Winter 2011 Edition
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VOLUME 123 • N O.2 • W INTER 2011 IN THIS ISSUE CHECK US OUT...Y’ALL! ONLINE.BELHAVEN.EDU Switchfoot: Making a Bigger Sound | Blazing Trails in Health | Homecoming Thinking about Higher Education WHAT IS THIS? DOWNLOAD A QR CODE READER APP. THE CODE WILL TAKE YOU TO A VIDEO FROM DR. PARROTT. WHAT WE SUGGEST FOR IPHONE, ANDROID, AND BLACKBERRY—AT&T’S SCANNER OR BEETAGG; FOR WINDOWS BEETAGG Who would have ever thought higher Consider the swing represented in two quotes from education could change so dramatically the inaugural addresses of two Ivy League presidents. in such a short period of time? In 1937 Yale’s new president, Charles Symore, issued In the past, universities were grounded this challenge: in: CHARACTER–CURRICULUM– “I call on all faculty, as a thinking body, to recognize the CARING–COURAGE. tremendous validity and power of the teachings of Christ in our Today, they have become driven by: life-and-death struggle against the forces of selfish materialism.” SIZE–SPORTS–STATUS–SIZZLE. Exactly 70 years later the new president of Harvard, Drew When I was completing my Ph.D. in Gilpin Faust, presented a totally different position: higher education, I wrote a paper arguing that the governors of the “The ‘Veritas’ in Harvard’s shield was originally intended Academy were wrong, and that someday, community colleges might to invoke the absolutes of divine revelation, the unassailable verities JOIN be a respectable alternative to traditional four-year institutions. Back of Puritan religion. We understand it quite differently now. Truth is then students went to a community college only to prepare for a an aspiration, not a possession.” “real college.” With the dramatic changes in higher education, it is k then,Bac in 1979, the only for-profit schools we knew of understandable that prospective students and their families are Team Green advertised on late night TV and taught truck driving and secretarial overwhelmed and confused as they consider which school to attend. skills. And the possibility of theirs gaining respect as a genuine I would like to offer them new benchmarks for evaluating the ference! educational alternative would have been unthinkable. We all knew alternatives of higher education. Your gift makes a dif that “real colleges” were only founded out of sacrifice. If you know a prospective student, please pass along the Today, the largest institution of higher education is a for-profit following article: “College Choice – Essential Questions for school, the University of Phoenix, which enrolls over a half million Christians.” Or tear it out and tuck it away for your younger students. Among the largest ten schools in the country, four are for- children or grandchildren, because the biblical principles of profit institutions, four are community colleges, and only two are Christ-centered higher education are unchanging. comprehensive universities: Penn State and Arizona State. Those ten schools combined enroll 1.5 million students. It is not simply a demographic change that has shaken higher education. But change has rattled the very foundation upon which universities are built. Volume 123 | No.2 THE TARTAN STAFF BOARD OF TRUSTEES Winter 2011 DESIGN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF|Bryant Butler CHARLES CANNADA| Chairman of the Board DESIGN|Melissa White JIMMY HOOD| Vice Chairman of the Board The Belhaven Tartan is published HUGH POTTS, JR.| Secretary of the Board by Belhaven University, 1500 WRITERS| Michael Dukes, Alex Freel, Kirk McDonnell, Peachtree Street, Box 158, Roger Parrott Mike Aldrich, Lon Allison, James M. Bateman, F. Bond Jackson, Mississippi, 39202 for COPY EDITORS| Rose Mary Foncree, Suzanne Sullivan, Christie, Scott Dawson, Charles Doty, F. Earl Fyke, III, distribution to alumni, parents Danny Shaw, Ryan Brister, Beth Whitney Don Gleason, Stephen M. Edwards, Brock Hattox, of students, and friends of the PHOTOGRAPHERS| Bryant Butler, Marianne Dietrich, Wayne Husband, Edmund Johnston, Stuart Kellogg, college. Please send alumni Michael Dukes, Gretchen Haine, Ana Iverson, Jay Kyle, Michael Lindsay, Liza Looser, Verne Kennedy, updates, address corrections, Bob Smith, Melissa White Virginia Morris, Leisha Pickering, Randy Pope, III, and other news to Belhaven ALUMNI NEWS|Michael Dukes, Joseph Craven David Rich, Joseph Stroble, W. Lynn Stringer, Gaines Tartan, care of the above Beth Whitney Sturdivant, Alan H. Walters, Dolphus Weary, Thomas address. You can reach us by Calvin Wells, Mark Windham, Newt Wilson, Richard phone at 601-968-5930 or by ADMINISTRATION Wilson, Wirt A. Yerger, III, Jerry Young email at belhaven@belhaven. ROGER PARROTT| President of the University edu or by fax at 601-968-8946. DAN FREDERICKS| Senior Vice President, Provost EMERITUS Visit our web site at www. KEVIN RUSSELL| Vice President University Advancement James Baird, Wilson Benton, Jr., Lee Breeland, belhaven.edu. Periodical VIRGINIA HENDERSON| Chief Financial Officer William T. Dawson, S. A. Robinson, Jr., William F. Winter postage paid in Jackson, MS. AUDREY KELLEHER| Vice President of Adult and POSTMASTER: Send address Graduate Marketing and Development changes to Belhaven University, SCOTT LITTLE| Vice President for Student Affairs 1500 Peachtree Street, Box 158, Visit blazers.belhaven.edu or call 601-968-5956 and Athletics Jackson, MS, 39202. and join Team Green today! CONTENT 16 College Choice features What criterion do you use for choosing a college? 02 Dr. Parrott examines essential questions Christians should know. Switchfoot From college football’s Bowl Championship Series TV 08 promo to Belhaven University, Switchfoot is on a mission. Blazing Trails in Health Belhaven, donors and Blue Cross & Blue Shield 16 of Mississippi Foundation partner together to promote healthy living that gets you moving. Back to Belhaven ’10 18 Alumni and friends gather to celebrate Belhaven with 5K, 08 football and host of events during homecoming. Campus News 12 Alumni News 20 Parting Art 24 14 departments College Choice ’ve been blessed with a unique vantage point from which to view Inearly every secret about university life and administration. I’m a third generation college president who has served in the corner office for twenty-two years. In fact, if you stop by my office, you’ll see the desk where I work was my grandfather’s desk when he was a president back in the 1940s. So when it comes to understanding universities, and especially how we go about persuading high school students to attend our institutions, I know the process inside-and-out. As they say, I know how the sausage is made–and sometimes it is not pretty. 2| Belhaven University TARTAN | www.belhaven.edu WINTER 2011 During his 22 years as a college president, Dr. Roger Parrott, has used the same desk his Grandfather used when he was a college president two generations earlier. From 1938 to 1948 Dr. A. L. Parrott served as president of Olivet Nazarene College and had this oversized partners desk built to his specifications. Roger’s father, Dr. Leslie Parrott, also served as president of colleges for 25 years. Among the three generations in the Parrott family, they have a combined 57 years of service as college presidents. Essential Questions for Christians DR. ROGER PARROTT College Choice PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY During the last decade, the competition for students has A. Most families reference US News rankings, but don’t realize convinced some very smart Christians to make dumb college those scores are skewed in favor of the type of institutions decisions. They are fooled by name-brand marketing campaigns, the editors attended. as well as the glamor of campus amenities and prestige rankings. Or, too often, Christian families buy the assumption that any B. All students study the quality of academic programs, school will do, as long as you attend a good Bible study near by. but forget to examine as carefully the character of the I’m deeply concerned that smart Christian families are individual who does the teaching. being swayed to follow culture’s value of higher education– Size, Sports, Status, and Sizzle–rather than the Godly criteria C. Some parents urge students to consider enrolling where that would help students find the school that best matches they attended a quarter-century ago, but don’t realize that their needs. while the university campus may look the same on the As someone who knows the industry of higher education outside, the worldview in the classroom has dramatically from the inside, I often share with students and families a fresh shifted. perspective to consider as they work through this critical decision of college choice. D. Too many students make their decision (research tells us) I believe many families are making one of the most impor- within seven minutes after they get out of the car for a campus tant decisions of their lives based on inappropriate criteria. And tour, thus, deciding on the appearance of the campus. if for no other reason than the investment of time and money (not to mention, how it will shape nearly every other outcome E. Many students desire to attend college with high school of a graduate’s life), families need to be equipped with the right friends, not realizing that university life will be so dramatically standards to help them choose the school that fits them best. different that a whole new crop of friends are more likely The typical criteria of college selection are highly inadequate for to become their focus. making a well-informed decision: F. Often families base this decision on money. And while that is an important factor, this critical juncture of life is too important to be guided only by the prospect of saving money. At the same time, higher tuition does not assure quality. WINTER 2011 www.belhaven.edu | Belhaven University TARTAN |3 I’d recommend that prospective students and families • The cost of college athletics has sky-rocketed and the move beyond these misleading criteria and probe the tuition hikes carry many of those additional costs.