Home : The Voice : December 2002  

College and Seminary News

Rhodes College and Maryville College came together for the Micah 6 College Workshop in October, sponsored by the Bonner Foundation and hosted by Columbia Theological Seminary. Along with seven other colleges, Rhodes and Maryville received Micah 6 grants from the Princeton-based Bonner Foundation, in order to partner with local congregations in community ministry. Each Micah 6 partnership addresses issues of community justice, direct services, and spiritual growth. During the October workshop, Dr.Walter Brueggemann met with project coordinators to study Biblical foundations of justice and mercy, and Prof. Lee Carroll helped the group consider models of theological reflection for undergraduate students in service.

Maryville’s Micah 6 Partnership is with Highland Presbyterian Church (Maryville, TN) and includes outreach with youth in the nearby Blount Co. juvenile detention center, while Rhodes students serve with urban neighborhood ministries and a servant leader community house in Memphis. Other participating college partners are Lees- McRae, Davidson, Berea, Emory & Henry, Pfeiffer, Wofford, and Wheeling Jesuit. The Micah 6 Pilot Project originated in 1999 as a congregational program of the National Council of Churches of Christ and has been further developed as college-based ministries through the Bonner Foundation and its supported schools. The Micah 6 college initiative is coordinated by Rhodes Chaplain Billy Newton, who serves on the NCCC planning team and as a program advisor for the Bonner Foundation.

Beginning Feb. 4, 2003, the Doak House Museum and the President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library located on the Tusculum College campus will offer an exciting new educational opportunity. “Founding Fathers: Exploring our Presidential Heritage” will include learning activities and exhibits that focus on President George Washington, President Andrew Johnson, and college presidents Rev. Samuel W. Doak and Rev. Hezekiah Balch.

This new program was developed after school archivists learned that the Rev. Hezekiah Balch, the first president of Greeneville College, requested a donation for the school from President Washington and received a gift of $100. Photos of the letters from Rev. Balch to Washington will be on display.

Visitors will have a rare opportunity to see nine paintings done in the late 19th and early 20th centuries showing events in Washington’s life. The paintings are on loan to the President Andrew Johnson Museum from the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia. Other artifacts on exhibition will be on loan from the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville.

For additional information, times, days the museums are open, and scheduling a group, contact Charlene Williams at 423-636- 8554.

The Athletic Department at Belhaven College is totally committed to “The Champions of Character” program that has been instituted by the NAIA. The following examples illustrate their desire to serve our community and our nation as ambassadors of goodwill for the NAIA.

On Monday, January 21, 2002, Belhaven College participated in a community service event that focused on cleaning up and improving several areas of the city of Jackson, Mississippi. The Belhaven athletic department was well represented in this endeavor as student athletes and coaches carried out a variety of tasks in an effort to serve our community. Some of these tasks included the following: cleaning up a vacant lot in the near downtown Jackson area, “gutting” the inside of an old house, picking up trash, and cleaning out gutters along city streets.

The volleyball team and tennis team visited the Admiral Retirement Center on several occasions to sing and share with the residents.

During the season, the volleyball team visited a hospital on a road trip to LaGrange, Georgia, and went into patients’ rooms to pray for patients.

While on a road trip to West Alabama University, the volleyball team stopped at a Wal-Mart parking lot and assisted people to their cars with their purchases.

Belhaven football coaches have held several meetings with their players to discuss the Biblical values of honesty, integrity, work ethics, and accountability.

Centre College students, faculty, staff, and Danville community residents read the Declaration of Independence and other historical and literary documents continuously for more than fiftysix hours November 3-5, surpassing the current Guinness Book of World Records. And an estimated 6,000 people toured the Declaration of Independence Road Trip exhibit. It was a stunning success for the College and the surrounding community.

Columbia Seminary has been selected to receive a grant of $1.3 million from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, Inc. to support a new project of the seminary’s Continuing Education and Spirituality Programs aimed at sustaining pastoral excellence.

Named S³ for the three components that seminary leaders have identified as important in sustaining pastoral excellence —Sabbath, study, and service— the grant will allow the seminary to bring together more than 200 pastors who will work together in cohort groups for thirty months. Participants will primarily include ordained clergy but might on occasion also include congregational leaders.

A new minor in contemporary music was added to Pikeville College’s curriculum last year. The program offers in-depth study in the history and literature of jazz, rock, pop, and country music styles. Students take classes in improvisation, arranging and composition, music theory, applied music lessons, and have performance opportunities in both combos and large ensembles. The minor is also structured in such a way as to allow students to pursue an emphasis in the music business, computer and electronic music, arranging, music theory and composition or performing. Most classes are required; however, classes in music appreciation and the history of jazz and rock, which examines the evolution of the musical styles beginning with its African and European roots through the present time, are open to all Pikeville College students.