Christian Scholars’ Conference kicks off with Oscar-winning film

Lipscomb University will be hosting the Christian Scholars’ Conference June 6-8 where Christian Scholars will gather for lectures and discussions on Christianity. The conference will begin on Wednesday, June 4 and will continue through Friday, June 7. The first session will begin at 7 p.m. with a showing of 12 Years a Slave, the 2014 Academy Award winner of Best Picture. On Wednesday, there will be a Dean’s Conference from 7:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. At 4 p.m. registration will begin in Ezell Lobby followed by the showing of 12 Years a Slave in Ward Hall at 7 p.m. Each day after will begin with breakfast and worship followed by several different sessions led by some of the top Christian and Theological scholars. On Thursday, after registration, breakfast and worship, the first session will begin which will be 12 paper/panel discussions in various locations. This will be followed by The Inaugural Abraham J. Malherbe Plenary Address by Carl Holladay in Collins Alumni Auditorium. There will be a break for lunch, and then the second session will begin with a continuation of the paper/panel discussions in various locations. Following the discussions will be the Robert E. and Bonnie Cone Hooper Plenary Address in Collins Alumni Auditorium to be given by Phyllis Tickle. At 5 p.m. hors d’oeuvres will be served in Bison Square as a precursor to dinner at 5:30 to 7 and desert afterwards. The day will end with the world premier of John Updike’s Roger’s Version in Shamblin Theatre. On Friday after worship, paper/panel sessions three and four will be back to back. The third session features 13...

Booher brothers to raise funds for ailing sister with benefit piano concert

A benefit piano concert, titled Two Brothers for One Sister, is set to be held on Thursday in Ward Hall.  The show will be put on by two brothers for their sister, who has been undergoing treatments for her health since last summer. Pianists and brothers Adam and Evan Booher are the two holding the concert. Adam is a senior at Lipscomb and has been playing the piano for 15 years now. He has hopes to pursue his master’s degree at Florida State University in music (preferably, in piano performance). Evan is a freshman at Lipscomb and says he has been playing the piano for about 12 to 13 years. He was the first place winner in the piano contest here at Lipscomb back in 2012 as a high school student and still enjoys playing today. However, the Booher brothers are using their talents for a much greater purpose this week. Their 15-year-old sister, Anna Booher, was diagnosed with Lyme disease in February of 2013. Over the summer, she began treatments, and she and her family spent four months at a Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Our family lived in the Ronald McDonald House in Minnesota, so that was a real big blessing,” Adam Booher said. He and his brother flew to Minnesota for the summer to be with the rest of their family. After four months of different treatment in Minnesota, the Booher family had to make another transition to Tampa Bay, Fla., where they now reside, working with a team of doctors there. The Booher family thinks the treatments are getting better each and every day, but it’s still...

Students gain insight from Alternative for Death Penalty conference

‘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...

SGA President Grace announces spring concert, off-campus dining progress

SGA President Patrick Grace has confirmed a few major developments for Lipscomb students, including a potential breakthrough in the long-awaited possibility of off-campus dining. To start, Grace confirmed that there will indeed be a spring concert taking place this semester. “We have a spring concert. It should be in the middle of March,” Grace said. “We’ve got a band kind of in agreement in principle.” Grace says that SGA will make an announcement next week as to who will be playing as soon as it’s set in stone. The spring concert has long been a successful tradition at Lipscomb, with singer-songwriter Mat Kearney headlining the show last spring. Alongside the spring concert, the SGA will help sponsor a new edition of Tokens, a show founded by campus’ Dr. Lee Camp on March 7 in Alumni Auditorium. SGA is planning to release tickets for free to the student body. Grace described the show as “sort of a theological, variety, folk music radio broadcast.” SGA will be holding auditions for a student act to play during the show on Friday, Feb. 15, in the afternoon. The tryouts will be held in Ward Hall. “I’m looking forward to [the auditions] because we’ve got some real talent on campus,” Grace said. Off-campus meal plan in negotiations, could be ready for fall semester The SGA president said he and Dr. Scott McDowell,Vice President for Student Development and Dean of Campus Life, have been in negotiations with Sodexo and human resources to potentially create a plan that would allow for Lipscomb students to use their dining plan at off-campus locations. Grace said he has a level...