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University News & Recognition
Rashaad Harrell, A.T. Banks and Matthew Loveland (l to r) received certificates of completion from the IDEAL program as part of three days of commencement ceremonies in December.
Commencement begins new journey for graduates
commencement signifies the beginning
or start of something. In academic settings, it also marks the completion of an academic journey that leads to another chapter in students’ lives.
In December the Lipscomb community celebrated the accomplishments of its students in three special ceremonies.
On Dec. 19, the soon-to-be graduates and their families and friends gathered in full regalia to receive bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in Allen Arena. The university awarded 461 degrees to students graduating in December.
“Your lives are filled with stories, and we are proud to have walked with you on your journey,” said Lipscomb President L. Randolph Lowry. “As you graduate today, you join the Bison Herd, made up of 35,000 graduates of Lipscomb University. No matter what happens in life, you will always be part of this community. We are proud of you, and we congratulate you.”
On the day before commencement, seven women who are part of the Lipscomb LIFE (Lipscomb Initiative for Education) program at the Tennessee Prison for Women received Associate Degrees in a special commencement ceremony inside the prison.
These women worked for seven years to complete their degree, taking one class at a time and meeting just once a week. Each of these nights, Lipscomb professors and traditional students traveled to TPW to join the inmates for class.
“We are here to bear witness to you and to our world that you are intelligent, compassionate, resourceful and intelligent scholars,” said Richard Goode, professor of history who founded the program in 2007.
“It means everything in the world to me,” said Michelle Martin, TPW resident and LIFE program graduate. “All of my hope, and dreams I never thought I’d get to have, are realized today. No matter what life throws at you and no matter how far down you are. If you think you are dead in the grave. You can come back up. You can fight and claw and stand with your head held high.”
The College of Education awarded its inaugural Certificates in Career Exploration Studies to the first students in the IDEAL (Igniting the Dream of Education and Access at Lipscomb) program, designed for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, two days prior to the traditional ceremony.
After two years of study and experiential internships, A.T. Banks, Matthew Loveland and Rashaad Harrell walked across the stage of Stowe Hall to claim their certificates, which reflect the mastery of career, academic and independent living skills.
Spring enrollment, retention set record
defying declining enrollment trends
across the nation, official enrollment numbers at Lipscomb were up for the spring semester, hitting a new enrollment milestone of 4,319 university students in January and a record-setting 95.2 percent retention rate.
Typically, spring semester enrollments are less than fall semester across the nation due to students graduating in December and natural attrition between fall and spring semesters. At Lipscomb more than 460 students received degrees in December.
Despite those factors, spring enrollment increases were recorded in graduate Bible, psychology, D.Min. and Ed.D. programs, among others.
“The real story is in our retention rate from fall to spring semester,” said Rick Holaway, vice president for enrollment management. “There are many factors that contribute to that. I think a primary one is that everyone on campus—faculty, staff and students—see that they play a role in making Lipscomb a caring learning community.” Retention success is also being impacted by the work of the Academic Success Center, led by Brian Mast, associate provost. The first-time freshman retention rate from fall to spring hit a record 95.2 percent. The fall-to-spring retention rate has been in the 90 percent range and increasing over the last decade, but Mast said his goal for this year was to hit the 95 percent mark. And he did.
“As I meet with students and ask them about their Lipscomb experience, it almost always comes back to how much they love their faculty. Relationships are important, and students feel a strong sense of community and family on the Lipscomb campus,” Mast said.
Nursing education veterans appointed to interim nursing school posts
nursing education and health care
veterans Elaine Griffin and Mary Hesselrode have been appointed to interim leadership positions in the School of Nursing, housed in the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. Griffin, vice provost at Lipscomb University, has been appointed interim executive associate dean of the School of Nursing. Hesselrode, a member of Lipscomb’s nursing faculty, has been named interim associate dean in the school.
In addition to a nursing degree, Griffin holds a Master of Health Care Administration, a Master of Business Administration and a doctorate in health services and social change. She is also a fellow in the American College of Health Care Executives. She currently directs quality improvement and accreditation activity for Lipscomb, managing the reaffirmation process with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and acting as the university liaison with that organization and other accrediting bodies.
Griffin served as an inaugural board member for Health Care Executive Forum of Middle Tennessee and is a past program chairman for the organization. She served as adjunct clinical professor in the Department of Nursing at the University of Cincinnati and was professor of business at Harding University prior to her work at Lipscomb.
Hesselrode joined the Lipscomb faculty in 2010. She was instrumental in designing and implementing Lipscomb’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing curriculum, and she has chaired both the school’s curriculum committee and academic progression committee. She received her Doctor of Education from Lipscomb in December.
Hesselrode graduated from Harding University’s School of Nursing and earned her master’s as a family nurse practitioner from Texas Women’s University in Dallas. She has also worked in private practice at Baylor University Medical Center.
Mary Hesselrode (left) and Elaine Griffin (right)
Undergraduate business program ranked among top 100 in nation
the college of business’ undergraduate
program has been ranked one of the top 100 in the nation by Bloomberg Businessweek in its Best Undergraduate Business Schools 2016 ranking released April 19.
The college’s undergraduate business program is 77 out of 114 institutions included in the ranking. Lipscomb is the highest-ranked university in Tennessee ahead of the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business (ranked 83) and Belmont University’s Jack C. Massey College of Business (ranked 103).
Lipscomb also ranked higher than the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management, the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business, Rutgers UniversityNewark’s business school and the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business and Economics.
Lipscomb is the only Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs-accredited institution included on the list.
This is the second national ranking Lipscomb’s College of Business has received in the last six months. In October, the college’s Master of Business Administration program ranked 43 out of the top 74 part-time MBA programs in the nation on the 2015 Bloomberg Businessweek MBA rankings.
“This ranking recognizes the quality of our academics, and faculty and staff as well,” said Ray Eldridge, dean of Lipscomb’s College of Business. “Our graduate program is already nationally ranked, so it is gratifying to see that those outside the institution recognize the strength of our undergraduate program. We have always known you could get both a quality business education and a program based on faith principles at Lipscomb. Our undergraduates are mentored and taught by the best who also embrace the values and virtues taught by Jesus.”
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the rankings are composed based on feedback from recruiters who hire recent business graduates, students’ ratings of the campus, career services department, faculty and administrators; starting salaries of graduates and the percentage of a school’s graduates who had at least one internship at any time during college.
Air Force vet appointed director of veteran services
a 21-year air force veteran,
Chad Staggs, has been appointed director of Lipscomb’s veteran services program.
Staggs brings recruiting, admissions, marketing and management expertise to the office, which oversees and administers Lipscomb’s Post 9/11 GI Bill Yellow Ribbon Program and its veteran services programs. In addition to his military career, Staggs was a medical staff auditor at Vanderbilt University and was a member of HCA Healthcare-TriStar Division’s talent acquisition human resources team.
“Veteran students are campus leaders at Lipscomb and community leaders in Nashville,” said Scott McDowell, senior vice president for student life. “When you spend time with Chad you immediately realize that he is a purposeful leader with a passion for our veterans and an enthusiasm for this cause that is contagious.”
Staggs began his career with the U.S. Air Force in 1994 as a supply/logistics airman. In 1998, he was appointed space systems engineer in Colorado. Following those assignments, Staggs served in a variety of appointments in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Tennessee that focused on recruiting, marketing, human resources and strategic organization growth.
In these roles, Staggs also oversaw university relationships on behalf of the USAF at many campuses all over the country, including three years of special projects at Notre Dame University.
“A majority of my career has focused on the development of students,” said Staggs. “It’s very fulfilling to me to blend spiritual formation with student development.”
Chad Staggs, center, is the new director of veteran services at Lipscomb.
Lilly Endowment funds program for high school students to instill desire for ministry
the college of bible &
Ministry received its first grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to create a theology program specifically designed for high school students.
The college will use the $475,000 grant to launch the Lipscomb Institute for Student Theologians in summer 2017, a 10-day summer event for up to 24 high school students. The grants are part of the endowment’s commitment to identify and cultivate theologically minded youth to become leaders in church and society. Leonard Allen, dean of the College of Bible & Ministry, said the new institute will be based on Biblical texts, hands-on experience, a civil rights tour and exposure to the history of social witness in the Churches of Christ, among other activities.
Students preparing to enter their junior or senior year in high school are eligible to apply.
“These students will have, for instance, the opportunity to visit places that played key roles in the civil rights movement, to walk where civil rights activists walked and learn more about society at the time,” said Allen. “It is an experience that will have a profound impact on these young students as it brings to life what they’ve read about theology in history books.”
For more details on the College of Bible & Ministry, log on to lipscomb.edu/bible.
College of Education again honored as tops in nation & state
for the fifth consecutive
year in a row, data in the Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs indicates that Lipscomb’s College of Education is one of the most effective teacher preparation programs in Tennessee, consistently producing educators who outperform other teachers in the state.
In addition, data showed Lipscomb to be the largest teacher preparation program among all private universities in the state.
At the national level, the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education, a national organization focused on promoting moral dimensions of schooling and education, named Lipscomb a 2016 Model of Excellence in the partnerships category.
Among the partnerships the College of Education has forged are professional development programs for Metro Nashville Public Schools literacy coaches, leadership trainings for various county school districts, courses for the Tennessee College Access and Success Network and summer teacher trainings in STEM topics.
“Great teaching is both skill and art, and our teachers work hard to translate those into positive outcomes for their students,” said Deborah Boyd, interim dean of the college.
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03 01 Singarama hit the stage this spring with the theme of Revolution: Life,
Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. 02 The Lipscomb community commemorated the death and resurrection of Christ during
Resurrection Week, March 21-27, concluding with an all-campus communion service Easter evening. 03 The women’s soccer team celebrated four baptisms during their spring break mission trip to El Salvador. Photo by
Amber Bledsoe. 04 Carrie Thornthwaite, professor of education, became the 2016 winner of Lipscomb’s Mary Morris Award for
Exemplary Service to Society. 05 Lipscomb celebrated Black History
Month with several events including
Food for the Body and Soul, featuring special guest George Pendergrass, a former member of the vocal group
Acappella. 06 Lipscomb’s resident dance company, the Foundation Dance Theatre, presented a dance concert—
Elevate—in December, featuring both student and local professional dancers. 07 In April the department of fashion and design displayed Lipscomb’s rarely seen Halston collection in the John C.
Hutcheson Gallery. 08 More than 800 students participated in this April’s Service Day, including these two dedicated students cleaning up at Rocketown. 09 The College of Entertainment & the Arts welcomed Liz Cackowski, a former staff writer for “Saturday
Night Live,” “Last Man on Earth” and a Second City alum, to work with students in a two-day of workshop in
February. 10 Award-winning country music singer
Thomas Rhett was greeted by the members of his former social club Tau
Phi when he spoke in chapel about balancing his spiritual life and his music career.
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