Liberty Professor Completes Euro Lecture Tour
Dr. Gary Habermas
Dr. Gary Habermas, a Distinguished Research Professor and Chair in the School of Religion’s Department of Philosophy and professor in the Ph.D. program at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, went on a two week lectureship tour in late 2011, visiting several western European countries, including Northern Ireland, England, Sweden, and Germany. The lectures were held at both secular universities and Christian colleges.
He has also given nearly 2,000 lectures at hundreds of universities, colleges, seminaries, and churches in the United States and abroad.
Habermas is well known worldwide for his research and writings in Christian apologetics and the resurrection of Jesus. He is a popular speaker, as well as author, co-author, or editor of 36 books, and more than 100 articles and reviews published in prestigious Christian journals and magazines.
Oxford University Press will soon be releasing a book featuring a written debate by Habermas on the resurrection. His latest book, “Enduring Your Season of Suffering,” which he co-authored with Liberty professor Dr. John Thomas, was released this spring by Liberty University Press and is being used as a textbook.
Marketing Department Wins Advertising Awards
The 2012 Flames Basketball Poster, developed by Brian Wallace and Ashley Holloway, won gold and a Best of Show selection in the 27th annual Educational Advertising Awards.
Liberty University’s Marketing Department was highly decorated in the 27th annual Educational Advertising Awards, sponsored by the Higher Education Marketing Report (HMR). The department took home two gold, one silver, one bronze, and two merit awards and received a Best of Show selection.
The event is the largest competition of its kind in the country, drawing over 2,900 entries from more than 1,000 institutions from every state and several countries.
Liberty took home gold and a Best of Show selection for its Flames basketball poster, developed by designer Brian Wallace and project coordinator Ashley Holloway. Liberty’s other gold was for its College for a Weekend (CFAW) registrant mailer created by designer Jasung Gu, writer Cami Smith, and project coordinator Emily Watkins.
Members of the Marketing teams who won either silver, bronze, or merit awards include: Gu, Smith, Watkins, Carter Wingfield, Sarah Wittcop, Janelle Holder, Mollie Yoder, and Heather Usewicz.
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Online Superintendent Wins Distance Education Award
Harvey Klamm, Liberty University Online Academy’s superintendent, won the 2012 Corporation and Distance Education Excellence in Education Award.
Harvey Klamm, superintendent of Liberty University Online Academy, was awarded the 2012 Corporation and Distance Education Excellence in Education Award by AdvancED, a worldwide organization with 80,000 schools.
Klamm said the award represented the success of the entire team who works to provide Christian online home schooling to more than 1,600 students in grades 3-12.
Now in its fifth year, Liberty opened its online academy in Fall 2007 with 23 students.
“The Academy has grown because of the hard work of dedicated admissions counselors, academic advisors, Academy teachers, and the support of the LU leadership and community,” Klamm said.
Liberty University Online Academy is regionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement, an accreditation division of AdvancED, its parent organization.
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Studio and Digital Arts Students Win ADDYs
SADA students (left to right) John Gosslee, Roberta Dee Hall and Jon Allison won local ADDY Awards for their design work.
Three students from Liberty University’s Studio and Digital Arts (SADA) program received top honors at the Local Student ADDY Awards on March 10 in Roanoke, Va.
Recent graduate Jon Allison (’12) received gold for his “Air Canada” poster. His poster “Fontstaches” earned a Judges Choice award and silver. Allison received a second silver for his logo “Libby Hunt Camp.”
John Gosslee, who graduated from the department in December, and senior Roberta Dee Hall claimed gold honors for their editorial design cover “Fjords Issue 2 Cover.”
Hall also took silver for her book cover “Covers of Type” and her poster campaign “Respect Campaign.”
The ADDYs, hosted by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition worldwide and draws more than 60,000 entries annually.
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Communication Students Earn National Recognition
Keri Cook was flown to New York City in March 2012 where she received the prestigious award, PRWeek’s Student of the Year.
Recent graduate Keri Cook (’12) was named Student of the Year by PRWeek, a weekly trade magazine for the public relations industry.
Cook received $5,000 and a paid internship at Hill & Knowlton, a leading communications services firm with national and global clients, at the annual PRWeek Awards in New York City on Thursday, March 1, and was featured in the April issue of PRWeek.
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Students of Liberty’s School of Communication also had tremendous success at the 2012 John Caples International Awards, a national media and marketing competition, in New York City on March 22, winning both first and second place for Student Campaign of the Year.
The team of alumna Ashley Kelly (’11) and recent graduate Chelsea Dawson (’12) came in first in the student category out of more than 700 total entries, winning a $5,000 prize and a paid internship from Alloy Media + Marketing, the contest’s sponsor and a leader in media production and distribution.
Fellow Liberty students Ricky Deakyne and Owen Baker took second place in the competition, winning silver recognition and a $1,000 cash prize.
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Take One! For Cinematic Arts
Austin Lewis is a student at the Zaki Gordon Cinematic Arts Center.
Liberty University’s new Zaki Gordon Cinematic Arts Center has wrapped up its first semester, and interest in the program has been higher than anticipated.
According to executive director Stephan Schultze, classroom attendance caps were raised twice, to 60 students per class, to accommodate student interest in the inaugural semester’s initial class offerings. In the Fall 2012 semester, student enrollment in these three core classes will more than double, as each course will have two sections available.
Schultze said the program is accommodating demands from a variety of platforms. Course access points are going to be offered both online and residentially through major, minor, elective, and enrichment formats to meet students’ needs. The department is also working to support concentrations in filmmaking for majors that can use visual media to enhance graduate skillsets in various fields.
“Majors like worship have asked us to support a concentration in filmmaking that would give their graduates opportunities through church worship to leverage visual media as a ministry tool,” he said.
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Women’s Flight Team to Compete in Annual Race
The Liberty Belles, coached by Sarah Morris (far left), will fly across the country in the Air Race Classic. Competing for Liberty will be (left to right) Lindsey Gray, Esther Dii, Mollie Melton and Naomi Satterfield.
Two teams of Liberty University School of Aeronautics students will fly in the 2012 Air Race Classic, June 19-22. The 2,400-mile transcontinental race is an all-women’s race based on the 1929 “Powder Puff” Air Derby flown by Amelia Earhart.
Fifty teams, consisting of two members each, will participate in the race that begins in Lake Havasu, Ariz., and ends in Batavia, Ohio.
Liberty has a competitive edge behind its team, nicknamed the “Liberty Belles,” as their coach, Liberty certified flight instructor (CFI) and student mechanic Sarah Morris, won the 2011 race while flying for her alma mater, Jacksonville University.
Student pilots Esther Dii and Mollie Melton — both training to become airline pilots — will be paired up as one team, while CFI and recent mechanic school graduate Lindsey Gray and helicopter student Naomi Satterfield make up the second team.
Debate Continues Championship Legacy
The 2012 Liberty University Debate Team won all three national championships in debate.
The Liberty University Debate Team has swept policy debate’s sweepstakes rankings for the fourth consecutive season, earning top slots in all three governing organizations’ national championships – the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA), National Debate Tournament (NDT), and the American Debate Association (ADA).
The announcement of Liberty as the winner of the 2012 NDT championship in May finalized their sixth single-season sweep of all three championships. This marks Liberty’s fourth consecutive CEDA sweepstakes championship, its sixth in the last seven years, and the Flames’ ninth consecutive and 15th overall ADA championship.
Liberty remains the only school in the history of collegiate debate to win all three championships in a single season and has earned 31 national rankings championships since 1995.
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Liberty Professor Addresses Pastors at National Event
Dr. Daniel Henderson addresses students at Convocation in 2011.
Dr. Daniel Henderson, a Liberty professor and president of Strategic Renewal International, founded a ministry in late 2010 called the 6:4 Fellowship, which seeks to connect pastors. On May 18-19, 2012, Henderson was a keynote speaker at the ministry’s National Conference in Indianapolis, Ind., along with John MacArthur, H.B. London, Mark Vroegop, and Jim Cymbala. The conference served leaders with sessions on how to combat pastoral burnout and dropout and offered the sharing of resources among pastors. For more information on the 6:4 Fellowship, visit www.64fellowshipconferences.com.
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Liberty Names New Dean of School of Communication
Liberty University has announced Dr. Norman Mintle as its new dean of the School of Communication. He will assume the role on July 1.
Mintle comes to Liberty from Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., where he served as the associate dean for academics and chair of the departments of Cinema and Television and Communication Studies.
Mintle brings many years of executive leadership to Liberty, having served as the vice president of programming and marketing for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) from 1989-1996, executive vice president and chief operating officer for the Total Living Network from 1998-2000, and the president of Pure Media Group, Inc., a consulting agency that specializes in new media, television, fundraising, and organizational leadership.
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Liberty Online forms corporate partnerships to boost growth
Liberty University Online enrollment has been booming, more than doubling to over 70,000 students in less than three years.
As the program continues to expand, the staff has been working to build corporate partnerships, offering Christian online education to local and national employers.
Initiatives like the Liberty Advantage Program, which offers employees of corporate partners a tuition discount, benefit both the employer and employees.
Recently, Liberty forged a relationship locally with The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W), a leading international provider of energy products and services that employs more than 2,700 in the Lynchburg area alone. Because of this arrangement, the Liberty Advantage Program will be available to B&W employees via the company’s corporate discount website.
Other corporate partnerships include Wells Fargo, AT&T, Sodexo, Centra Health, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
“Not only are we building relationships, we are fostering and maintaining them, with the goal of a long-term partnership,” said Kevin Hartless, director of recruitment for Liberty University Online. “We try to help the company that we work with meet the educational goals of their employees.”
In addition to direct corporate partnerships, Liberty is working to finalize partnerships with three educational consulting services, EDLink, EdCor, and LifeCare that will offer the Liberty Advantage Program to companies all across the nation and the globe.
“Once contracts are finalized, Liberty Online will be listed on hundreds of company websites accessed by tens of thousands of employees worldwide,” Hartless said. “It helps us to continue our mission of Training Champions for Christ as we are able to connect with these companies that would be impossible to (reach) without these services.”
Hartless said that while Liberty will continue to work with businesses directly, using these educational consulting firms brings companies to them.
“It is basically the difference between trying to educate tens of thousands of people individually or educating tens of thousands of people all at once,” he said.
