beginning of the semester now is called “Fridays at 5,” and meets every Friday at 5 p.m. in the Ezell chapel. “We share in a worship experience with music and someone who shares a word,” Elder said. ” This isn’t definite yet, we’re still playing around with it. Nobody here is a preacher; we’re just digging in [the Word] together.” Elder noted that the worship group is open to everyone. “We all have different perspectives which God uses to open new perspectives for others,” Elder said. “We all come from different places so it’s cool to hear everyone’s story.” The leaders don’t have specific goals for numbers they want to reach or what the group should look like. Right now, Elder said , their objective is to follow where God is leading them. That is, after all, how it began when he had the vision for the group. His friend Steve Graham, junior Bible major from Iowa, helped him make it a reality. Cameron Gilliam, sophomore exercise science major from Mt. Juliet, is an integral part of “Fridays at 5,” helping to lead the group in worship. As a Christian-affiliated University, Lipscomb...
by Amelia Ong | Mar 29, 2011 | News Slider
Spring has been full of honors for Lipscomb journalists and Lumination Network. Honorees from the Lumination staff attended the Southeast Journalism Conference in February and the Society of Professional Journalists Region 12 conference at Lipscomb this past weekend to receive their awards. The Southeast Journalism Conference (SEJC) held its 25th annual convention in Troy, Ala. on Feb. 19, 2011. The conference was a learning experience for the students as well as a competition. Twenty professional journalists from magazines and newspapers around the country judged entries submitted prior to the conference. The SEJC judges named 126 of the 331 applicants the “Best of the South.” Three Lumination Network writers were honored at the conference, as well as the overall website being named the seventh best college website amongst the 33 eligible schools in the area. Lumination’s managing editor Hunter Patterson, a junior journalism major from Waverly, Tenn., was awarded second place in the category of Best Multimedia Journalist. Rachel Carden, a junior multimedia production and journalism double-major from Smyrna, Tenn., placed ninth in the News Reporter portion of the competition. Carden was extremely pleased with the level of hospitality that Troy University showed the conference attendees, as well as how well manicured the campus was upon their arrival for the event. The final honoree from Lipscomb was junior multimedia production major Ryan Malone, from Wellington, Fla. Malone snagged fifth place in the College Journalist of the Year category, and is multimedia manager for Lumination Network. As for the most recent event, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Region 12 conference was held at Lipscomb University. The Lipscomb SPJ chapter and...
