A Message From the Chair of the Department

Dr. Rick Goode
Dept. Chair

Popular culture often portrays the undergraduate college experience as a four-year program of study leading ultimately to a job. Although the time and financial commitments make such a depiction is understandable, a liberal arts education can offer so much more.   Ideally, an education informed by the arts and humanities—especially when pursued in a Christian environment—provides a beginning, a foundation, for what Paulo Friere called “the vocation of becoming more fully human.”

The faculty of the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy strives to advance the University’s goal of inspiring lifelong learners. Toward this end, our role is more than dispensing information. Likewise, the student’s responsibility is much greater than receiving and reciting data. We spend our time together engaged in the critical reading of texts, the rigorous exploration of ideas, and the effective communication of new visions. In other words, as faculty we strive to mentor students who excel at research, who love to analyze and synthesize ideas, and who powerfully articulate opportunities for a more just and humane world. Surveying the faculty biographies on the departmental web site will allow you to see a few ways we strive to model these skills in our own professional endeavors.

Author Walker Percy once warned students against the temptation to make straight “A’s” in school, yet proceed to “go out and flunk life.” Introduced to the disciplines of history, politics, and philosophy in a Christian environment, our students become both impressive scholars and excellent servant leaders. Recent graduates, for example, have established themselves as influential teachers in public and private schools, and prestigious scholars at public and private universities. They have become distinguished research fellows in fields such as biomedical ethics. They have become intelligence and policy analysts. They have become architects and administrators of more stable communities. And, they have become advocates for those with little or no social voice. Our graduates have become, to use biblical images, “salt and light” to a world needing reconciliation to God and one another. Although much of our students’ success is attributable to their God-given native talent, we believe that their time at Lipscomb has helped refine and focus their intellectual gifts for a lifetime of greater service.

Dr. Richard Goode
Professor of History and
Chair of the Department