Bryan College Triangle

Daniel Jackson
Assistant Online Editor

In 2003, Rhea County banned all homosexuals from its borders. Fox News and CNN descended upon Dayton to cover the law, which was retracted soon after. Here a national issue once again touched Dayton. In order to provide context, Bryan College invited Exodus International to hold a seminar about homosexuality for Dayton and the Bryan community. Just last week, Bryan College asked the question again: what is the Christian response to homosexuality?

About 200 students gathered on Thursday, Nov. 9, to listen to a panel discussing the question—delineating several practical steps for students to follow. The Office of Worldview Formation hoped that the evening would inspire a public dialogue on homosexuality into the future. Read full story »

by Jandi Heagen
Guest Writer

“If you’re really Santa Claus, you can get it for me. And if you can’t, you’re only a nice man with a white beard like mother says.” These are Susan Walker’s famous words from Miracle on 34th Street and they remind us of that pivotal childhood moment when, like Susan, we had to decide whether Santa was real or just a “nice man with a white beard.” Here are a few reflections from Bryan students and staff when they learned the truth about Santa.

Junior Bethany MacArthur

I believed in Santa Claus, and whenever I stopped believing in Santa Claus, my parents got my uncle to give me deer antlers for Christmas and they [parents and uncle] told me that it was Rudolph’s antlers, and I believed them. I brought the antlers to school and told people that Rudolph existed; and I think whenever I told my mom that I did that, they [parents] had the talk with me that Santa didn’t really exist.

Beth Hale, Resident Director of Arnold

I believed in Santa for a really long time because my family goes to church on Christmas Eve every Christmas Eve, and when we come home from church, Santa leaves one present on our bed, and it’s always our Christmas pajamas. So, I was having a fight with my little brother when I was about seven and he was five, and as the fight was escalating, I finally said ‘Well, Santa isn’t real!’ My parents were really upset with me and they sent me to my room for a time out and my dad came to talk to me and said something to the effect of ‘Even though you might know that Santa’s not real that doesn’t mean that you have to ruin it for other people.’ And so he was actually telling me that Santa wasn’t real because I told my brother that Santa wasn’t real, but I didn’t believe that myself. Other kids at school had told me, but I was like ‘no, because he leaves presents on our beds; we’re at church, so it couldn’t have been mom and dad because we’re all at church.’ Hale said that her dad still doesn’t know that he was the one who debunked her childhood belief in Santa.

Senior Andrew McPeak

“Well, some kid at school just came to me and was like ‘hey, you know Santa isn’t real’ and I was like ‘nuh-uh,’ and he was like ‘yeah-huh, idiot.’ So I was like ‘wow, that’s really terrible.’ But I remember feeling somewhat satisfied, though, because I could be like ‘hey, I’m smart because I know things that other people don’t know.’ I was like 6, so that meant a lot back then. I was pretty satisfied, especially because my brother didn’t know until he was like 10.”

Freshman Stéphanie Gagnon

“People used to tell me all the time that Santa is not real, but I never listen to people anyways, so why should this be an exception. Most people stop believing in Santa when they are about 10, but I think I actually started believing in Santa when I was 10. I don’t think he puts the presents under the tree, but I think he’s out there doing something. He’s probably out there with Tupac.”

Share how you discovered the truth about Santa. Continue the story on Bryan Triangle’s Facebook page.

by Anna Kat Thomas
Staff Writer

Community, God, Worldview—these are the answers to many of the questions in a Bryan College classroom. With the addition of the townhouses this year, however, community is not only an answer, it has become a question.

Seniors Liz Johnson and Anna Haley enjoying a private cookout down at the townhouse apartments. Photo courtesy of Kirsten Amling.

While the idea of darkening the door to one of these townhouses filled with seniors leaves many underclassmen shaking in their boots, many of these residents would love to have them visit.

In an article last year, senior Andrew McPeak charged the future townhouse residents to “use [their] new housing not as an opportunity to ‘get away’ from campus, but as an opportunity to minister to the rest of the school.” Read full story »

Seventeen Bryan students are spending their summer abroad as a part of their semester-long class: the Acts Project.

According to the Bryan College website, the Acts Project “couples a semester-long class conversation on missions with a summer internship.”

The following students explain where they will be going and what they expect from their journeys:

Photo courtesy of Carlin Nasiatka.

Carlin Nasiatka: Nairobi, Kenya

Jambo rafiki! This summer I will be going to Kenya, Africa, to serve at Gethsemane International Children’s Home just outside of Nairobi. Gethsemane’s mission is to create a family-like environment for approx. 60 children, caring for their needs and bringing them up to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and impact Kenya for Him! Most of the children that come to live at the home are some of Kenya’s more than 800,000 AIDS orphans. While I am over there with Elizabeth Benscoter, my teammate, we will be tutoring the children (Kenya has a very overcrowded school system), helping with ESL language learning, teaching bible studies on the book of Ephesians, and just engaging in life with the children and staff at the home. Read full story »

by Lana Douglas
Staff Writer

Human trafficking. Statistics for Dayton, Tenn.: unknown. The statistics are unknown because citizens of Dayton may not recognize what human trafficking is, not because it does not exist.

Bob Vincent, mayor of Dayton, declares March 28-April 4 "Human Trafficking Awareness Week." Triangle photo by Staff Writer Lana Douglas.

Most people don’t realize that human trafficking is happening because it has never been defined for them, said junior Andrew McPeak, president of Students Stopping Trafficking of People (SSTOP).

The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

On March 25, Bob Vincent, mayor of Dayton, declared March 28 – April 4 to be “Human Trafficking Awareness Week.”

Vincent said he was unclear about how human trafficking affected Dayton before he was approached about issuing this proclamation.

In order to promote awareness Vincent said that we must first have a clear definition of what trafficking is. Read full story »