This summer Lenoir-Rhyne University (LRU) and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (LTSS) will merge into a single university with a multi-campus School of Theology.  The combination of the seminary with the university becomes the first such arrangement in Lutheran higher education in the United States.  The new School of Theology at Lenoir-Rhyne encompasses the advanced degree programs at LTSS in Columbia, SC, as well as the traditional undergraduate programs in religion and theology at the LRU campus in Hickory.   Plans are for the School of Theology to also offer graduate programs at the new LRU Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville.

Dr. Wayne Powell, president of LRU, commented, “We are fortunate to have been able to hire someone with the skills and background of the Rev. Dr. Schmit.  He is an individual of great vision with a keen sense of the needs of others, and as such is the perfect person to lead LRU and LTSS as we set the course for the future of theological education in the U.S.”

Dr. Schmit earned his Master of Divinity from Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary and his Ph.D from Graduate Theological Union. He currently serves as the Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church Oak Brook Professor of Preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.

“While I immensely enjoy the work I am currently doing, I still have a strong commitment to the Lutheran Church,” explained Dr. Schmit. “I look forward to sharing what I have learned about theological education at the world’s largest seminary with one of the schools within my own denomination.”

As the founding provost of the School of Theology, Dr. Schmit will be the chief administrative officer of the seminary, which will be vacant with the pending retirement of the seminary President, the Rev. Dr.  Marcus J. Miller, later this summer.  Under Miller’s leadership the seminary has experienced a deepening in mission and is positioned at the leading edge of 21st century theological education in the United States.

With the merger of LRU and LTSS set to go into effect July 1st, Dr. Schmit will take the reigns at a pivotal point in the school’s history. It will be imperative to employ new, innovative, visionary strategies to lead the institution.

“Dr. Schmit comes to us uniquely prepared to lead us to dream new dreams, to imagine new programs, and to experiment in ways that will both fulfill the mission of the School of Theology and serve the church and world,” said the Rev. Dr. Ginger Barfield, Dean of the seminary and chair of the Provost search committee.

The search committee received applications from numerous candidates, narrowing the field to three who were invited to both the Hickory and Columbia campuses. The committee quickly realized that the background and experiences that Dr. Schmit brought to the table made him the lead candidate for the position.

Dr. Schmit’s experience in teaching, administrating, and leading at various institutions including Duke Divinity School and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, were important to the search committee.

Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, one of eight seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was founded in 1830 and has been located at its current campus in Columbia, SC, since 1911.  The seminary offers graduate theology degrees to Lutherans and multiple other Christian denominations, fulfilling its mission to teach, form and nurture servant leaders for public ministry and service to the church.

With the completion of the merger, LRU and LTSS have set a goal of developing the premier Lutheran seminary in the country.  This will involve a commitment to maintaining the long history of excellence that LTSS has established in training Lutheran pastors.  It will further involve an emphasis on enhancing and supporting scholarship of faculty and students.  LTSS has well-established ecumenical programs in support of Methodist and Baptist students and this emphasis on ecumenical programming will be expanded. Programs will also be developed to help undergraduate students at the LRU campus in Hickory, NC matriculate to the LTSS campus after taking the first year of courses in Hickory.

“I am very excited about the merger of LR and LTSS and the new approach to theological education it represents. This is a new day for the seminary, and I look forward to working with both teams to explore the synergies and prospects that the merger represents,” Dr. Schmit added.

Lenoir-Rhyne University is a private, coeducational university with its primary campus in Hickory, NC and was founded in 1891. Today, over 1,850 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled on the 100-acre campus.  Academic programs include 60 undergraduate majors, 14 graduate programs, the Center for Graduate Students of Asheville, NC (opening fall 2012); and the Seminary in Columbia, SC (effective July 1, 2012). Lenoir-Rhyne is affiliated with the NC Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and welcomes students from all religious backgrounds. The website is www.lr.edu.

Published last month, The Best 300 Professors is a project that The Princeton Review teamed up with RateMyProfessors.com – the highest-trafficked college professor ratings site in the U.S.—to develop. The book’s impressive roster of top teachers features professors in more than 60 fields ranging from Accounting to Neuroscience to Sport Management.

The selection process took into account qualitative and quantitative data from survey findings and ratings collected by both The Princeton Review and RateMyProfessors.com. (See “How the Professors Were Chosen” below.) The professors featured in the book are a truly select group:  from an initial list of 42,000 professors considered, the final group of “best” professors chosen constitutes less than .02% of the roughly 1.8 million post-secondary teachers instructing students at colleges and universities across the US. The professors in the book are not ranked (nor are their colleges ranked in this book) but each professor profiled received high ratings from their most important audiences, beneficiaries and critics: the students they teach and inspire.

“Stories and examples help students to understand concepts,” says Dale Burnside, the LRU professor, who enthusiastically claims, “Biology is fascinating. My mind gets wrapped up with it.” He transmits this devotion to his students, letting them know that he is “actively involved in their learning” and giving them both the foundation and the tools for thinking and solving problems. “I am blessed to be in this career. The students are very good to me,” he says. A former student refers to her experience as “one of the most fun classes ever. He speaks on your level and makes class enjoyable. You won’t be skipping his class.”

Professor Burnside began teaching in 1964 in Cincinnati, OH at Aiken High School. He has been at Lenoir-Rhyne since 1974.

Even after teaching for forty-four years, Professor Burnside still prepares every class to make it “fresh and new.” “I am blessed to be in this career. The students are very good to me,” he says. His classes are arranged into an organized presentation of basic facts followed by thought provoking questions ideas and student response, which students say “makes learning fun and exciting.” “He is serious about his teaching and loves his career choice,” says another.

Said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s Senior VP / Publisher, “We developed this book as a tribute to the extraordinary dedication of America’s undergraduate college professors and the vitally important role they play in our culture, and our democracy.  One cannot page through this book without having tremendous respect for the powerful ways they enrich their students’ lives, their colleges, and ultimately our future as a society. Together with Dale Burnside’s students who rated him so highly, we salute the LRU professor and each of the other professors we profile for their outstanding teaching.  We are truly pleased to recommend them—and the schools at which they teach—to college applicants and their parents who use our resources.”

The Best 300 Professors also includes profiles of the colleges at which one or more of the book’s top-notch professors teach.  The school profiles give students considering attending these colleges information on admissions, tuition, SAT/ACT score ranges of admitted students, and other useful data.

The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University and is not a magazine.

How The Professors Were Chosen

The Princeton Review and RateMyProfessors.com annually collect data from students at thousands of colleges across the country (and abroad) about their classroom experiences and assessments of their professors. For this project, The Princeton Review culled an initial list using its surveys of hundreds of thousands of students that revealed the colleges at which students highly rated their professors’ teaching ability and accessibility. Data from RateMyProfessors.com identified more than 42,000 professors at those schools that students had rated on its site.  Combining this info, a base list of 1,000 professors was formed.  After obtaining further input from school administrators and students, as well as from Princeton Review’s surveys of the professors under consideration, the editors of The Princeton Review made the final choices of the professors they profile in the book.  The lists of professors are organized three ways: alpha by state/city/college/professor/department, alpha by professor/college/department, and alpha by department/professor/college. These can be found at www.princetonreview.com/best-professors.aspx.

 About The Princeton Review

The Princeton Review (Nasdaq: REVU) has been a pioneer and leader in helping students achieve their higher education goals for 30 years through college and graduate school test preparation and private tutoring. With more than 165 print and digital publications and a free website, www.PrincetonReview.com, the company provides students and their parents with the resources to research, apply to, prepare for, and learn how to pay for higher education. The Princeton Review partners with schools and guidance counselors throughout the U.S. to assist in college readiness, test preparation and career planning services, helping more students pursue postsecondary education.  The company also owns and operates Penn Foster Education Group, a global leader in online education, providing career-focused degree and vocational programs in the fields of allied health, business, technology, education, and select trades through the Penn Foster High School and Penn Foster Career School (www.pennfoster.edu). For more information, visit www.PrincetonReview.com.

About RateMyProfessors.com

RateMyProfessors.com is the highest-trafficked U.S. college professor ratings site (comScore), with more than 7,500 schools and over 13 million ratings, providing an automated system for quickly researching and rating more than 1.5 million professors from colleges and universities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The site reaches more than 4 million college students each month.

A complete list of the professors in the book is accessible at www.princetonreview.com/best-professors.aspx

Media Contacts for The Princeton Review: Jeanne Krier, Princeton Review Books, 212-539-1350 or Joseph Iovino, Director of Public Relations, 888-865-7737, ext 5678, JIovino@review.com

Master’s Degree Hooding and Commencement will take place on Thursday, May 10th at 7:00 p.m. in the P.E. Monroe Auditorium.

Those being honored on Friday are the Rev. Kirk Perry Bridgers, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity; Ronald E. Deal, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters; and the late William M. Mauney ‘65, who will be awarded the Trustee Award posthumously.

Rev. Kirk Perry Bridgers has served in ministry positions continually since his college days. Originally from Savannah, Georgia, he graduated Cum Laude from Newberry College in 1974, where he assisted the Chaplain and was Senior Class President. He earned a Master of Divinity from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in 1979, meanwhile serving as the Appalachian intern for Southwest Virginia. Upon graduation, Bridgers pastored Solomon Lutheran Church in Greeneville, Tennessee for five years before becoming pastor of Peachtree Road Lutheran Church in Atlanta.

The PeachtreeRoad Lutheran Preschool, which he started and presides over as headmaster, is now in its 28th year and has impacted children and their families throughout Atlanta. In addition, Bridgers served as Chairman of the Board of Quest Atlanta, the largest ecumenical working group at the time, ministering to the nations gathered for the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.  Bridgers has been a frequent keynote speaker, organizer, and chairman of various committees and ministries. He and his wife, Janet, have two grown sons.
Ronald E. Deal is a successful business leader and Chairman of Wesley Hall, a furniture manufacturing company which grew from 30 employees to over 200 during an era of significant challenges to the industry. Deal is a native of Hickory and graduated from Hickory High School. He is a Life Trustee for his alma mater, Wake Forest University, and currently serves on the Board of BB&T Corporation.  Deal has been actively involved in educational improvement in North Carolina, having served on both the State Board of Community Colleges and the State Board of Education. Deal served on the Catawba County Foresight Commission and was the first chair of Catawba County’s Champions of Education. He was actively involved in starting several new preschool programs locally, including the Sweetwater Early Education Center.  He and his family were the primary underwriters of Lenoir-Rhyne’s early childhood literacy program, The Little Read, established in memory of their daughter, Sara Catherine Temple, a dedicated elementary school reading teacher. He and his wife, Sandra, also have two other children.

William (Bill) M. Mauney was born in Hickory and grew up in Fayetteville. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Lenoir-Rhyne in 1965 and Master’s from Appalachian State University in 1976.  He also studied at Emory University, University of Florida in Gainesville, and UNC Chapel Hill.  In 1967, he returned to join the faculty of Lenoir-Rhyne, epitomizing the very best of Lenoir-Rhyne. A dedicated and much-loved professor, Mauney received the Hacawa dedication award in 1988, the Raymond M. Bost Distinguished Professor Award in 1989, and was named the Centennial Professor of Economics. Professor Mauney served as Founding Director of the Broyhill Institute for Business Leadership, Chair of the School of Social & Behavioral Sciences, and Dean of the College of Professional and Mathematical Studies. Mauney unexpectedly passed away January 13, 2012. He is survived by his wife Elaine, two children, and six grandchildren. Professor Mauney came from a long line of Lutheran clergy stretching over North Carolina and Virginia. Notably, his great-grandfather, Jacob Semri Mauney, is the namesake of one of the residence halls on campus; John David Mauney Sr., his grandfather, was a faculty member at L-R and pastor of St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Hickory where the educational building is named for him;while his father, John David Mauney Jr., was a former Lenoir-Rhyne Board member.

Honorary degrees are awarded to persons of outstanding character and personality who have a) distinguished themselves for scholarship or literary achievement, or b) won professional or other distinction, or c) rendered conspicuous service in some particular field. The Trustee Award is presented to persons of outstanding character and personality who have rendered noteworthy service to Lenoir-Rhyne University.

Students will utilize 21st century skills including critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. Kids in College is designed for teacher-recommended students who meet any of the following criteria:

• Identified as academically gifted
• Achieved a Level 4 on reading and/or math EOG
• Maintained an “A” average in math and/or reading
• Recommended by current teacher

This program will run June 25-29 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

Experienced, AIG certified teachers will facilitate learning experiences throughout the week. The classes will be held in the Rhyne Building on campus. Parents will be responsible for dropping off and picking up their children.

The cost of the program is $325 per week. Scholarship application and registration forms can be found on the LRU web site at http://edu.lr.edu/kidsincollege. Registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis for qualified students. Parents will be notified of acceptance as soon as the following requirements are received:

• A completed application with teacher recommendation
• Signed insurance and liability form
• $50 deposit (returnable only if space is unavailable)
• Emergency Contact form

Parents are required to attend a meeting at 7 p.m. on May 24 in the Belk Centrum on campus.

Contact Professor Jayme Linton, program director, at 828-267-3442 or jayme.linton@lr.edu for additional information.

The Lenoir-Rhyne University class of 1962 recently donated the largest class gift in the school’s history during the annual Alumni Weekend. The gift was $126,022.23, in honor of their 50^th anniversary from LRU.

This is not the first time that these individuals have made substantial contributions to their alma mater. When they first reunited for their 25th class reunion, they presented LRU with the largest class gift at that time, $25,000. During Alumni Weekend 2012, they set the bar even higher and surpassed their previous gift.

The donation was given to The Fund for Lenoir-Rhyne, which supports all areas of campus: student scholarships, faculty, staff, and academic programming. Gifts to The Fund supply a unique style of education that helps guide students to achieve their fullest potential in their professional, personal, and spiritual lives. It also assists graduates in becoming leaders in all aspects of life and give back to their communities. Supporting The Fund for Lenoir-Rhyne provides a significant return for all.

This act is the perfect example of the commitment that is instilled in LRU’s alumni. Even fifty years later, the class of 1962 still wanted to commemorate their college years and show that they are still bears at heart. Lenoir-Rhyne was a staple in their young lives and no amount of time will let them forget that.

Anne Suggs Guthrie, a member of the class of 1962, expressed why this gift was so important to her and her fellow classmates; “I attended this reunion to see ‘forever friends’ who shared the transition from wide-eyed, immature, freshmen to more mature seniors.  Sharing in the class gift was an opportunity to express appreciation to the University that I love dearly.”

Can an MBA change the world? The Global Business School Network (GBSN) thinks it can, and so do MBA students at Lenoir-Rhyne University. MBA students enrolled in the Global Sustainability and Social Responsibility Series with the Charles M. Snipes School of Business at Lenoir-Rhyne recently completed a unique project that culminated in a submission to the GBSN Video Challenge. This challenge is related to an initiative to apply MBA principles to assist the citizens of Haiti to develop business-skills. The LRU students titled the project Helping Better in Haiti.

GBSN established the Video Challenge in 2011 to demonstrate that “Emerging markets need business leadership to bring innovative ideas, strategic visions and specialized skills to market their resources, improve living standards and achieve sustainable growth. Business schools and their students play a key role in realizing development goals – from creating social innovation to improving health care to achieving shared economic growth – and we’re looking for MBAs who are making a difference.”

The video submitted by Lenoir-Rhyne was recently named as one of the top five, gathering the highest number of online votes among all submissions, and will be now judged by a panel of global business experts including executives from GMAC, Coca-Cola, USAID, and others.  Other schools submitting videos included Dartmouth, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, University of Maryland and international submissions from University of Southern Queensland and Universidad de los Andes, to name a few.

MBA student Ty Dannenbring coordinated the submission from LR. Ty visited Haiti for the first time in March 2011. While there, he noticed how the skills he was learning as an MBA student could be useful in serving those in need. Ty went back to Haiti this March and was able to see the progress made by many individuals he’d met the prior year. Ty explains the foundation of their efforts in Haiti, “It is intended that this leadership be organic and built on trust, lasting generation to generation. It is also our hope to see these leaders become Christian difference makers in their society for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.”

The LR video highlights Dago and Roger, a small businessman and a fisherman, respectively. Ty and 14 of his classmates set out to explore this idea further by developing a web site and a blog as resources for helping better in Haiti (mbachallenge-haiti.com). It is the hope of this project that MBA students at Lenoir-Rhyne will continue exploring how an MBA can help better; this will include teams traveling to Haiti and remaining involved in the ongoing recovery efforts there.

If chosen as the top submission to meet the Challenge criteria, one member from the LRU team will win an all-expense paid trip to India for the GBSN Annual Conference in June 2012 to present the video and to explain the project initiative as they related to the synergy of the assessment of the course objectives and the project objectives.

The Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus will perform its annual Spring Concert on Sunday, May 6, at 7:00 pm.  The concert will be held at First Baptist Church, Hickory, and is free and open to the public.

The chorus represents auditioned singers from age 8 to 18 from over 30 schools and five counties.  This season the choir performed in the Lincoln County Concert Series and will perform with the Western Piedmont Symphony on April 28th, singing “The Planets” by Gustav Holst. The choir is conducted by Florence Jowers, associate professor of music at Lenoir-Rhyne, and accompanied by Freda Herrell, a church musician at New Life Baptist Church and music teacher at Hickory Family Academy.

Each spring the choir honors its graduating seniors, and this year they are: Meredith Gladden and Sarah McNeil – Fred T. Foard High School; Haley King – University Christian High School; Emma Hathcock and Savannah Peterson – homeschooled; Hannah Alms – Hickory High School; Taylor Campbell – West Alexander Central High School; Genevieve Allan – Lincoln Charter School; and Briannen Arey – Newton-Conover Health Science High School.

The choir will travel to Denver, Colorado, for the international “Sing A Mile High Festival,” with acclaimed conductor and composer David Brunner.  While in Colorado, the choir will have a chance to tour the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and to take a train to the top of Pike’s Peak, among other things.

LRYC is currently holding auditions for the 2012 – 2013 season.  For more information, or to schedule an audition, please call 828.328.7195.

The public is invited to come to the top of the Minges Science Building where several telescopes will be set up in addition to the12.5 inch telescope in the observatory dome. To access the rooftop observatory, enter the building then take the elevator to the 4th floor and come up the steps.

This viewing will feature four planets: Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, plus a beautiful near-quarter moon.  This is a rare opportunity to view four planets at the same time.

A book signing is scheduled with McCall Smith on Thursday, April 19 from 4:00-5:00pm at the Patrick Beaver Memorial Library in Hickory. This is the only time that he will be available to sign books.

His 1998 book The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, focusing on a female investigator in the African country of Botswana, launched his fiction-writing career into international fame and acclaim. The growing success of his books led him to take a leave of absence from his professorship at the University of Edinburgh and give up his advisory posts related to medical ethics to focus on writing full-time
After The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, McCall Smith wrote more books featuring Ramotswe and other central characters. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency was followed by 2000′s Tears of the Giraffe, 2001′s Morality for Beautiful Girls, 2002′s The Kalahari Typing School for Men, 2003′s The Full Cupboard of Life, and 2004′s In the Company of Cheerful Ladies. All the books focused on Ramotswe’s investigations into problems in people’s lives instead of hard-core crimes. McCall Smith was able to publish a novel a year in the series because he could write at least 4,000 words a day, and, if inspired, as much as 1,000 words an hour.

The inspiration for his fiction is as unique as the work itself. An old garage that formerly served as a house for migrant workers escaping South African apartheid is one of the sources for such creative inspiration. McCall Smith has converted the Botswana garage into the only opera house in the country as well as developed a new law school at University of Botswana.

McCall Smith’s eclectic personality and worldly travels extend to his work; the Wall Street Journal hails Smith’s “tapestry of extraordinary nuance and richness” in his many publications. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Crime Writers Association’s Dagger in the Library Award, the United Kingdom’s Author of The Year Award in 2004, and Sweden’s Martin Beck Award. He holds honorary doctorates from twelve universities. In 2010, McCall Smith was awarded the Presidential Order of Merit by the President of Botswana.

McCall Smith was born on August 24, 1948, in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (later known as Zimbabwe), where his father worked as a public prosecutor in what was then a British colony. His mother wrote a number of unpublished manuscripts. The youngest of four children, McCall Smith spent the whole of his childhood in that African country. He attended the Christian Brothers College in Bulawayo. McCall Smith left Africa when he was 17 years old to continue his education in Scotland.

The Lenoir-Rhyne University Visiting Writers Series is free to the public thanks to the support of sponsors. This year’s sponsors include Our State, WDAV 89.9 FM: Classical Public Radio, Catawba Science Center, North Carolina Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Catawba Valley Community Foundation, Hickory Public Library, United Arts Council of Catawba County, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Crowne Plaza Hotel of Hickory, WFAE 90.7 FM: Your NPR News Source, City of Hickory Community Relations Council, Catawba Valley Medical Center, and Rotary International.

For more information about the Visiting Writers Series at Lenoir-Rhyne University, go to http://visitingwriters.lr.edu or call 828-328-7077.

The speaker, Dr. Jasmine Goodnow is an Assistant Professor of Recreational Leadership at Ferrum College. Mallory Taylor, a recent Ferrum College alumna, will join Goodnow. They will illustrate how undergraduate research is a journey of discovery as they shares their adventures in undergraduate research conducted on the Appalachian Trail.  During this time, Taylor sought to identify and understand the motives and insights of Appalachian Trail hikers.

Student presentations and poster sessions follow the keynote address and will continue throughout the day showcasing the intellect and talent that abounds at this university on the rise. Research topics may include: water and energy conservation, an examination of the effect of health-care reform on Catawba County, abstracts dealing with works of literature, representations of history, and anti-Islamic sentiment in the US, and more.

Creative presentations include the readings of original plays and short stories as well as the performance and discussion of music. An Honors Thesis Competition will also be held during this event with papers in areas as diverse as music, history, and health.