Bryan College Triangle

By Jonathan Warner
Columnist 

Senate has been proposing many rule changes to the Student Life Handbook this year.

The first batch of proposals that Senate submitted to the administration proposed changes to the dancing policy and ending weekend curfew.

Vice President Joseph Murphy, junior, who served as a class Senator for two years before becoming vice president, said the goal of SGA Senate is to “try to improve Bryan for students.”

In years past, they helped amend rules dealing with things like nose piercings.

The current proposed amendments have been approved by the Office of Student Life Council and are now before the President’s Council. Murphy said that he believes these will be voted on before the end of the year, but was uncertain as to what the result would be.

The second batch of proposals includes ending the church attendance policy, changing the rule about shorts in Mercer and extending open dorm times.

SGA Senate proposed that the new policy on open dorm read: “Men may visit in the women’s dorms on Friday night and Sunday afternoons, and women may visit in the men’s dorms on Saturday nights. Residence Hall visitation time is normally 7:30 pm – 12:00 am on Friday and Saturday nights, and 2:00 pm – 6 pm on Sunday afternoons.”

This second batch of rules is still before Student Life Council. Murphy said that he anticipates them being voted on before the end of the year. However, they would still have to get past President’s Council which would be a near impossibility due to how little time is left in the year.

Murphy said his team—many of them serving their first time on SGA– were “very dedicated” and “pretty enthusiastic.”

However, added that there was room for SGA Senate to improve.

“We began touching on a lot of areas that we hope to improve, but we still need to keep working on developing clear lines of communication,” he said.

Allison Baker, current Junior class Senator and next year’s Vice President of SGA said she wants to raise awareness of SGA to the student body and represent them “whether or not she agrees with them.”

She’d like “people to be more aware of what SGA is doing, so they can feel represented and know what avenues they have to submit request and communicate to the administration.”

By Meredith Kreigh
Triangle Writer

Two Bryan College professors are excited about new horizons as they launch Core Academy of Science.

When the Center for Origins Research (CORE) was notified of their cut in February, there was an initial panic, but they settled on a vision quickly, said Roger Sanders, assistant director of CORE and associate professor of science.

“We see a worsening of conflict between conservative Christians and science; this program aims to integrate the two. The goal is for Christians to better understand and appreciate science,” said Todd Wood, director of CORE and associate professor of science.

While at Bryan, CORE found that by the time students reached Sanders’ and Wood’s upper-level courses, they had already decided their outlook on science, Wood said. In large part, CORE was not able to influence younger students.

“God gave us the desire and excitement for this and so we followed it,” said Sanders.

Core Academy will be available to nearly anyone who can stream video, from middle school students to adults. Core Academy of Science hopes to reach Home-schooled students, teachers seeking to continue their learning and, in the future, dual-enrollment students.

In the fall semester, Core Academy will offer a Biology course and an Introduction to Origins course.

In future semesters, Physical Science, Earth Science and Chemistry courses will also be available.

Classes will consist of a video lesson and interaction with the teacher—who, for the time being, will mostly be Sanders. The teacher will supervise and interact with students and score assignments.

CORE will not give grades. Instead, at the end of the course, parents, or the students themselves, will receive a summary of scores for all of their assignments. It is then up to the teacher to assign a grade.

The course is designed so that is “cross-compatible,” as Wood said.

That is, it is accessible through several different curricula. Sanders is designing a course schedule that outlines chapters and concepts from science textbooks published by Bob Jones University, Apologia, A Beka Books and several others, including secular publishers.

“That way, families who have already invested in a certain curriculum do not have to purchase another textbook,” said Wood.

Since science is one of the more intimidating subjects for most families, Core Academy will allow the family to not have to teach it. Instead, they will have an actual, practicing scientist teaching, said Wood.

For any given yearlong course, three options are offered: The standard model schedules material for both the fall semester and the spring semester. The accelerated program offers a concentration of both semesters into one. Finally, there is a self-guided option, which gives the requirements and video, but eliminates the teacher interaction.

Beyond homeschool education, Core Academy will offer “short courses,” six lessons, each an hour long. These are largely marketed to teachers and professors for further development in order to keep their licenses, said Wood.

The first short course, starting in August, addresses the historical Adam debate, for which someone can sign up for free on their website. Future short courses include one exploring Smokey Mountain wildflowers and another concerning the Scopes Trial.

At this point, Core Academy is still working on this curriculum “map.” They are also going to start filming the video lessons in a couple of weeks and shoot pictures for the wildflower short course, in order to launch the program at the end of August.

Soon, Core Academy is beginning a capital campaign to raise the $25,000 they need in order to cover expenses for the website, video production, software and other operating costs for the first year, according to Wood.

Core Academy will operate out of CORE’s current offices just off of the Henning Museum. “Thankfully, they’re not going to try to pry us up,” said Sanders.

“President Livesay graciously donated the office space to us for the next year,” said Wood

“We basically have it until they need the space,” Sanders added.

According to Wood’s conservative projections, Core Academy will be self-sustaining within three years. During that time, they plan to bring new staff on board and, also, hire interns.

“If it is a question of whether I get a salary or we pay an intern, I will choose to pay the intern. The hands-on experience of doing research is way too important,” said Wood.

There are no entrance requirements for Core Academy programs. All they need is name and email address, then an individual adds the course to their cart and checks out.

Wood and Sanders remain adamant that they are not retiring to become high school teachers. Sanders just received a grant for research of plant ecology in Colorado and California.

“We are not just educators who stand and lecture. We keep active in the field and we keep moving forward,” said Wood.

By Daniel Jackson
News Editor

During their visit to the hill April 2, twins Josh and Caleb Davis observed an Introduction to Communication class taught by Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Chris Clark, ate twice in the cafeteria (the ice cream was a hit), and now they were about to spend their first night at Bryan in the room of their campus host, John Glenn.

The stop at Bryan was part of the high school juniors’ college road trip, which also involved stops at Anderson University (Anderson, S.C.) and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Josh, who is interested in studying business or maybe law, and Caleb, who wants to study drama, both said the visit to Bryan was different: Bryan was the only college so far that allowed them to stay in the dorms and the only school that allowed them to sit in on classes.

Vice President for Enrollment Management Mike Sapienza said convincing prospective students to visit the campus is a deliberate part of the admissions office’s strategy to convince more perspective students to come to Bryan. They have found that if a student visits the campus and talks to students, they are more likely to attend Bryan.

Sapienza predicts the new class that will enter Bryan in the fall of 2013 will break enrollment records.

“We’re projecting higher and we’re praying for 300 new students, which would be a record enrollment,” Sapienza said.

While Sapienza said the admissions office is tracking toward the goal, he declined to say where the office is exactly in meeting its goal. He also declined to explain what specific strategies the admission counselors are using to reach out to perspective students.

“We don’t share that information, though,” he said,” that’s an internal process.”

The admissions office encourages visitors to sit in on classes and to talk to students. Sapienza said visitors return to the admissions office and say Bryan students were saying the same thing that the admissions department said about the school. It’s not always the case at other colleges.

“We’ll take our chances with our students representing the place,” Sapienza said.

In fall of 2011, Bryan welcomed 294 new students—six students shy of the 300 goal, after 1,038 applied. The next year, Sapienza said the admissions office tried to recruit another 300 students. However, as the summer turned to fall, they revised those projections.

According to Bryan’s institutional fact book, Bryan welcomed 249 new students to Bryan in 2012, 45 students fewer than the year before. That year 978 students applied.

It was a unique year, said Spaienza. The numbers were tracking well in the spring but the summer brought what Sapienza termed “melt.”

Students started calling the admissions office saying they would not be able to attend Bryan. For a lot of those students, Bryan was their first choice school, Sapienza said.

Sometimes the students gave reasons: their dad just lost his job, they didn’t want to borrow more money or they had to retake the ACT to get more scholarship money.

“Money was harder to come by, and it still is,” Sapienza said.

Danielle Dillard, an admissions counselor at Bryan said she and her fellow counselors reached out to more perspective students and have produced more campaigns to persuade high school students to visit Bryan.

While every day is unique, Dillard said she communicates with perspective students through face-to-face meetings, phone calls and email. She also travels to college fairs to represent the school.

When asked if she thinks the admissions office will reach their goal of 300 students, she replied, “We are all working very hard as an office and college to meet this goal. Ultimately, I believe God is going to bring the students He wants to Bryan.”

Prospective students who have been accepted by Bryan College are supposed to pay their enrollment deposit of $100 by May 1.

By Daniel Jackson
News Editor

Students gather around Joni Eareckson Tada, an advocate for people with disability, after chapel / Photo by Amy Bailey

Over the past several years, a relationship between Joni and Friends, a Christian ministry devoted to helping people with disabilities, and Bryan College has been developing.

Bryan’s alumni have gone to work in the offices of the organization, the college recently began offering a course designed by Joni and Friends, and Joni and Friends use Fort Bluff Camp on Dayton Mountain to host their camp for families with children of disabilities. On April 22, Joni Eareckson Tada herself visited Bryan campus for the first time.

A diving accident when she was 17 left Joni paralyzed from the shoulders down. Now 63, she advocates for people with disability. Author of over 48 books, she talks about suffering, disability and Christianity.

Rudd Auditorium was packed for the chapel hour on April 22. Visitors, both young and old, filled the seats and others stood in the back.

She spoke about how people with disabilities bless the church. She said many people who live with day-to-day suffering have to rely more on God. Through living faith, they show faith in God.

“We’re God’s best visual aids. We’re God’s best flannelgraphs,” she said.

At one point in her presentation, she stopped.

“Ken, can you help me a second?” Joni said to her husband.

Ken Tada hopped onstage to help Joni reposition herself.

“Not only can I not breathe,” she said, “I don’t have any balance.”

Earlier in the visit, Ken had to go onstage to help his wife clear her throat. Joni told the audience to pray for her while Ken helped her.

He helped her move forward while she explained that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. She loves depending on her husband because it teaches her to depend more on God, she said.

Bryan Alumna Laura Payne, who works with Joni and Friends as the South East Director, said Joni and Friends created a curriculum called, “Beyond Suffering,” which is the most comprehensive curriculum Joni and Friends have complied.

Last September, the organization also released the curriculum in Braille and Spanish. Bryan offered the course, taught by certified instructors, both last fall and this spring.

Like Bryan, the curriculum emphasizes worldview, thus, there is something of a philosophical connection, Payne said.

“Bryan’s been doing that for over 30 years,” she said.

Payne graduated from Bryan in 1982. While she was here, she worked on the Bryan Triangle.

Many courses on worldview do not address disability, but “Beyond Suffering” fills a need, said Payne, because there are many people who deal with disability, such as U.S. veterans who became disabled through serving in the military.

Payne said Tada came to campus through the connections made through Summit Ministries and John Stonestreet, and through Bryan’s use of the “Beyond Suffering” curriculum.

Joni and Friends also uses Fort Bluff Camp to host its East Tennessee Joni and Friends Family retreats.

The family retreats are week-long retreats for families of a child with a disability.

Dayton’s Lucia Fary, grandmother of sophomore Jay Carpenter, volunteered at the camp for the first time last year. She was assigned to a child.

“You just interact with them and help them have a great time,” she said.

The moms that attend the retreat get pedicures and craft necklaces and get support from the other mothers.

On the first day, the volunteers, about 80 in all, gathered to welcome each family that entered the camp. They gathered with balloons, firecrackers and when a family drove up, they shouted for every child that arrived.

She remembered thinking, “Who cheers the handicapped? No one, not really.”

Darlene LaPlue, a Bryan alum and longtime volunteer with Joni and Friends, said she never realize the need was so great. Now in her 11th year volunteering with the organization, she said people don’t realize the problem because these families are hidden away.

In the retreat that will be held this July at Fort Bluff, the camp will be filled with families, but Joni and Friends still needs volunteers, said LaPlue.

While the future of the connection between Joni and Friends and Bryan will depend on the national organization, Payne said she hopes their relationship will continue to grow.

By Daniel Jackson
News Editor

A behind-the-scenes look at the filming of “Jesus Fish.”

“Jesus Fish” is swimming home.

Spawned from the mind of Bryce McGuire through a writing assignment in an advanced screenwriting class at Bryan College, the 22-minute short film is entering the waters of the film festival circuit. But not before it stops at the place where it was made: Dayton, Tenn.

Two alumni of the film department, Bryce McGuire and Colton Davie, are returning to the hill to show their short film, “Jesus Fish”, Monday April 22 at 8:30 p.m. in Rudd Auditorium.

McGuire said he got the idea for “Jesus Fish” from growing up in a small town and hearing the stories lore, legends and haunting in his small town.

“I remember growing up that my brother had seen this lake monster and no one believed him—of course,” he said.

When Assistant Professor in Communication Studies Chris Clark asked the students in his screenwriting class to create a story, McGuire crafted a story that explored spiritual faith through the account of a lake monster.

McGuire said Clark did not like the story at first. McGuire remembers getting a low grade on the project. But he then revised it over the course of a year and a half, about 37 times, he recalls.

At first, McGuire and Davie wanted to film the story for Spiritual Life Formation to be shown in chapel and then as an omnibus project, but they realized the film was too ambitious.

The two finally got around to filming the story in August 2011, just before they both married and before McGuire left for the American Film Institute (AFI).

McGuire wrote and directed “Jesus Fish,” while Davie worked as the producer and cinematographer for the film.

They finished filming in seven days, and then McGuire hopped into a car packed to the bursting, drove to California in three days and started classes at AFI the next day.

“It was probably very unwise but we had to do it,” he said.

McGuire will graduate with a MFA in screenwriting in June from AFI, one of the top film schools in the country.

He feels that the film program at Bryan prepared him to work with the people who will be making the biggest movies in the next few years.

The stress Bryan placed on worldview helped McGuire navigate the culture-producing Mecca of Hollywood. His Bryan education helped him understand other people’s worldviews, think critically and own his worldview, speaking confidently about what he believed.

McGuire said people in Hollywood respect you if you have a broad view of culture, understanding its many angles. Even the creator of raunchy R-rated comedies care about what’s going on in culture, he said, and they use their art to talk about message and subtext.

Bryan’s film school also taught McGuire skills he needed to succeed in screenwriting.

“Chris Clark is always taking in terms of story,” McGuire said.

People can easily learn the mechanics and style of writing a screenplay, McGuire said. Storytelling is often overlooked.

Clark said he’s seen several scripts for “Jesus Fish,” but he has yet to see the film.

In his Advanced Narrative Writing for Film class, Clark said he asks questions about the script. Who are the main characters? Is there conflict? Is there dramatic need?

“It’s the questions Aristotle was asking 3,000 years ago,” he said.

Davie and McGuire will show the film at the Indie Grits Festival in Columbia, S.C., and Boston’s independent film festival. They are waiting to hear back from other festivals from around the country.

McGuire said if the film does well in one place, word will get around and they will have an easier time getting into other festivals.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of film festivals in the country, said Clark. The trick is getting the film into the distinguished festivals, SXSW, Sundance, Toronto, etc. Other film festivals, such as Nashville’s and Atlanta’s film festivals, are feeders into the Oscar Awards.

McGuire said he wanted to thank the other Bryan students who helped in the production of “Jesus Fish,” such as Bryan Boling and Cameron Lane.

“They played really big roles on that set,” he said.

Recently, McGuire rewatched “Jesus Fish,” after five months of not touching the project. While two years at AFI gave him a new perspective on the film, he is still excited to show it at Bryan.

“This movie isn’t perfect, but it is a wild ruckus ride, and I hope people will enjoy going on the ride with us,” he said.

Click here to see a trailer for “Jesus Fish”