Around the State: ETBU students host fall festivals

East Texas Baptist University’s Learning and Leading classes hosted fall festivals for all five of Marshall ISD’s elementary schools on Oct. 10. The fall festivals at David Crockett Elementary, Sam Houston Elementary, William B. Travis Elementary, Price T. Young Elementary and Marshall Early Childhood Center School served about 1,000 elementary students and their families. “Hosting these fall festivals is a great way for our students to work together as a team to benefit their community in areas where they are already serving individually,” said Elizabeth Ponder, ETBU assistant provost. “Students in each class take on leadership roles to plan, build and host a variety of booths to provide a fun event for parents and students to engage with their school. We hope that through the fall festivals, our students learn to look for ways that they can positively impact their communities.” Each year, the ETBU freshman class plans and organizes the fall festivals during their Learning and Leading courses and the freshman honors program by setting up booths and planning games and prizes.

Howard Payne University’s departments of social work and of Spanish and Hispanic studies are partnering with Buckner International to collect shoes for vulnerable children across the globe. The shoe drive continues through Nov. 2 with donation boxes located in various buildings on the HPU campus. In 2020, HPU and Buckner International launched a collaboration to give students opportunities for ministry and service. “The HPU/Buckner shoe drive is another example of how the collaboration we forged two and a half years ago continues to help serve vulnerable children and families in Texas and internationally,” said Albert Reyes, president and CEO of Buckner International. “Buckner Shoes for Orphans Souls is one of our most popular programs, because it allows any one person to make a tangible impact in the life of a child through the simple gift of a new pair of shoes. And when you involve the entire student body at a passionate, service-driven university like Howard Payne, the possibility to create real change is limitless. I look forward to learning how many children will be able to safely walk to school and be protected against injury and disease thanks to HPU’s students and their servant hearts.”

Baylor University researchers received a $2.5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for an interdisciplinary project, “Illuminating Theological Inquiry and Christian Ethics Through Training in Psychological Science.” A team of researchers in psychology, religion and bioethics will explore how to tackle complex problems of human flourishing by training theologians to incorporate the methods and insights of the psychological sciences into their work. Over a three-year period, the researchers’ project will equip theologians to respond to individual challenges and opportunities by incorporating the tools of psychology. Devan Stahl, assistant professor of religion at Baylor and a theological bioethicist is principal investigator. Co-leader of the research team is Sarah Schnitker, associate professor of psychology at Baylor. “The central hypothesis of this grant is that the Christian theologian has many uses for psychological science and shares common concerns with psychologists about suffering, virtue development and aesthetics,” Schnitker said. “Based on our integrative model and hypothesized points of connection, we will run a competitive process of selecting theologians inside and outside Baylor University who have expertise in these areas and are interested in continuing or broadening their interdisciplinary research to include the psychological sciences.” Stahl and Schnitker serve as part of the Baylor Ethics Initiative, a community of scholars and practitioners dedicated to critical and creative research about how Christian beliefs and practices relate to broader cultural, social, economic and political systems.

Ordination

Nile Joye as a deacon at South Garland Baptist Church in Garland.

Tommy Louthan as a deacon at First Baptist Church in Hale Center.