by Alie Smith | Nov 5, 2018 | News Slider, Opinion
Lipscomb University is deserted on Tuesday morning. The student center, usually stuffed with commotion, is silent. The parking lot, usually dangerously full, is empty. The buildings are grand statues without people inside. The trees swaying in the fall breeze are the only motion this campus will see on the morning of November 6, 2018. The Starbucks will not brew coffee for anyone, desks will be unoccupied in early morning classes and the Bell Tower will ring for no one to hear it. A bystander might believe that the campus has been evacuated. The energy that usually covers every square inch of the University has been pushed outside and spread throughout our city and state. The Bison Herd has migrated to the polls. For this limited time, Lipscomb will join together for something that isn’t chapel. Faculty, staff and students alike will have abandoned this small school in Nashville for something bigger than us all. This stark landscape is the effect of Tuesday being Election Day. Our community is not running around in our usual stomping grounds, we are waiting patiently to change our state and, hopefully, our country and our world. While some Tennesseans will sleep in on this fateful morning, we will as a community grasp the future in our hands and shape it the way we see fit. We will go to the ballot box with a prayer and a decision already made. We will not worry about raising our hand for fear of getting the answer wrong, so we cast a vote. We try to discern the difference between statesman and politicians and hope to be...
by Erin Franklin | Oct 19, 2018 | News Slider
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is known to frequent Lipscomb’s workout room, but he made an appearance at chapel Tuesday to speak to students and lead the closing prayer. Lipscomb president Randy Lowry introduced Haslam by noting how many Lipscomb students would not be where they are today had Haslam not served as governor. “If you have a HOPE scholarship, you owe that opportunity to…Governor Haslam in his support of that program,” Lowry said. “If you enjoyed free community college, it was because this governor wanted to provide access to higher education. To those of you who did, you then had an opportunity to transfer to a four-year school, which you might not ever otherwise been able to attend.” During The Gathering, Haslam spoke to students about God, relationships and politics. Haslam cited two main things he wanted to tell students to take away from his talk. “No matter what you do, make certain that you’re in a situation where you have people that give you honest feedback…That’s really what helps us,” he said. “Number two is remember those people you’re interacting with…that they’re created in the image of God.” After The Gathering, Lumination spoke to Haslam individually about his thoughts on the upcoming governor’s election and the importance of students going out and voting. “The first thing to do is obviously to go vote,” Haslam said. “It’s incredibly simple and easy, and it matters. Every study shows that young people don’t, which is crazy that people typically don’t start voting until they’re in their 40s. “People tend to get really excited about the national elections, but your state and local elections...
by Anna McClure | Jul 27, 2015 | News Slider
Generations of Lipscomb students have heard the mysterious tale of the cave system that runs beneath campus but have been unable to dig deeply enough into the story — or into the ground for that matter — to discover the truth. “I went to school here back in the mid ’80s and graduated in the ’90s, so I’ve always heard of the cave system,” said Kim Chaudoin, associate vice president of communication and marketing. “I never went digging or exploring, but I reached out to people who I knew might know.” What she discovered are various writings and records that indicate that beneath Avalon House — home of David and Margaret Lipscomb on the campus’ edge — was a spring, that is now thought to be part of the cave system. The Lipscombs lived there in the mid 1800s, before the invention of refrigerators, and — as was common upper-class practice in those days, either by building a spring house or in their case simply descending beneath the home to the coolness of a natural spring below — they used the spring to store perishables like milk and meat. Because of Tennessee’s porous limestone underpinnings springs and caves are relatively common. “The cave system has not been mapped out by the U.S. Geological Association and is not shown on the maps of any Tennessee cave systems,” Chaudoin said. “But what we think we know is that there are some places under the campus and that there’s evidence of it as far away as 100 Oaks Mall.” The theory is that one could travel beneath the ground from the old Lipscomb home all the way to that mall, if there...
by Erin Turner | Apr 9, 2015 | News Slider
After several firsts, singer-songwriter Kelsea Ballerini visited the place where her country roots were nurtured. This former Lipscomb student headlined Student Government Association’s 2015 Spring Concert to a very familiar crowd Wednesday night in Shamblin Theater. “I always dreamed about being an artist and songwriter and doing it for a living, but did not know how to do it,” Ballerini said. But it didn’t take her long to figure out how, as she recently cracked the charts with her song “Love Me Like You Mean It” that debuted in November 2014. This Knoxville, Tennessee native moved to Music City to kick off her career when she was 15 years old, and she landed at Lipscomb several years later. “[Being at Lipscomb] was two of my favorite years of my entire life,” she said. “The whole time I would just go to school and then go to the writer’s round to co-write. I kept trying to do both at the same time until I found the right opportunity.” Just halfway through her sophomore year at Lipscomb, Ballerini signed a deal with Black River Publishing. Her career took off from there, as she debuted on one of country music’s most famous stages — the Grand Ole Opry. Ballerini said the last few months have been nothing but firsts. After hearing her own song on the radio, her music got in the hands of some of her biggest inspirations. “One of the craziest things that’s happening is people that I’m fans of are becoming friends and reaching out, and kind of speaking into my life and helping me,” she said. Most recently, this rising star...
by Anna McClure | Apr 4, 2015 | News Slider
Lipscomb maintains a good reputation for being a safe environment with a low crime rate. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s 2014 crime on campus report show this to be the case, with the number of reported burglaries and thefts decreasing compared to previous years. In 2014, there were 13 reported larcenies/thefts, while in 2013, there were 52 and in 2012, there were 29. Assistant Director of Campus Security Patrick Cameron said Lipscomb is much different than other schools in the area when it comes to crime. “Lipscomb is truly blessed in regards to crime and is significantly lower than most schools in Tennessee,” Cameron said. “Also, the incidents we do have are property-related crimes instead of violent crimes.” But the type of crime that was reported this year can be prevented. Cameron said students can help prevent property crimes by marking their property so it is easily identifiable, never leaving valuables unattended and keeping their doors locked in the dorm when they leave or are sleeping. “Although I do not think Lipscomb Students have anything to worry about in terms of crime, I do think students, including myself, need to be more aware of how we secure our property, because even in a place as safe as Lipscomb there are people who will do bad things,” freshman Alec McDowell said. The report stated that incidents of burglary decreased by 34.1 percent from 2013 to 2014. The report also showed that crime reported by Tennessee colleges and universities overall decreased by 6.3 percent from 2013 to 2014, but reported fraud offenses increased 19 percent over the 2013 study. However, the...
