by Hunter Patterson | Jun 9, 2011 | News Slider
For most students at Lipscomb, Advance means making friends, winning Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and revealing secrets during intense games of fruit basket turnover. For Jim Thomas, however, Advance runs much deeper than that. Dr. Thomas, a communications professor and an assistant to the president, started the Advance program 22 years ago with hopes of keeping incoming freshman at Lipscomb for the entirety of their college careers. “I see myself as more of a problem solver as opposed to someone who has great creativity,” Dr. Thomas said. “I always wondered why Lipscomb students transferred to Harding and vice versa.” After looking at the data, which had been complied after 20 years of research, Thomas soon found out that nearly 50 percent of those who start college never get their degree. Thomas then began to wonder if students were simply not as smart as they had thought upon entering college. “Surprisingly it is the brighter students who tend to drop out and never graduate,” Thomas said. “What is making the student say, ‘I’m just not going to do this?’” The main thing that Dr. Thomas found out was that most of the students’ decisions were made very early on in the college experience. He then concluded that if students were able to have a pleasant freshman year it was more likely they would finish college by walking the line and shaking the hand of the president instead of leaving during Spring break and never returning. “Having started at Lipscomb as a transfer student in 1967, I came in thinking that our registration process had a real problem with it,” Thomas said. “We...
by Lacy Pack | Jun 8, 2011 | News Slider
Lipscomb University hosted Volunteer Girl State (VGS) for the second year, and hopefully not the last. For the past 59 years, VGS was held at MTSU, but LU hosted the 2010 session. That session was deemed so successful that the VGS returned this year.Kathy Issaacson, Co-Director of VGS, is uncertain about whether next year’s session will be held at Lipscomb, but she says it is definitely a possibility. “We certainly enjoy it and we have been more than happy with all the accommodations here at Lipscomb,” says Issaacson. “We really appreciate the intimacy of the campus, its smallness, and its beauty and we think it really adds to the Girl State experience.” Wrenne Bartlett, a junior from Brentwood says she loves everything about Lipscomb and has enjoyed having Girl State here, even with all the cicadas. “You get around them… you avoid them,” laughs Bartlett. “You learn just to step around them or kinda wack them out of your face and get over them the best you can.” VGS is a one-week program offered to young women who are rising high school seniors. Girls from high schools all over Tennessee spend the week learning about state government, citizenship and how they can positively affect their communities by forming and running a mock government. Jordan Jowers, a junior from Lexington, TN, explains that all 550 girls or “citizens” are divided into two political parties and 12 cities to help them learn about government. “We get to elect mayors, a governor, and a Supreme Court, and we just go through all the roles of government,” says Jowers. “We develop a respect...
by Tim Ghianni | May 18, 2011 | News Slider, Opinion
Sitting in Intermediate French Grammar class trying to translate English into French, I browse through the French vocabulary stored in my head searching for the right noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition to correctly get my point across. What to say? How to say it? Time is running out. If I do not put something together to say, humiliation will appear across my face. So, French blurts out of my mouth. Of course, immediately my professor corrects me because I used the wrong form of the verb. The past tense of the verb was used instead of the necessary subjective form. Wait. What is a subjective verb? I would guess the majority of people could not classify all the parts of speech and how we use them. Why? Because speaking English is second nature to us. We learned the names of all the different types of speech starting in elementary school. We were like sponges absorbing everything taught to us without hesitation. Now, we use what we learned without thinking about it. However, if we try to break down a sentence now, it is nearly impossible to get everything right. If it is so easy for children to learn and absorb learning the English language at a young age, why is it that schools are not taking advantage of the vital state of mind of these children by teaching them a second language? Most schools in the United States start teaching foreign languages to students once they reach the high school level. Whereas, children in other countries are almost fluent in two other languages plus their own as...
by Tim Ghianni | May 17, 2011 | News Slider, Sports
With the season said and done and exams winding down, the Lady Bisons bid farewell to two influential seniors, Kara Jackson and Julianne McMeen. “We are graduating two seniors who have laid a great foundation for our team,” women’s assistant coach Jamie Aid said. “I appreciate all the hard work they have put in for their teammates and for this program. I wish these two ladies all the success in the world.” Jackson spent four years as a Lady Bison, playing consistently at positions 1-4 throughout her career. Aid said Jackson’s willingness to compete and heart for the game were greatly respected by her coaches and teammates. “Kara is a strong-willed, determined individual,” Aid said. “Kara always did two things for me that I respected as a coach” 1) when it was time to play, she was out there on that court to compete; and 2) her heart was always in the right place. “She will be missed next year as a part of the Lady Bison tennis team; however, I am so happy for her as she is starting a new chapter in her life with marrying another Lipscomb grad and pursuing her passion for teaching. I have no doubt that she will be very successful” After graduation, Jackson, an education major from Dayton, Ohio, said she has big plans for the summer. “I’m getting married May 21st and have already begun the process of moving to our new home in Ohio and looking for a teaching position,” Jackson said. When looking back on her career as a Lady Bison, Jackson said she knows Lipscomb was where God...
by Kelsey Durnin | May 16, 2011 | News Slider
Nearly 54 years ago, a confused and fascinated hoard of students, faculty and news reporters gazed at the multi-colored smoke billowing from the old chemistry building. Among them was a freshmen named David Howard, who you may know now as Beaman’s periodicals librarian. That event, which marked the beginning of his decades at Lipscomb, has stuck in the mind of Howard ever since. Howard grew up in a small town in southern Illinois and was brought to Lipscomb mainly through the influence of a 5th grade teacher who had also attended here. His visit in July of 1957 sealed his decision to attend school here rather than at Harding. “There’s hardly anything for me that is pre-Lipscomb,” Howard said. “[My teacher] was always so happy about my decision to go here.” Howard graduated in 1961 with a degree in Psychology and a minor in German. He then left Nashville for a little over a year to take classes back home in Southern Illinois University’s sociology graduate program. During the summer of 1962, Dr. Mack Craig convinced Howard to return to Nashville and Lipscomb as a German professor while also taking graduate classes at Vanderbilt. In 1972, after obtaining a library science graduate degree from Peabody and again at the request of Dr. Craig, Howard began his 39 years as the periodicals librarian. However, for the first three years he was also still teaching German fulltime until Dr. Charles McVey took over. Over the course of his 49 years in the library, Howard has witnessed the evolution of the library as well as the campus as a whole. “[The Library]...
