by Anne Paquin | Mar 27, 2013 | News Slider
A combination fountain and baptistry is now under construction in Bison Square, and the $300 thousand project is planned to beautify the space as well as make it more spiritually significant. For several years, there have been plans to create a new atmosphere to the space between Collins Alumni Auditorium and the Bennett Campus Center. Thanks to more than 150 donors, including Ray and Libby Jones and the parents of Ty Osman, the new Bison Square fountain centerpiece will be in a 16-by-24-foot pool and will be flanked by two smaller, 6-by-15-foot foot fountains and pools. Lipscomb University president Dr. Randy Lowry said “the Bison Square centerpiece (will be) called the Osman Fountain.” Osman was a Harding student and member of the Woodmont Hills congregation who tragically lost his life in a car accident last March. His parents were alums of the university. Lowry said he hopes the new fountain will be a great renovation for the popular meeting area. “We hope it is the centerpiece of the whole reconstruction of Bison Square. This has been a wonderful place for students to gather for many, many years,” Lowry said. “But, we need to upgrade (the square), and I think a water feature will be something that causes people to come together.” Though they will look identical, one of the fountains will actually function as a baptistry. “When you think about Lipscomb you think about the sacrament of baptism being so important as people making a commitment to the Christian faith,” Lowry said. “We thought there might be something more sophisticated than the horse trough we’ve been using.” He described the baptistry as a place students will be able to...
by Cory Woodroof | Mar 7, 2013 | News Slider
On Wednesday night, Lipscomb became a part of the Metro@50 celebration by holding a panel discussion entitled “A Look at Nashville’s Neighborhood Associations…Then & Now” that took a look at the history of neighborhood associations in Music City. The celebration marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Metro Charter that featured the citizens of Davidson County teaming up with the City of Nashville to create the nation’s first unified government. The historic charter was passed in 1962. The event, hosted by the Andrews Institute for Civic Leadership, drew a large crowd and featured esteemed panelists from across the city, including former Mayor Bill Purcell, Ben Freeland of Freeland Chevrolet and current Davidson County Clerk Brenda Wynn. Mayor Karl Dean offered the evening’s closing thoughts. Chairman emeritus of The Tennessean and founder of the First Amendment Center John Seigenthaler served as the evening’s moderator. The first panel discussed the history of Nashville’s neighborhood associations. Reverend William Barnes, founding pastor of the Edgehill United Methodist Church, interim director of the Transportation Licensing Commission for Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County Billy Fields, former Metro councilwoman Betty Nixon, former Mayor Purcell and Mrs. Wynn all gave their insight into the history of neighborhood associations over the past 50 years and their individual work to help pioneer the way for Nashville to have the strong neighborhood system. “These were the pioneers that made this community,” Seigenthaler said about those involved in neighborhood development in Nashville. Former Mayor Purcell actually created the first Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods in 1999. Wynn held the title of the office’s first director. The second panel took a look...
by Brianne Welch | Mar 7, 2013 | News Slider, Sports
Two days after a slew of famous country music singers performed at Lipscomb, the three quarterbacks for the Tennessee Titans spoke in the Gathering on Thursday morning to a crowd consisting of Lipscomb students from both the college and Lipscomb Academy. Quarterbacks Rusty Smith, Jake Locker and Matt Hasselbeck sat down in a Q-&-A with Scott Sager, the university’s vice president of Church Services, to talk about their faiths and, of course, some football as well. The very first topic addressed was how football and faith work together in the lives of these professional athletes. “I grew up around football in Colorado, but my parent’s weren’t really strong in their faith until I was in third grade,” Hasselbeck said. The veteran quarterback went on to say how involved he and his family were in the church even through his high school career. Locker took the mic next, but according to the newest Titans quarterback, faith did not really come into play until his sophomore year in high school. “I had a coach who challenged me to become a stronger believe, and he started a Bible study with us, and it kind of grew from there,” Locker said. When Smith took the mic, he said that faith definitely came first in his life because he did not even start playing football until his eighth grade year. “I was very fortunate to have a mom and a dad who grew up in a church themselves,” Smith said. The interview went on for around 30 minutes, but the guys were able to leave the student body and everyone in attendance with some...
by Cory Woodroof | Mar 6, 2013 | News Slider
A packed house rocked out to free music for a great cause in Allen Arena Tuesday night as country music legend Charlie Daniels and a host of others headlined the annual ioStudio Charlie Daniels’ Scholarship for Heroes Tour. In its fourth year, the show, always led by Daniels, helps benefit the Yellow Ribbon initiative, a program that pledges to help post-9/11 GI Bill veterans receive an education with little-to-no cost at Lipscomb University. This year, there are around 200 Yellow Ribbon students that attend school. Alongside Daniels, The Grascals, Chris Young, Keni Thomas, Bleach and surprise guest Jason Aldean all played a mix of current hits and classics in order to give the Yellow Ribbon students in attendance an exciting night to remember. Before the show, Daniels met with the Yellow Ribbon students and posed in a group picture. Daniels said that the veterans are brave individuals who endure daily strife all for the ultimate aim of receiving an education. “It takes something that a lot of people don’t have to get out of a bed, to turn off the pain medicine and to walk into a situation where you’re trying to better yourself,” Daniels said. “Just the act of getting out of bed every day is a bigger job than most of us can ever even imagine.” To Daniels, the Yellow Ribbon students – and all those who serve in the military – may have different stories, but all deserve to be recognized in the highest regard for their service to the country. “Everybody’s story is different, but everybody’s got one, and everybody has really struggled to be...
by Kyrsten Turner | Feb 24, 2013 | News Slider
‘Honoring life by abolishing the death penalty’ was the motto students championed Saturday morning when discussing capital punishment. “One of the challenging things about justice is it has multiple parts,” said Lipscomb history professor Dr. Richard Goode. The 7th Annual Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty student conference was hosted yesterday by Lipscomb’s department of History, Politics and Philosophy. A TADP board member since 2011, Dr. Goode first joined the group in 1999. “The first thing I did when I got involved is I started visiting a guy on death row,” Goode said. “I visited him for 10 years. He eventually died from cancer.” Goode became involved after a former student told him about the group. Goode said he had been talking about issues of retribution, justice and reconciliation, but it wasn’t until his student told him about TADP that he decided to act on his feelings. “It stopped being an issue and became a very human concern,” Goode said. “It’s important to understand the policy and the practice, and the system and structures, because they are important. But, they’re important because they hit real people.” Students from across the state gathered for the conference in Ward Hall. Universities and colleges such as Belmont, Vanderbilt, Middle Tennessee State, Bell, Martin Methodist, Volunteer State and Lipscomb were all in attendance. The conference began with a short opener from Stacy Rector, who has been the executive director of TADP since 2006. Rector also serves on the national board of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. Recognizing her audience did not have a unified opinion, Rector asked students to be...
