Colleges, Institutes & Programs

from Lipscomb Now Spring 2016

University News & Recognition

Dr. Kevin Eidson, member of the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy and assistant professor at Lipscomb, routinely takes student pharmacists to Board of Pharmacy meetings, showing them firsthand the interpretation of the laws and rules that impact pharmacy

College of Pharmacy among ten in nation with perfect law exam pass rate

the national association of boards of

Pharmacy has listed the College of Pharmacy as one of only ten nationwide to obtain a 100 percent pass rate in 2015 on the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination, a standardized exam created by the NABP to assess competency and knowledge of pharmacy law and ethics.

In fact, the College of Pharmacy has achieved a 100 percent first-attempt pass rate on the MPJE for the past four years. The 2015 pass rate reported by the NABP is based on the 44 members of Lipscomb’s Class of 2015 who took the MPJE to practice in Tennessee.

For a student pharmacist to become licensed as a pharmacist, he or she must successfully pass two separate examinations administered by the NABP: the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination and the MPJE or equivalent stateadministered jurisprudence exam. Every Lipscomb College of Pharmacy student is required to take a pharmacy law and ethics course taught by Dr. Kevin Eidson, former executive director of the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy, current member of the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy and assistant professor at Lipscomb.

Eidson routinely takes student pharmacists in the law and ethics course to Board of Pharmacy meetings, showing them firsthand the interpretation of the laws and rules that impact pharmacy and the consequences of not following them.

“It’s very exciting to see where the college stands among our peers, especially since our program is still young,” said Dean Roger Davis, Pharm.D., on the accomplishment. “This recognition is a testament to the hard work of Dr. (Kevin) Eidson and the college’s top-quality faculty that we rely on to teach our student pharmacists not only the skills they need but the knowledge to apply those skills legally, ethically and effectively.”

Lipscomb has also had tremendous success with the second portion of the licensure examination process with a NAPLEX pass-rate of greater than 95 percent.

Pharmacy professor named to 2016 Women of Influence

dr. susan morley,

assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, was named a Nashville Business Journal 2016 Woman of Influence in the inspiration/ mentor category.

Morley was nominated for the Women of Influence Award for her work with students at Lipscomb as well as for her volunteer service with the Family Advisory Council at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. She has served on the Family Advisory Council at the hospital since 2008 and recently assumed the role of chair for the council.

Morley was also awarded the 2015 Faculty Member of the Year from the pharmacy Class of 2016 for her teaching excellence and her dedication to student pharmacists.

2016 ACM winner Thomas Rhett and wife share challenges with student body in Gathering

thomas rhett (akins), a lipscomb

alumnus and successful country music singer, visited Lipscomb’s music production class in February. Wearing a jersey from his former Lipscomb social club, Tau Phi, and accompanied by his wife Lauren, Rhett shared with students his advice on how to stay grounded in a starstudded industry.

After visiting with the class, the couple joined Jeff Fincher, assistant dean in the College of Entertainment & the Arts, on stage at The Gathering, Lipscomb’s all-campus weekly chapel session, where they shared their faith journey and how it keeps them grounded.

Although he is blessed to be able to pursue his dream for a living, he and his wife truly believe that they have been given this platform for more than just entertaining and writing hit songs, he said. “It’s a huge blessing to be creative and to get to sing songs for a living, but at the same time, we know for a fact that we have been put in this position to be on the road and accessible for certain artists. Maybe we’ll only have one conversation with that artist, but that may completely change their life,” Rhett said. “Not by anything that I said or have done, but by something that the Lord completely ordained.”

During the visit, three students in the contemporary music program, Delaney, Zackary and Erika Daves, who make up the sibling trio, Daves Highway, performed Rhett’s song, “Tangled Up,” for the couple.

Rhett’s second album, “Tangled Up,” features the hit single “Die A Happy Man” which tied Taylor Swift’s record to claim the No. 1 spot on the Billboard U.S. Country Airplay chart for six weeks in a row. The song also took the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards Single Record of the Year.

Lipscomb’s contemporary music program officially launched in fall 2015 and since then has recruited 21 majors and counting.

“The contemporary music program was designed to have no gap between the classroom and the professional music industry,” said Charlie Peacock, founding director of the program. “One way we do this is through connecting students with artists who are currently in the industry, such as Rhett.”

Thomas Rhett and his wife Lauren Akins spoke at The Gathering, Lipscomb’s weekly chapel service, and to contemporary music students on how his faith keeps him grounded.

Boyd attends White House convening on counseling, college advising

interim college of education dean

Deborah Boyd was selected to participate in the third White House convening on “Strengthening School Counseling and College Advising.”

The purpose of the White House convening was to increase the number of traditionally underserved students prepared for success in college by strengthening, aligning and expanding resources and the pipeline for those students to attend college, especially through school counselor leadership and collaborative partnerships.

Attendees engaged in cross-sector dialogue to share best practices and to brainstorm ideas to overcome the barriers to implementing collaborative college advising models as well as discussions about policy, research, standards credentialing and partnerships.

Boyd was one of 475 people across the nation selected to represent K-12, higher education, nonprofit organizations and state and national counseling associations, among other organizations.

“It’s great to be a part of significant conversations that are being held at the highest level about how we can work to support and strengthen school counseling and college advising programs and to develop collaborative systems,” said Boyd.

National leaders drawn to campus for significant conversations

the lipscomb campus was a hub for

significant conversation this semester as a number of national leaders and experts—from a former U.S. President to a heroic pilot—came to share their perspective and insight with Lipscomb and the Nashville community.

The semester kicked off with a visit by President George W. Bush at the inaugural Imagine donor event (see page 24 for details).

United States Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, U.S. Department of State, led a discussion on community service and global leadership during a chapel talk and was a part of a panel discussion on how U.S. foreign diplomats work together for common good.

In honor of the legacy and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rose Jackson Flenorl, manager of social responsibility for FedEx Citizenship, an arm of FedEx that develops new strategies for social impact, spoke at the annual MLK Diversity Breakfast, held annually in partnership with the Council on Workforce Innovation and National Organization for Workforce Diversity. Gentry and Flenorl’s talks were sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

The College of Leadership & Public Service brought three national experts to campus: famed “Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger spoke as the Don R. Elliott Distinguished Presidential Lecturer at the Institute for Conflict Management’s Southeast Conference on Conflict Management; Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin spoke at the launch event for the college, held at Nashville’s War Memorial Auditorium (see page 31 for details), as well as to a group of students on campus; and Joel Makower, chairman and executive editor of GreenBiz Group Inc. and creator of GreenBiz.com, spoke at the Institute for Sustainable Practice’s 2016 Sustainability Summit.

The College of Business sponsored a series of events with best-selling author on servant leadership Ken Jennings. The author spoke on servant leadership methodology for local CEOS at the Serving Leader Summit and the Christian Business Leaders Breakfast. He also spoke with a group of selected student leaders and held a roundtable discussion with Lipscomb’s military veteran students. Lipscomb joined Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association and the Tennessee World Affairs Council to host an international briefing on ISIS and the refugee crisis by Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the United States.

Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, one of the world’s leading researchers in HIV/AIDS and president and CEO of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, spoke to students about his ground-breaking research as part of the biology department’s annual research presentation series.

And as part of the McFarland dedication celebration (see page 20 for details), four distiniguished medical school deans held a panel discussion on the challenges of health care education in today’s world. Participants were Dr. David Stern, executive dean of the University of Tennessee’s College of Medicine; Dr. Jeff Balser, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Dr. Frederick C. de Beer, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine; and Robert Means, dean of medicine of the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University.

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