Vitae: Education and Work Experience

Education: I graduated in May 2002, with a Master's of Science in Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University. The Mass Communication program deals with a broad range of communication fields, such as, advertising, broadcasting, electronic media, journalism, publishing, public relations, and the recording industry. Here is a list of courses I completed for a total of thirty-six graduate hours.       I graduated from David Lipscomb College in June 1986, with a B.A. in Speech Communication, and a minor in Missions. Since then, the name has changed to Lipscomb University. Lipscomb is a private, church-related, liberal arts university located in southern Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1891, the school has grown steadily, and has always promoted traditional Biblical values as well as high academic standards. Lipscomb is a wonderful place to attend for an authentic college experience. I graduated from Charleston High School in 1981, in Charleston, Illinois. Work Experience: I am recently retired after 29 years at Motlow College (32 years with the state). Former Circulation / Archives Coordinator at Clayton-Glass Library in Moore County, TN. From July 2019 to October 2022, I was the Branch Coordinator of Motlow's Fayetteville Campus Library, located in Fayetteville, TN. From August 2013 to July 2019, I was the Circulation Coordinator at Motlow's Smyrna Campus Library, and taught Intro to Mass Communication at Moore County as an adjunct (Fall 2013). For some of that time, Smyrna was the fastest growing campus in the state, and one of the fastest growing campuses in the country. From July 2009 to August 2013, I was the Circulation Coordinator at Motlow's Clayton-Glass Library in Moore County, TN, where I was primarily responsible for opening the Library, and working at circulation. Clayton-Glass Library has an attractive, Craftsman style architectural design, and has been open since January 2008. Fall 2007 - Fall 2011: I taught Fundamentals of Speech classes for Motlow at Sparta, McMinnville, and Moore County. From January 1998 till July 2009, I was the Librarian at Motlow's McMinnville Center Library, located in McMinnville, Tennessee. McMinnville Center has an enrollment (headcount) of over 900 students. The McMinnville Center Library is located in a new facility, completed summer of 2008. I coordinated the services and staffing at McMinnville Center Library for ten and a half years, involving all aspects of the Library. Prior to this, I was a Cataloging Technician at the Crouch Library on main campus in Moore County. My primary responsibilities were the technical processing of all the new books and media materials that were purchased for our collection at each campus. I ordered our leisure reading books (a special collection), and performed a lot of cataloging duties on our computer catalog system, such as editing MARC records. I performed all the normal duties at the circulation desk when needed, and instructed students on how to use the electronic information resources in the library. I held this position from May 1995 till December 1997. I started working at Motlow College Library (main campus) in August 1994, as a Library Assistant. From Fall 1996, till Spring 2020 I was in charge of either designing, maintaining, or co-maintaining the Library web pages. Prior to that I was a missionary in London, England from 1986-1988, and again from 1990-1994. I was a youth worker and a general all-round church worker for the New Cross Church of Christ, located in an urban section of southeast London, which is a very cosmopolitan area. My supervisor for the first two years was Bill Tankersley, from Tennessee. My sponsoring church, for the whole time I was in London, was the Lake Land Church of Christ in Mattoon, Illinois. My financial support came from about 17 different sources, both churches, and individuals. I stayed in contact with my supporters with newsletters that I sent out, usually every month, and made two visits (1991 & 1992) to the U.S. to give reports to supporting churches. I did a little bit of everything with the church in London, from teaching, preaching, and song leading, to driving vans, organizing activities, home improvements, food delivery to the homeless, volunteer work at a Christian Book Shop, canvassing, and visiting hospitals, and more visiting, visiting, visiting. That barely encapsules everything that I tried to do. I traveled to many countries in Western Europe, including four trips to Eastern European countries, such as the Czech Republic, former East Germany, Hungary, Ukraine and Yugoslavia. In May-June of 1993, I taught conversational English for six-weeks at School 135 in Kiev, Ukraine. Wherever I traveled in Europe, I always tried to visit as many museums, galleries and historical places as I could to further my knowledge of history and culture. I have visited a total of twenty-eight countries in my life, and lived in London, England for almost six-years. I have been to Germany eleven-times; France seven-times, and to several other countries at least twice. In the USA, I have lived in five different States, and have spent summers in two others. See a list of noteworthy places I have been to in the U.S.A., and maps of where I have been in the world. The church building where I worked in Southeast London, on Ilderton Road. From 1988-1990, I worked at the Tennessee State Library & Archives in Nashville, TN as a Library Assistant in Public Services, an Assistant Archivist in Technical Services and also a Legislative Recorder. This introduced me to Tennessee history, genealogy, and the inner-workings of state politics. As an Assistant Archivist, I was able to process original manuscript collections of some noteworthy Tennessee families, such as the Lea and Overton families of Nashville. They were early landowners, lawyers, and founders of The Tennessean Newspaper. I truly enjoyed living in West Nashville and working downtown for these two-years. As an Assistant Archivist While I was in college at David Lipscomb University (1981-1986) I held a few different restaurant jobs at Opryland; Shoney's in Green Hills, and did yard work for several people. I spent two very rewarding summers as a youth minister in Mocksville, NC (1984) and Pittsburgh, PA (1985). I also did a lot of voluntary youth work for the Nashville Inner City Ministry, and the Chapel Avenue Church of Christ (in NE Nashville) during those years, and was a member of Project Good News at DLU, which was a foreign missions training program. In June 1984, I went on a three-week missionary trip to Papua New Guinea, in the South Pacific.