LEE UNIVERSITY TORCH Fall 2017 Vol 59 / No 03 Torch Magazine is the official publication of Lee University, Cleveland, Tennessee. It is a quarterly publication intended to inform, educate, and give insight to alumni, parents, and friends of the university. For more information, contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 423-614-8316 or email [email protected]. MAILING ADDRESS 1120 N. Ocoee St. Cleveland, TN 37311 WEBSITE leeuniversity.edu E-MAIL [email protected] PHONE 1-800-LEE-9930 or 423-614-8316 TORCH COMMITTEE Paul Conn, chair Regenia Collier Brian Conn Phil Cook Carolyn Dirksen Jerome Hammond Vanessa Hammond Carman Lastoria Jeff Salyer Stephanie Taylor Jayson VanHook CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Brian Conn Paul Conn Carolyn Dirksen Jerome Hammond Angelia Keinlen Carman Lastoria Gloria Scott-Richmond George Starr Jayson VanHook PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS Zach Camp Riley Mattila Ivy McCosh James Mears George Starr Randi Vasquez DESIGN Lee University Office of Publications Photo: Gloria Scott-Richmond, director of Evangelistic Singers of Lee University 2 | Torch | Fall 2017 CONTENTS 2 Ellen Merritt French 4 Lee Upfront 6 New Faces of Lee 8 Who’s Where 10 Torch Travels 12 What’s In A Name? Dirksen Row 14 Flames News 16 Sisters and Soccer 20 Heart of a Champion 23 By the Numbers 24 Growing a Legacy at Lee 26 Virality: What it Means and Why it Matters 30 Where Are They Now? An Alumni Profile 34 The Evangelistic Singers’ Story 37 From the President Fall 2017 | Torch | 1 REMEMBERING MATRIARCH, MISSIONARY, PROFESSOR Ellen Merritt French by CAROLYN DIRKSEN | Director of Faculty Development Ellen French came to Lee as an Assistant Professor of throng of women from Puerto Rico, and India and Haiti and English in the fall of 1976, and although she was at Lee for Peru, and from all over the US who were following that same only fourteen years, she had an incalculable impact. When I rare light. For the next fourteen years, I worked side by side first learned that Ellen French was joining the Lee faculty, to with Ellen. For part of that time, I was her department chair, be honest, I was intimidated. Although I had never met her, and for part of it, she was mine, but regardless of our roles, Ellen’s reputation preceded her. She was a career missionary she was my role model. who had raised five sons abroad, taught English to outcaste Ellen was brilliant. I know that because she didn’t women in India, served in ministry all over the world, take the stereotypical 1970s female approach of keeping and led the Women’s Ministry arm of the denomination, it coyly hidden. Nor did she overcompensate by using her encouraging female ordination. She seemed fierce and intelligence as a weapon. It was simply one of the gifts from radical, and in pictures I had seen of her, she looked regal God that she used for His purposes the way another person and daunting, so I awaited her arrival with a sense of awe might play the piano or paint a portrait. She never showed and just a dash of foreboding. When I met her, she was, in off or put other people down; she just thought and spoke fact, regal and daunting, fierce and radical, but she was also and conducted herself in the most natural way that allowed warm and kind and witty and clever, and—at least from my the light of her intelligence to shine through. Married on end—it was love at first sight. the day of her graduation from Bible Training School, she I was an ambitious 29-year-old who was just finishing had pieced her subsequent education together between my doctorate. In 1976, there were not a lot of strong and around the birth and rearing of her sons and her many Christian women on the path ahead of me to show me how worldwide ministry opportunities. When she landed at Lee, to be a wife, a mother, and a professional who made Godly she decided, at age 58, to start her doctorate at Middle use of her gifts and Tennessee State University. For the next four years she opportunities. Ours taught full time and commuted 130 miles one way to take was the road not-so- a full slate of classes. Her dissertation was on the literature often taken in those of the Holocaust, and she developed a course on this topic, days, but there was which opened the eyes of a generation of students. In spite something in Ellen’s of all her responsibilities, she was always an avid reader, and unself-conscious one of my absolute favorite pastimes was sitting in Ellen’s boldness that let me office talking about good books. know I had a guide In the classroom, Ellen was tough. She had high who could show me expectations, and as one of her former students reflected, the way, someone “She didn’t suffer fools gladly.” But she also had the gift of whose leadership I believing in students, in seeing their promise behind all their could trust. I didn’t foolishness, and she was willing and able to draw out their realize at the time strengths and lead them to their own successes. Her office that I was joining a 2 | Torch | Fall 2017 was next to mine, and I heard her in earnest conversations long-term missionary mother. In fourteen years she became with students, not cutting them any slack but calling on so fundamental to the fabric of Lee that she was named them to achieve. If they wanted sympathy for their follies, Faculty Emeritus upon her retirement. they had come to the wrong place. But if they wanted stern This is my favorite story about Ellen: In the first edition advice about the requirement of honest hard work, they were of Like a Mighty Army, Charles Conn listed all the career talking to the master. Many of her former students have told missionaries in the Church of God, putting an asterisk next me that she wouldn’t give up on them no matter how easily to the names of those who were accompanied by their they gave up on themselves. Ellen prepared them for the spouses. When she came home on furlough, Ellen asked for tough world she knew they were entering, but she prepared an appointment with Dr. Conn, which he eagerly granted. them out of an abundance of love. In all her sternness, she She greeted him graciously and thanked him for the was also surprisingly gentle, able and willing to dive into attention he had given to missionaries in his book, then she students’ sorrows, to wipe their tears and hold their hands let him know that after raising five sons on the mission field, and always to hold them up in prayer. It was not surprising teaching in Bible schools on three continents, developing when she earned the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1988. curriculum, preaching, and planting churches around the This week social media has been abuzz with stories from her world, she was not an asterisk. After that meeting, Dr. Conn former students, praising her for the impact she had on their quite agreed. I was copy editor of the second edition of lives both intellectually and spiritually. She was that teacher Like a Mighty Army, and I heard this story from Dr. Conn that they never forgot, the one that set them on a path that himself, while we were adding information about the led to a more perfect future. accomplishments of women who were career missionaries Ellen was also startlingly funny. She had a quick wit alongside their husbands. This story is funny and sweet, that hit its target with laser accuracy and was masked by but it belies a path of life that made a significant difference a deadpan delivery. She wasn’t one to giggle and twitter, to all of us who have followed. Ellen taught us that we are but she could double the rest of us over with a perfectly important in God’s sight, that our work is important, and delivered punch line. She brought all her humor and that we have the right and the responsibility to speak up for intelligence and interpersonal skill to her leadership of ourselves. I am grateful that this powerful, Godly woman the department, hiring new faculty and instituting new shaped my life and the lives of countless other women and programs, stretching a tight budget with all the skill of a men who had the privilege of knowing her. 1982 Faculty of the Language Arts Department: (L-R) Janet Rahamut, Ellen French, Raymond Barrick, Anetta Wyatt, Sabord Woods, Eleanor Barrick, Robert Humbertson (chair), Carolyn Dirksen, Ruth Lindsey Fall 2017 | Torch | 3 ANOTHER RECORD-BREAKING YEAR “We are thrilled to have the semester underway with another record-breaking year at Lee,” said Phil Cook, VP for Enrollment. “Our student body is bigger and more academically prepared than ever, and our campus wide retention efforts are producing UPFRONT great results. This kind of success is especially gratifying in today’s extremely competitive higher education environment.” ATHLETIC TRAINING, The overall headcount of 5,370 students is the largest ever. STILL EXCELLING IN TRANSITION This number is a combined total of Lee students from all classifications, on and off campus. Lee also experienced a record number of 1,020 graduates during the 2016-2017 academic year. “This is a truly significant accomplishment,” said Cook. “To have more than 1,000 students complete their degrees in one year is remarkable. These totals reflect the recent growth of our enrollment, but it also confirms the quality of students choosing Lee.