Alumni Profiles
Liverett's book features gospel music greats
A traveling master teacher
Miles' mission of preventing abuse takes him across the country
Marshall Hall answers the call
Connecting adoptive parents with children
Liverett's book features gospel music greats
By Deborah Lilly
Fans of the Gaither Homecoming video series can now read about their favorite gospel music artists in the new book It All Started with a Song edited and illustrated by David Liverett BA ’68. It All Started with a Song features 140 musicians, including Bill and Gloria Gaither, Vestal Goodman, Larnelle Harris, Hovie Lister, Rex Nelon, George Younce, Jake Hess, and many more.
This 300-page book includes a drawing of each artist in the stipple technique. It took Liverett 10 to 12 hours to complete each drawing. Accompanying each story is a biographical sketch of the artist, including the artist’s birth date, family history, early musical influences, awards, and available Web sites to learn more about the individual. The book was made possible thanks to the help of Liverett’s wife, Avis (Kleis) Liverett BA ’66, and his assistant, Tammy Burrell BA ’88, a graphic artist. Gloria (Sickal) Gaither BS ’63 wrote the book’s forward.
For more information about the book, visit Liverett’s Web site at www.2Lights.com, write to Chinaberry House, P.O. Box 505, Anderson, IN 46015, or call (765) 644-2492.
A traveling master teacher
By Jack Williams
Oh sure, she once designed and managed a $1.5 million state-of-the-art independent day school for infants and pre-schoolers. True, she went to France to study firsthand the most superior education system in the world. Yes, she did spend 15 years in public schools, teaching in both traditional and gifted-and-talented classrooms. And, of course, today she traverses the country consulting superintendents, principals, and teachers on assessment, curriculum, and teaching strategies.
All the same, Brenda Wilson BA ’83, recently named to the 2004 “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers,” still hasn’t found the school she’s looking for.
What Wilson’s looking for is a school that brings together the best practices she’s encountered in France and the United States, and one that respects all the learning styles found in today’s diverse classroom. She also envisions a classroom informed with a Judeo-Christian perspective — one that’s ecumenically and broadly conceived.
Wilson’s vision for education reform in America was ignited when doctoral work took her abroad to study the teaching of reading. On that trip, Wilson learned that reading is the foundation of French education, that the country’s pre-schoolers read fluently by the time they’re in kindergarten, that it’s not unusual for their elementary students to spend four classroom hours reading each day, and that, as a result, France has a 98 percent literacy rate.
“French schools build reading into their physical development and into their real world,” says Wilson. “French children play while they learn.” Complementing Wilson’s overview of the French classroom is the close-up she gets of the American classroom each week. As consulting facilitator for Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), based in Portland, Ore., she has visited more than 200 school districts in the last five years, conducting workshops for teachers, superintendents, and curriculum directors on the use of her organization’s assessment tests and recommended instructional plans. “It’s fulfilling because I know I’m impacting large numbers of students as opposed to just one classroom of students,” says Brenda.
Brenda was content to impact just one classroom after graduating from AU, teaching first grade in Indianapolis Public Schools for a year and fifth grade for South Elementary Schools in Pendleton, Ind., for the next six years. But in 1990, after completing her master’s in education with an emphasis on gifted education, Wilson joined South Elementary’s GT teaching staff. For the next nine years, she taught reading and math, along with skills in creative problem solving, critical thinking, and independent research, to the top five percent of the school’s first through sixth graders.
In 1999 she joined NWEA and moved into a national classroom where her students are likely to be fellow teachers.
“When teachers are overwhelmed with the process of how children learn, with changes in curriculum or just looking for ideas, resources and helpful classroom management tips, I’m there,” Wilson says.
And in the first few years she was “there” and representing NWEA, Wilson, ever the multi-tasker, was also directing a progressive early learning center that enrolled 85 children.
When this talented and gifted traveling master teacher finally finds the school she’s been looking for, look for her to be “there,” too.
Miles' mission of preventing abuse takes him across the country
By Deborah Lilly
As a high school senior in Gary, Ind., Al Miles BA ’73, MDiv ’79, says he didn’t know what to do with his life. The United States was involved in the Vietnam War, so he decided to join the Marines. The recruiting officer sensed Miles was a bright young man and offered another suggestion. He told Miles to go to college.
“I hadn’t even thought about going to college,” Miles says. But he took the man’s advice and it changed his life.
In the years following that encounter with the Marine recruiter, Miles was able to find a clear focus for his life. He began as a psychology and sociology double major at AU. After college, he and his wife, Katherine (Thomason) Miles BA ’73, moved to Colorado. Miles considered a career in clinical psychology, but after becoming active in his church — including preaching once a month — he chose seminary instead. And it was during a six-week course called Ministry to the Sick that Miles says, “I really found my calling.”
Later while working as the supervisor of chaplaincy at a children’s hospital in St. Paul, Miles began to see children who were being abused by a parent or a parent’s boyfriend or girlfriend. “I realized that seminary and college had not equipped me with how to deal with this social ill,” he says. “I didn’t have any idea what to do to help the non-abusive parent or the child. What made it more significant is that a number of these parents identified themselves as Christian. I also realized that many of the non-abusive mothers were also being abused themselves by a husband or boyfriend.” Miles decided he needed more training and began studying with an expert in child abuse awareness.
Since then, Miles has become a national speaker and workshop leader for domestic violence issues and has been named to the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women at the invitation of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. In addition to his work as coordinator of the hospital ministry in Queens Medical Center, the largest hospital in Hawaii, he travels the country speaking to pastors, lay leaders, hospital personnel, emergency medical technicians, and even lawyers and judges about how to deal with domestic violence found in their churches and with patients and clients.
Miles estimates that about 80 percent of his speaking engagements are to help educate religious leaders and congregations about domestic violence. When it comes to the church, domestic violence is not a popular issue. “We used to talk about people not opening a can of worms, but this is really a barrel of dynamite,” Miles says. It is uncomfortable to think that someone sitting in the pews on Sunday morning may be abusive in their own homes.
Fortunately seminaries across the country are beginning to talk about domestic violence as an issue for pastoral care, including the School of Theology at AU. Miles has also contributed to this effort by writing books, including his first book, Domestic Violence: What Every Pastor Needs to Know. Dr. Ted Stoneberg, a professor at the AU SOT has taught Miles’ book in some of his elective courses. “He’s hit upon an important hidden issue,” Stoneberg says. Miles has also written Violence in Families: What Every Christian Needs to Know. Both are available from online book retailers. His book on violence in teen dating relationships is scheduled for release this year.
Miles traveled thousands of miles in 2004 to speak about domestic violence issue. Even so, he maintains, “My first love is chaplaincy. I still feel this is where God wants me to be.” After 23 years, visiting the sick is still his passion.
Marshall Hall answers the call
By Jack Williams
When Marshall Hall BA ‘92 got the call asking him to join the Gaither Vocal Band, he was having lunch in Phoenix where he frequently led worship at the Mountain Park Community Church.
After accepting the job as the group’s new baritone, he immediately called his wife, Lori, “and we both just proceeded to freak out,” remembers Hall.
The phone call from Bill Gaither climaxed a six-week auditioning process that began last winter and included two weekends of “candidating” before live concert audiences in Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Dallas.
His first appearance as an official GVB member was February 2004. Since then he’s had the pleasure of sharing the stage with the Rev. Billy Graham at an evangelistic crusade and spending weekends with gospel music greats such as George Younce, Ben Speer, Eva Mae LeFevre, Jeff Easter and those artists known as the Homecoming Friends. Hall is still in awe over the opportunity to blend full time with the Vocal Band. “I’ve been a studio musician for about 12 years, and I like to think I’m a pretty competent musician,” he says. “But these guys are another level.”
Hall established his own level of competence as a session and backup singer. His baritone can be heard on projects with John Tesh, Clay Walker, and Carman. He’s toured with Clay Crosse and appeared with BeBe and CeCe Winans and Sandi Patty, another AU alumna. Hall also put his songwriting talents on display when he released a solo CD, Wisdom of Fools, in 2003. A few years back, he traveled to Germany and performed worship songs in German for several Christian record companies.
Hall, who followed his father Dale BS ’60 to AU, says the university’s music professors taught him to aim high. He claims that he learned to “strive for perfection” while singing for Dr. Richard Sowers in the AU Chorale and that aural comprehension class with Shirley Coolidge prepared him for the studio.
Dr. Fritz Robertson also had a profound influence. “Fritz taught me how to sing and gave me my first professional work,” says Hall. Robertson arranged for Hall to sing at his church and encouraged him to sing with chamber orchestras in Muncie and Indianapolis.
Hall developed a passion for classical music during his student days but soon after graduation sang Southern gospel with Presence, a quartet consisting of AU alumni. He toured with the quartet for a year and a half until he discovered he could pursue studio work full time. Session work satisfied for the first dozen years of his career. Then Hall got the call from another quartet.
Connecting adoptive parents with children
By Heather Lowhorn
Michele L. Jackson’s résumé is long and impressive. An attorney, Jackson BA ’97 is an independent practitioner within Butler, Jackson, and Jones in Indianapolis. As an adjunct professor at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, she teaches a class in international and comparative family law — a class that is only offered two other places in the nation. She gives lectures on family law and adoption around the country. But to a child living in an orphanage overseas, none of that matters. What matters is that Jackson can help him find a family and a home. Jackson is an international adoption consultant. She guides adoptive parents through the maze of paperwork and bureaucracy to help them adopt children in countries such as Ukraine, Nepal, Guatemala, Russia, and Haiti.
Two years into law school, Jackson felt that she wanted to specialize in international adoptions. “I would send out letters saying ‘I’ll be a free intern; I’ll volunteer,’” she says. “No response. It’s very competitive. I didn’t realize that at the time.”
After graduating from the IU School of Law, Jackson began consulting with Lighthouse Ministries, Inc. “They were doing an economical development program in Ukraine,” she says. “The people who were going over with this organization would take gifts to orphanages they were supporting through these programs, and they became interested in adopting.”
Jackson worked with Lighthouse and the couple to help them adopt a child. Through the adoption, Jackson had found her way into her vocation.
On a recent trip to Ukraine, a client who had adopted a Ukrainian boy had a special mission for Jackson. “His mother had given me a card to give to his [Ukrainian] grandparents. The orphanage had given her this name and address, but she didn’t know if it was right. I got to go to their apartment to give them this note and pictures. It was so amazing. They were just crying because they had no idea what had happened to their grandson. They went to the orphanage to visit him one day, and he was just gone.” It was a fulfilling experience for Jackson and the grandparents. “Not only has this little boy brought so much joy to his family in Indiana, but now knowing how happy he is brought joy to the family in Ukraine — and peace.” The story, however, doesn’t end there. Jackson found out through the grandparents that the boy had a younger sister who is also in an orphanage. “So now my couple here wants to adopt her, and we’re trying to find her.”
Jackson credits AU’s Tri-S program with pointing her in the direction of international adoption. As an undergraduate student, Jackson took Tri-S trips to Costa Rica, Europe, and Jamaica. “I think my experience with Tri-S at Anderson really gave me a heart for what I’m doing now,” she says.
Though adopting a child from overseas can seem overwhelming, Jackson assures her clients the process isn’t as bad they might expect. “It is a long process. It’s kind of an emotional rollercoaster,” says Jackson, “but every single [client says], ‘I’d do it again.’”
