by Erika Thornsberry | Sep 7, 2013 | News Slider
Dr. Alan Bradshaw has been a professor at Lipscomb for 15 years and is used to having eyes on him. Whether he is in his classroom teaching or playing a gig with his band, he has the audience’s attention. Chances are if you have a schedule with Dr. Bradshaw’s name on it, you are heading to McFarland to attend a physics class. Students will find that his classroom is a pretty different setting than most teachers would use. Constant experiments and entertainment happen in an everyday class period. Just like the entertainment in his classroom, Dr. Bradshaw won’t just have a piece of chalk in his hand- it could be a guitar. “Foxfire Newgrass is the name of the band I’m in,” Bradshaw shared. “A friend at church heard me play the guitar and asked if I had interest in being in a band.” The versatile professor has been in the band now for nine years. Bradshaw says he might have learned a few things from his Physics class that he uses when he plays his music. According to Bradshaw, in Physics, equations are something you learn to use; his style of music is something similar as he is usually plugging one type of music into a different equation. “Our music is new grass style, but it’s set to bluegrass. We could take a normal Beatles song and set it to the bluegrass style,” Bradshaw said. Just being a student in a physics class can be stressful; however, Bradshaw says there is a whole different kind of stress being the professor. Dr. Bradshaw says, “Being in the band is...
by Janice Ng | Mar 7, 2013 | News Slider
Lipscomb faculty and students are not shy about stating their opinions when it comes to the long-standing debate over faith and science. For the most part, they don’t say one side prevails over the other and agree that faith in God actually aids in the understanding of science. David McNutt, a biology major from Nashville, Tenn., is one student who believes there is a way to advocate both faith and science at the same time. “I think that there is an equal playing field,” McNutt said. “There are a lot of people who think one has to work without the other. I think that Christians can believe that science is ever-changing. A lot of things point towards evolution, but Christians can believe that there is a natural process that takes place, at the same time believing that God is completely in control.” Shivali Kanal, a biology major from Franklin, Tenn., draws a line between the two topics, describing faith as a way of life, and science as something current and ever-changing. “I think faith and science can sometimes get in the way of each other,” Kanal said. “For example, embryonic stem cell research is a huge issue today, and many people believe it’s not morally O.K. to kill embryos to get the embryonic stem cells and develop them into cells that can treat diseases such as cancer and heart diseases. “That’s a huge controversy. We could either save lives of diseased people right now, or save future lives. It has a lot of moral aspects to it, so that gets in the way.” Paul Justice, a physics major from Bowling Green,...
by Aaron Schmelzer | Nov 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
Over the past couple of years, social media and technology have reached an all-time high in daily usage. Many forms of technology are available almost everywhere via smartphones and laptops–including school classrooms. Because of this increase, teachers are struggling to keep the attention of their tech-savy students. At Lipscomb, technology can be found in many classrooms. While some professors utilize the media in capacities like Internet searches or PowerPoint presentations, there are still some that enjoy having no media in the classroom. Alan Bradshaw, chair of the physics department at Lipscomb, prefers for students’ laptops to stay in their backpacks. “It bugs the fire out of me when people use computers and cell phones in my class,” Bradshaw said. He is not completely against using technology, though. Bradshaw explained that he uses Lipscomb’s online blackboard to send questions to students so they can prepare for the lecture the next day. “I started doing this thing this year with my college physics class where I’ll do what’s called a JIT (Just In Time) quiz,” Bradshaw said. “They’re due the night before class, and it’ll be two very simple questions about what we’re going to cover in class and then a question that says, ‘What would you like to see covered in class?’ So, I can go through those and kind of get an idea of where everybody is. I like that a lot.” Bradshaw also explained that it is difficult to use technology in his classes because physics is a hard subject to teach using media. There are plenty of other subjects that provide the opportunity to use technology. One of these...