Around the State: Student athlete receives ETBU President’s Award

East Texas Baptist University conferred 108 undergraduate degrees and 50 graduate degrees at its fall commencement ceremony. Chief U.S. District Judge James Rodney Gilstrap received an honorary doctorate and delivered the keynote address. President J. Blair Blackburn presented the President’s Award to Mollie Marie Dittmar of Buffalo. Dittmar, a member of the ETBU women’s basketball team, graduated with a 3.97 GPA, was named the 2023 American Southwest Conference Community Service Athlete of the Year, was on the leadership team for Fellowship of Christian Athletes and served as a Tiger Camp leader each fall. She participated with her teammates in a mission trip to Ireland, volunteered at Mission Marshall, served at Mobberly Baptist Church and was a tutor at Marshall Junior High.

Following a nationwide search, Baylor University selected Kevin Sanders, director of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis, as dean of the Baylor School of Music, effective July 1, 2024. At the University of Memphis, Sanders oversees a program that produces 300 events per year with more than 80 faculty and staff, more than 400 students and a satellite campus in Jackson, Tenn. He led the Scheidt School of Music through the planning, construction and grand opening of a $40 million, 82,000-square-foot performing arts center. Previously, Sanders served the University of Memphis as the Dean’s Fellow for Research Development, where he created cross-campus initiatives that supported research and creative activity in the arts, and as the associate director for graduate studies and professor of tuba and euphonium. Prior to that, he taught at the Crane School of Music at SUNY-Potsdam and the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. Sanders graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy and earned his bachelor’s degree in music from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University.

Howard Payne University’s Student Speaker Bureau speech and debate team earned awards at three tournaments during the fall semester. At the Mendoza Debates in Baytown, team captain Landon Chenault, a senior from Denton, advanced to quarterfinals in the varsity division. Katelyn Sims, a sophomore from Cleburne, won third place junior varsity speaker and was an octofinalist. In the Bowling Green State University Cyber-Falcon online tournament, Chenault won second place in varsity International Public Debate Association debate and advanced to the final round. Sims won second place overall speaker, and Adrielle Sloan, a sophomore from Blue Ridge, was third place overall speaker. At the Texas Intercollegiate Forensics Association Fall Championship tournament in Tyler, Chenault was top speaker in varsity IPDA debate and went undefeated in preliminaries. Chenault and Sloan both advanced to the quarterfinals round, in which HPU represented one-fourth of students advancing to that level. Cora Raub, a sophomore from Celina, and Sims both advanced to the octofinal round. Julie Welker, professor of communication and chair of the department of communication at HPU, coached the team, who also recently competed in Oxford, England, at the world’s third-largest debate tournament. The HPU teams placed higher than in past years, ahead of teams from Harvard, Cambridge and Colgate University. Following the debates, the group traveled to historic sites in Normandy, France, and to Paris, where they visited French Parliament and learned more about international governments and politics.

In a collaborative effort between Houston Christian University’s College of Science and Engineering and Archie W. Dunham College of Business, about 200 Houston-area high school students involved in Junior Achievement on their campuses visited the university campus to learn about college and career readiness. The day included a campus tour, guest speakers, tours of HCU’s Bible Museum and presentations from the colleges. “The goal is to expose these students to a university campus and to provide information about college life and studies. We want to give the students resources to begin their college search, as well as how to access college resources,” said Greggory Keiffer, executive associate dean of the Archie W. Dunham College of Business.

To Be a Woman by Katie J. McCoy received an award of distinction from The Gospel Coalition in the “Public Theology and Current Events” category of its annual book awards. McCoy is director of women’s ministry in Texas Baptists’ Center for Church Health.