Profs are approved for sabbaticals and senior status

By Allison Jarboe, Features Editor

Friday, Feb. 3, the OBU board of trustees had a video-conference meeting for the spring semester and approved recommendations for senior faculty status as well as sabbatical leave.

Dr. Lee Hinson, an 11-year OBU faculty member and professor of music, was given sabbatical leave for the 2017-2018 academic year, with a half teaching load and half-time sabbatical leave.

Hinson will be focusing on writing a book that will discuss worship organization from a scripture-based viewpoint along with enthodoxology, which is defined as an application of ethnomusicology, ethnic arts studies, worship studies, missiology and related disciplines.

He intends his book to be a textual resource for worship classes in academia.

Dr. Michael Travers, associate provost, associate dean for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, chair for the Division of Language and Literature, and professor of English will also be taking a sabbatical.

A C.S. Lewis academic, he will edit class notes and materials for his C.S. Lewis class, in addition to researching and writing an article on the importance of C.S. Lewis’s poetry regarding apologetic arguments and elements.

Dr. Tawa Anderson, assistant professor of philosophy was approved by the Board of Trustees for senior faculty status.

                                Dr. Hinson (left) and Dr Anderson (right). / Courtesy Photo

“When we came to Oklahoma, our perspective was that God had brought us here as settlers, not as pioneers,” Anderson said. “So my future plan regarding OBU would be that God allows us to stay here until we retire, and onward, so this is home.”

Anderson also elaborated on his aspirations for future growth.

“I would love to see the apologetics program continue to develop,” Anderson said.

“We started our apologetics track two years ago, and we’ve had growing student numbers. I’m convinced that apologetics is desperately needed in the church and contemporary society, and so I would love to see more students adopt that.”

Dr. Sarah Marsh, assistant professor of mathematics, was also approved for senior faculty status.

“Of course, we would always love to have more math majors,” Marsh said.

“However, one of the things I really love about OBU is that I get to work with students from all areas of study. I love working with education majors, business majors, nursing majors, and everybody in between.”

Marsh said that she would love to grow in her teaching for all of these groups.

“Because we serve so many different kinds of students, I feel like there is always going to be room for me to grow as a teacher, and learn to serve those populations better,” Marsh said.

She also mentioned that the math department had recently approved a Bachelor of Arts degree in math.

“This is so that students who are earning a bachelor’s of arts in other areas can double major in math and not have to do a duel degree,” Marsh said.

“We’re hoping that this opens up a lot of flexibility for people that are interested in studying math, but also currently pursuing anthropology, history, or things that maybe aren’t traditionally done with math,” Marsh said.

“We’re really excited to see what that will bring for our department in the future.”

Other senior faculty recommendations who were approved are Dr. Bruce Carlton, WMU professor of missions; Dr. Mary Chung, assistant professor of piano; Dr. Randolph Johnson, assistant professor of music; and Dr. Renita Murimi, assistant professor of computer information science.