Dear Alumni Family,

Over 125 years the Williamsburg Institute – Cum-berland College – University of the Cumberlands has broadened the boundaries of the programs, policies, services, admissions, enrollment, require-ments, standards, mission and alumni service area. By doing so, the University today stands as a widely respected Regional University according to The Carnegie Foundation. In addition to covering our campus, this magazine promotes what we like to call “The Alumni Factor” which serves to shed light on alumni success stories.

The accumulative history has allowed our constit-uencies to know us by varying degrees of involve-ment and understanding. These come through exposure of marketing, communications and personal experience. Self-study assessment and evaluation challenge the University to know what it is not, but perhaps more importantly, what it is becoming as a result of hard work and dedication to the mission. Do you find your alumni service among the following statements?

We are UNIVERSITY of the CUMBERLANDS . . .

Not Gen. Washington, but we leadNot Harvard, but we educateNot Red Cross, but we provide medical servicesNot Lincoln, but we stand tall from humble begin-ningsNot Eiffel, but we build to lastNot Gandhi, but we enact social changeNot Thorpe, but we compete in athleticsNot Roosevelt, but we persevereNot MacArthur or Patton, but we provide military serviceNot Mother Teresa, but we offer compassionNot Graham, but we minister the GospelNot Mandela or MLK, Jr., but we inspireNot Habitat, but we build homesNot Jobs or Gates, but we teach technology

The sun truly never sets on our alumni working and serving around the world…

How Can You Help Your Alma Mater?

Whether it is through personal experiences or lifelong friendships initiated at Cumberlands, UC wishes for you continued personal growth and lasting career success.

Through this and other publications, we hope within you grows a deeper understanding of the work, service and mission provided by UC around the world. Share your story with us.

How will you influence The Alumni Factor?

Give what you can, but please consider giving something back as you pay it forward at Cumber-lands.

Thank you and may God Bless you!

Sincerely,David Bergman, ‘89

Alumni DirectorAssistant to the Presidentalumni@ucumberlands.edu

A Letter from the Alumni Director

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Page 2: A Letter from the Alumni Director

Page 4-5: 32 and More to Come

Page 6-7: Unnamed Debate Team Story

Page 12:

Page 21: Football Trio

Page 39: Changing of the Guard

Page 44: Dr. Ben Carson speaks at Forcht Group Ex-cellence in Leadership Series.

In This Issue...

2013-2014 Alumni Association Board of Directors

PresidentJimmy Huddleston, ‘87

President-ElectTony LeMaster, ‘94

Past PresidentAllen Robbins, ‘90

SecretaryWheeler Conover, ‘87

Board Member EmeritusMary Doyle Johnson, ’48 Dick Koeniger, ’67

Term Expiring 2014Bill Hardin, ‘81John P. Hollingsworth, Ph.D., ‘63 Lee Kend-all, ‘82Keith Pray, 90Chuck Sheriff, ‘63

Term Expiring 2015Willie Adkins, ‘03 Amanda Farris, ‘08 Duane Floro, ‘79 Michael Bryant II, ’85-‘90

Term Expiring 2016Melanie Mackey Bloomer, ‘90 Rebecca Sin-gleton Ford, ‘02 Maureen “Cookie” Henson, ’74 Lanola Haywood Parsons, ’69-‘72

Graphic DesignerKasey Malone

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Photo by: Autumn Cooney

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By Myriah SnyderStaff Writer

For 32 years, Dr. Robert Dunston, better known around campus as Dr. Bob, has been teaching religion classes at UC.

Dunston got his undergraduate degree in math at Virginia Tech and worked as a computer program-mer for two and a half years. Nevertheless, God had different plans.

“I felt a call to ministry and went to seminary,” Dunston said. He went on to get a degree from Mid-western Baptist Theological Seminary, Union Semi- nary, and finally get his Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dunston continued, “When I first felt a call into Christian ministry, I was at that time working with deaf people using American Sign Language.” He said he felt that he was going to work as a pastor to the deaf or something of that sort in the Baptist world.

“When I was at Midwestern Seminary the longer I stayed there, the more I got interested in what my teachers were doing and the ministry they had in teaching,” he said. After seeking counsel from his teachers, he decided that the Lord was in fact leading him to teach.

He and his wife Norma came to visit in Feb-ruary 1983, moved here in June of the same year, and have lived in Williamsburg ever since.

“I guess my original plan was to start off in a college and eventually move to a seminary one day. But once I got here, I just enjoyed the college environ- ment so much. I enjoy teaching with folks who teach business, biology, chem- istry, human services and criminal justice.”

He continued, “I like having that kind of wide diversity of subjects and not just people who are teach-ing theology, New Testament and Christian education. It is so much nicer here, for me, to have that broad exposure.”

In his time at UC, he has taught children of his

previous students. “I am pretty close to now probably having grandchildren of people that I taught when I first got here,” Dunston said. “That has been a lot of fun to try to maintain those family connections too.” He mentioned that there are actually faculty members that he had in class.

Dunston said one of his favorite parts of teaching is always getting to know the new students he hasn’t had in class yet. He also loves watching the “lights come on” inside a student.

“It is always fun, I think, not just trying to teach information they might not know but to help them begin to think about things on their own--why they believe what they believe-- to investigate maybe new avenues of faith, new ways of looking at things,” Dunston said.

He continued, “The nice part too is students help me. Sometimes I am like that is an idea that I never thought about. That is something for me to learn as well. It’s kind of a back and forth.”

His advice to students struggling to survive college is this: “I think one tip would be not to post-pone things till the last minute. I have done enough of that in college and seminary myself and have hopefully learned the lesson not to do that.”

He continued, “Probably it’s not a bad idea to create some sort of a calendar where you can see what’s coming up. It’s just trying to be organized and know what’s coming up.

“Just be open to new ideas and excited about the possibility of learning and expanding horizons,” he added.

Dunston concluded, “I love being here and working with the students. I don’t know if I can be here another 32 years, that may be too long, but I would like to be for a little longer.”

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By Tasha JonesAssistant Editor for The Patriot Newspaper

After a successful season of advancing on to out rounds in almost every competition attend-ed this year, UC’s speech and debate team were very pleased to leave the 2014 National Chris-tian College Forensics Association Tournament with the prestigious National Champions Quality Sweeps Award.

The Quality award is an award that is awarded to the team with the most points per student competing. Professor Jay Bourne, who is faculty advisor and coach of the team explained, “Our motto is always preparing everything for na-tionals. I always want us to do well, but I’d rather us be in peak form at Nationals. And this year for the most part, I think we maxed out our poten-tial.”

Photo Courtasy of Debate Team

Nothing to Argue About

University of the Cumberlands Debate students receive individual and team awards at National Competition.

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This semester the team had 11 members, and six members qualified for Nationals. Attend-ees included Katie Detherage, Brian Johnson, Matthew Kelley, Caleb Stoffle, Jenette Mitchell, and Rob Jones.

In addition to being awarded the Quality award, Matthew Kelley and Caleb Stoffle reached octofinals (top 16 ) in team debate, and Rob Jones and Jenette Mitchell were national semifinalists (top four) in team debate. Two team members also won individual medals for their debating. Rob Jones was honored as a national champion gold medalist and won Novice individual debate and Katie Detherage was awarded a silver medalist. Detherage said, “Placing in a national tournament was amazing, especially my first year on the team. I’m thankful for the opportunity to compete in this activity and for all of the wonder-ful friends I’ve made on the team this past year.”

Jones was competing at Nationals for his second year. Jones took two De- bate and Argu-mentation classes before joining the team. Chris-topher Leskiw, associate professor of political science recognized Jones’s real natural ability for debate in his Introduction to Political Science course that Jones took as a freshman.

“He has a gift in the ability to explain complex issues in easy to understand terms. One reason I think that Rob has experienced such suc-cess in the Debate arena is that he actually listens to the opposing argument,” said Leskiw. Bourne soon took notice of Jones’s ability when he saw how willingly Jones was to step up against one of the best debaters in his Argumentation and De-bate course.

Jones said, “Debate is beneficial to both my major and minor due to typically debating political science topics and communications that give me advancement in oral speaking and com-municating my ideas.” Jones also said debate has helped him to think on his feet and be understood in a clear and concise manner.

The team does two types of debating, in-dividual and pairing up with a partner. The team

never gets to debate as a group, as they are always either alone or teamed up in a minimum of two people pairs to compete. At competition, a topic is announced that varies every round and they have 15-20 minutes to talk about it as a team and develop strategies and then go off in debate. It can always be random but a lot of the time the topics are foreign or domestic policy dealing with the US government.

“That’s the thrilling and the scary part about it, it’s always something different we don’t know ahead of time what it is, and that makes it interesting. A lot of time if you have a well-round-ed background and you keep up to date on news, you should be ready to take most of what you need,” said Bourne. Bourne said the initial goal of the team is about making students better speakers and more persuasive people, the end result will be that they’ll be more confident and better in com-municating. Often students, who took part in the team, come to Bourne and tell him of how par-ticipating or receiving awards on the team helped them get jobs, or scholarships for graduate school because they demonstrated oral communication skills.

The team has been very driven and worked really hard this year, and their work has paid off as their awards have spoken for themselves. Seven of the current members have committed to partic-ipating again next year and Bourne is looking for-ward to what the team will achieve in the future.

For more information on the University of the Cumberlands’ Debate Team please contact Mr. Jay Bourne. Email: jay.bourne@ucumberlands.edu 539-4458

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