Life and the Liberty Fellowship

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010 8:15 a.m. (1)

Sometimes help can be found in the most unlikely of places.

Erin Jones left her small Midwestern town to study education and then earn a master’s degree in theater from the fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University, where she met and married the Jones family heir, Stephen Jones.

Betsy Fleming left a liberal-leaning family in Spartanburg to attend Harvard University, then studied at the London College of Arts and ultimately earned a doctorate from Yale University.  Continue reading...

 

This play is a scream, really

Palmetto Players put new twist on old Halloween entertainment

OCTOBER 14, 2010 12:16 p.m. (0)

Converse College’s Palmetto Players want to cash in on the growing popularity of Halloween.

They’ll run a haunted house in the Cleveland Alumni House, a house across the street from the campus entrance that was built in 1906 and was owned by some of Spartanburg’s most prominent families.  Continue reading...

 

Doing just swimmingly

Converse swim team finishes undefeated in dual-meet season, has national qualifiers

FEBRUARY 10, 2011 1:49 p.m. (0)

Jess Mason could have gone to an established collegiate swimming program but she decided she to be a part of building a championship-caliber program at Converse College.

“I wanted to help build something special,” she said.

And the freshman who swam for Mauldin High and Team Greenville is.  Continue reading...

 

You know it, or do you?

Converse opera answers the question, to music

MARCH 17, 2011 10:56 a.m. (0)

Audience members will find both a familiar and unfamiliar theme when they go see the Converse Opera Theatre’s production of Aaron Copland’s “The Tender Land.”

The opera tells the story of a young girl named Laurie, who is about to graduate high school in the 1930s in the Midwest, as she discovers she wants more out of life than she previously anticipated.

When her dreams of eloping with one of the farm hands her grandfather hires to help with the spring harvest fall apart, she decides to set out on her own.  Continue reading...

 

In Haiti, the healing continues

And Converse college alum, students are doing their part

APRIL 24, 2011 1:43 p.m. (0)

Ann Pittman knows the healing power of art.

She is a student in Converse College’s art therapy program and a Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor who used art as a way to cope with the disease 14 years ago.

She was among a group of current and former Converse College students who spent their spring break in Haiti showing doctors and nurses how art can help healing.  Continue reading...

 

Rhyme, for a reason

A new CD brings music to the classics… poetry that is

MAY 19, 2011 1:04 p.m. (0)

Converse College music professor Scott Robbins was one composition into his latest CD project when he decided the world didn’t really need any more polite Emily Dickinson songs written for voice and piano.

He decided to do something radically different – and unexpected – for “Bees: 5 Poems of Emily Dickinson.”

He set the 19th Century poetry to the electronic sounds of the 21st Century using GarageBand, a music program that comes on Apple computers.  Continue reading...

 

Nurses are in demand

Two Upstate colleges are partnering to fill in the nursing gap

JUNE 16, 2011 12:04 p.m. (0)

There’s a push around the country to increase the number of nurses with advanced degrees and two Spartanburg colleges have a part in that.

Converse College will be partnering with Vanderbilt University to give students the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in nursing that could lead to careers as nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and nurse executives.

And the Mary Black School of Nursing at the University of South Carolina Upstate is working on a direct entry program that would allow people with baccalaureate degrees in other fields to pursue a master’s degree in nursing.  Continue reading...

 

Converse bucks national trend

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011 2:36 p.m. (0)

When classes at Converse College started this week, 214 new undergraduate students were on campus.

The 195 freshmen and 18 transfers from other colleges and universities represent the most first-year students the women’s college has had in 14 years.

Converse’s experience is at odds with that of the nation. During the past 40 years, more than three-quarters of women’s colleges have closed, merged or gone co-educational.  Continue reading...

 

BMW pro-am enlists help from local college students

BMW tournament organizers hope to broaden event's appeal with a little help from college students here

OCTOBER 7, 2011 10:35 a.m. (0)

When Tom Holgate attended the BMW Charity Pro-Am last year he saw a flourishing tournament, but also realized how much more of an impact the event could have on Spartanburg.

“This needs to become a more prominent event for everybody,” said Holgate, president of American Credit Acceptance, who organized a program to bring the heft of four Spartanburg colleges to increase interest in the Pro-Am in Spartanburg, which tournament organizers said has remained stagnant.

The tournament is held at Carolina Country Club in Spartanburg, Thornblade Club in Greenville and this year, the Greenville Country Club’s Chanticleer Course has been added.  Continue reading...