By Alex Green
Triangle Reporter
The griffin is a popular sight on campus this semester.
In ancient folklore the griffin was thought to be a mixture of lion and eagle, a legendary creature responsible for guarding treasures and knowledge. This semester at Bryan, the school is experiencing a large influx of local students from Rhea County, mainly graduates of Rhea County High School, home of the Golden Eagles. Now at Bryan, these students are taking on somewhat of the griffin duality.
This migration is largely the result of Rhea County students having a chance financially that they have never had before. With the school now offering any Rhea County graduate $12,000 in annual scholarship funds simply for living in Rhea County and graduating high school with a 3.0 GPA in addition to having a 21 ACT score, Bryan is more accessible now than it has ever been for locals. Or, some would say, Bryan is now accessible for the first time period.
Those are not the words of lower to middle-income local students; they are the words of Dr. Stephen Livesay, president of Bryan College. Livesay said that the college took a look at local students and asked why Bryan wasn’t pulling more students from its own backyard. The answer, he said, was money.
“We saw that there were many quality students that couldn’t financially make it,” he said.
That, said Livesay, was an issue that the college wanted to tackle for a few reasons. Despite largely putting Bryan in a place that Rhea County students couldn’t afford to attend, Livesay agreed that the inaccessibility also cast a sort of discontent from the community at large over Bryan. He said that since the scholarship has gone into effect, the college has gained positive feedback from people across the Rhea County community.
Mike Sapienza, vice president for enrollment management, said that Bryan has earned increased respect from local students now attending Bryan, as well. He said that several scholarship recipients have come and expressed gratitude for the chance to be a Lion.
According to Livesay, that’s all a part of the plan.
“I want Rhea County to recognize Bryan College as their college,” he said.
The president said that Bryan has gone largely unnoticed by the local community for some time, and this scholarship, he said, was just one way that the administration is trying to change that. The new entrance is another, he added. It’s his goal that the start of bringing in former Golden Eagles will cause the community at large to stop looking at Bryan with questions and rather embrace the school as its own.
Livesay said that he wants current Rhea County Scholarship students to tell their friends and siblings in high school about Bryan so that in the near future, the school can break out of its private, out-of-reach perception among locals. So far, Bryan has brought in more than double its local population from last year, as 50 students now represent Rhea County at Bryan.
“I’m really pumped about it,” Livesay said.
It is in the community that Livesay predicted local students will have the greatest impact. The president said that with more locals at Bryan, the college hopes to see Rhea County students plug into extra-curricular activities and then have those students’ family and friends coming up the hill to support them in whatever they’re doing. It’s Rhea County’s own students, he suggested, that can bring in the rest of the community.
And with a foot in both worlds, it’s possible that Rhea County students will be able to bridge the gap and wield the influence to swing the pendulum of community involvement. After all, in ancient times the griffin was considered the strongest creature on the planet. If a griffin can’t do the job, it can’t be done.