Alumna Releases Second Album (March 2012)

Photo Courtesy of Allison Cornell

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Alumna Allison Cornell released her second Christian album Feb. 28 on iTunes. The five track extended play album, “Backwards Now — EP,” includes two songs written during her time at Ouachita.

“[The song] ‘Family’ was birthed out of my experience of community at Ouachita,” she said. “‘Our Blessed Hope’ is based on Titus 2-3. …I wrote it after leaving my Women in Ministry class where we had meditated on that passage together. So much of my music is tied to my Ouachita experience, so I was definitely a little homesick the week the EP released.”

Cornell said the theme that runs deepest on the album is that of hope, especially for those in difficult and trying circumstances and that there is an assured and “blessed” hope that all of us can wait for: Christ’s return.

“I want my music to be a vessel for truth,” she said. “All of my songs — the good, bad and the ugly — come from my personal experience of walking with God. My heart’s desire is that people would find comfort as they listen, that they would be reminded that they aren’t alone and, most importantly, that it would draw them closer to God’s heart.”

When Cornell spoke of the role writing has for her, she described how her songs evolve from ideas into music. She said they start out as “really sloppy journal entries.”

She said her time spent in Nashville working on the album gave her an extended opportunity to write and work through her thoughts and ideas.

“Writing is a way for me to process what the Lord is doing in me or saying to me,” she said. “I love the actual [writing] process and putting the song together, but a majority of the process for me is internal. My favorite part of the process is starting off with a really sloppy set of ideas and then watching all those little pieces come together to make a song.”

Cornell said the Ouachita community gave her “a chance to cultivate her gifts in a safe and encouraging environment.” She said she is grateful for the opportunities she had to play music here and has fond memories of performing on campus.

“One of my favorite memories was playing a show with Don Schaffer of Waterdeep in the Tiger Den,” she said. “There were less than 15 people there so we unplugged from the sound system, pulled a bunch of chairs into a circle on the floor and just shared a time of music and worship together. It was my last chance to play at Ouachita as a student, and it’s a cherished memory.”

Cornell said the house show environment is her favorite to perform at because it is more communal. She said it is a shared experience where people leave feeling like equals.

“What makes music so rewarding for me is to see the comfort it brings to other people,” she said. “I love music, but I really just love people and sharing the experience of music with them.”

In addition to Cornell’s time spent at Ouachita, she draws support from her producer, Ginger Ludlow, with whom she worked with heavily in completing the album. Cornell said Ludlow helped her work through a lot of the ideas she had and bring them to completion for the album.

“I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to work with someone else musically and put our two brains together,” Cornell said. “Ginger is really creative and talented. She took the EP to a place that I could have never taken it on my own. I’m really grateful God allowed me to work with her.”

“Backwards Now- EP” has been met with large success on iTunes. Receiving reviews such as “a great album of Christ-centered worship” and “a beautiful work of art,” the album made it to the front of the iTunes Christian and Gospel page in the “Albums Under $8” section.

“So in love with this,” said Bianca Pastrana, a friend of Cornell’s in an iTunes review. “Allison has such a beautiful voice, and her songs are filled with so much truth and wisdom. I am so proud to know her and call her a friend. She has blessed my life not just with her music, but with the heart behind everything she does. The Lord is using her to bless the lives of everyone around her.”

Out of all of the customer ratings for Cornell’s album, “Backwards Now” has received five out of five stars.

Cornell is currently living near Dallas. She leads worship for a monthly women’s Bible study in Denton, Texas, called “The Flock” and also at women’s events for her church, Cross Timbers Community Church in Keller, Texas. She also leads worship at different girls’ retreats about once a month.

“I’m always trying to write and write and write and write,” she said. “I am leading worship here in Dallas and plan on continuing to play shows in the Dallas area whenever I can, but for right now I want to invest time in writing songs and cultivating that skill. Eventually I’d like to record again, but right now I’m just really excited that this EP is out and that the people I love get to enjoy it.”

“Backwards Now – EP” is available in the iTunes Store for $4.95. For more information about her music, visit Cornell’s Facebook page.

Biology research may help prevent tuberculosis, leprosy (March 2012)

 

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A group of Ouachita freshmen biology students are participating in a lab isolating and characterizing bacteriophages. The lab and class is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Alliance grant, a program designed to enhance the undergraduate biology experience of students by providing them with an authentic research experience. The freshmen enrolled in this program captured these phages from samples they took from soil and by isolating and characterizing their DNA, they are able to analyze it to find its genes.

“At the beginning of last semester, we went out and collected a soil sample,” said Dustin Walter, a freshman biology major. “We were looking for a phage that infects a certain type of bacteria called microbacteria. And what we were doing throughout last semester was trying to isolate the phage from the soil and purify it until we had just one type of phage that reproduced really well.”

The research done in this lab will be used to help combat diseases that are growing increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment.

“This is the little cousin to the bacteria to that causes leprosy and tuberculosis,” said Dr. Nathan Reyna, assistant professor of biology. “The idea behind it is that these phages are killing this organism. If you can understand how viruses kill this particular bacteria, you can use it as a treatment for tuberculosis and leprosy.”

This program requires students to be actively engaged, though they are mostly responsible for their own work.

“Howard Hughes [designed] this lab to have a lot of self involvement” Walter said. “You have to be in charge of what you do. [Dr. Reyna and Dr. Plymale] are there to oversee the lab, and if you have any questions you can ask them and they can point you in the right direction, but ultimately, you’re the one who chooses what you have to do each day and how much you have to work and what you have to do to meet your deadline.”

According to Reyna, the process is an “active inquiry based lab.”

“The students are actually doing their own thing with one goal in mind,” he said. “That is to identify a new bacteria phage. [These phages] live in the soil, and there are literally billions of them that haven’t been discovered. So there’s a good chance that a student can go out and get a piece of soil, isolate it, go through the processes to characterize and learn what’s there and it’ll be a phage that no one has discovered before.”

Last year, Reyna — along with Dr. Ruth Plymale, assistant professor of biology — went to a Howard Hughes Medical Institute facility to receive training for this lab. They learned the necessary procedures to conduct the lab and teach the freshmen.

To recruit freshmen for the lab, the department sent out letters and flyers to the incoming biology majors.

“We told them about the program and composed a letter and an FAQ page and invited them to apply,” Plymale said. “The application process wasn’t used to rule out people, we had them apply because we wanted to know whether they had enough initiative to [do so].”

The application process also involved the freshmen writing an essay.

“Howard Hughes’ saying is that we need to start working with these kids as soon as possible,” Reyna said. “They recommended that we choose freshmen. That way you can build on that and do even more with them when they’re seniors. We didn’t have any GPA requirements or anything because we feel like this method will help anybody learn. And all we really wanted were biology majors and [people] that [were] inquisitive in nature. It’s amazing how much they’ve already learned. We had two students present research at the state capitol, and there were faculty from other universities talking to [them]. They were amazed at the level of understanding they have of science and genetics.”

The Howard Hughes grant allows Ouachita to receive supplies necessary to conduct the research for the lab.

“We do not get money directly,” Reyna said. “What we get is all the supplies we need to carry out this lab. And that’s quite a bit; we’ve probably blown through about $8,000 this year. They paid for all the training we received. They flew Dr. Plymale, myself and a teaching assistant out to their facility three times last year. And they’re paying for us to go back this June with a student to make a presentation to a group of these people.”

Over the winter break, a phage discovered by freshman biology major Sara Carr was sent to the Howard Hughes facility. Under the name OBUPride, it had its DNA genome sequenced, a process that would have cost Ouachita about $3,000 were it not for the grant.

In being selected for the Howard Hughes grant, Ouachita was chosen to participate in this program along with 14 other schools. Howard Hughes accepts seven large schools and seven smaller schools. Some of these larger institutions were Ohio State University, Florida University, Washington State and Brown University. Ouachita is the first school out of Arkansas to be chosen. The entire biology department had a role in writing the grant, with Dr. Tim Knight, professor of biology, acting as the “editor-in-chief,” according to Reyna.

“Even though we’re the one’s physically in the lab with the students, it has really been an effort of the whole department and the whole School of Natural Sciences,” Plymale said. “There has been a lot of support across campus. Even over in Cone Bottoms — President Horne, Dr. Poole, Brett Powell — they’ve all been incredibly supportive even though this is a bit different than the traditional way of doing classes. I cannot even imagine trying to do it if the rest of our department and school were not supportive of what we’re doing.”

Baptist Missionary Banquet marks 40th year (March 2012)

 

 

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Ouachita held the 40th Annual Arkansas Baptist Associational Missionaries Banquet in Walker Conference Center on Feb. 22, hosted by President Dr. Rex Horne and his wife Becky.Established in 1972 by then-President Dr. Daniel R. Grant and then-Vice President for Development Dr. Ben Elrod, Ouachita holds the banquet to show appreciation for the work of associational missionaries who serve in the 42 regional associations of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

“The first banquet was begun when the forerunner of the Pruett School, the department of religion, had a meeting where the associational missionaries were invited to come, and they were promoting the beginning of a pastor’s conference,” said Phil Hardin, assistant to the president for administration. “The Pruett School puts on a pastors conference every September. And when that was being initiated and the associational missionaries were being told about it, they were invited to campus to learn about it. In combination with that meeting, Dr Grant and Dr. Elrod sponsored the dinner at which time they made this first award and began the program in 1972.”

There are 42 of these associations in the state of Arkansas, and an association missionary is hired to help guide and lead their efforts. They are regional groupings of churches who cooperate together to do local missions in their area and are affiliated with the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. They will often sponsor ministries in their area for the local churches to be involved in collaborative efforts to host backyard bible clubs, vacation bible schools, disaster relief programs, area wide revivals and training for people in those churches.

“The purpose of having the banquet is for Ouachita to tell these people that we appreciate what they’re doing,” Hardin said “Their work with the associations, and by extension all the churches of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, strengthens their work and their ministries. One feature of the banquet is to present an award to one of the associational missionaries who has been identified as doing outstanding and exemplary work in recent years. This is our way of saying thank you.”

At the banquet, Horne spoke to the group of associational missionaries and commended them for their efforts for the state of Arkansas.

“This is such an important time to be serving the Lord in the way that he calls us and directs us,” he said. “And he has called all of you [associational missionaries] to have a particular ministry and a close relationship with the local church. There is no organization in God’s Kingdom more important than the local church, and you’ve had the opportunity to deal with a number of [them]. So, the responsibility that you bear is a burden that you share that not many people can understand, so we thank you for the work that you do, and we commend you for continued service in God’s kingdom.”

This year’s Associational Missionary Award went to Gary Glasgow, the associational missionary at the Liberty Baptist Association. Glasgow has served as associate pastor for Immanuel Baptist Church in El Dorado. He has served as minister of education and outreach for the Central Baptist Church in Magnolia, Ark., as well as the administrative associate pastor and minister of education at First Baptist Church in Collierville, Tenn. In 2000, the Liberty Baptist Association called him to serve as associational missionary. Glasgow’s work for the Liberty Baptist Association includes having developed a strategic planning process that led to the strengthening of existing ministries in addition to new ones. He served as a key contact with Project South and a joint venture with Arkansas Veterans Affairs to help reach out to veterans. The Liberty Ministry Center has also expanded his work in providing clothing, food and financial assistance for low-income families.

“It is an honor for me on behalf of all the associational missionaries in Arkansas to receive this reward,” he said. “I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we are so thankful to have a school like Ouachita Baptist University. It’s a privilege that we have this relationship and partnership with such a fine Christian institution, and what a blessing it is to serve in this state as associational missionaries.”

The banquet also featured musical performances by freshman musical theater major Todd McNeel, senior vocal performance major John Tneoh, sophomore vocal performance major Victoria Mantooth and junior music major Alyssa Reynolds. Dr. Danny Hays, dean of the Pruett School of Christian Studies, spoke about Ouachita’s efforts to empower students who will go on to be future church leaders and ministers. A number of seniors from the Pruett School were also present. Grant, who served as president of Ouachita from 1970 to 1988 and co-founded of the Arkansas Baptist Associational Missionaries Banquet, also spoke at the event.

 

Photo by Heather Ellis.
Caption: Dr. Daniel Grant, president of Ouachita from 1970 to 1988, speaks at the Arkansas Baptist Associational Missionaries Banquet.