McMurry Corner

Stories from McMurry University. Find out more about this United Methodist university at www.mcm.edu.

ABILENE, Texas – McMurry University physics alumnus Dr. Glenn Light will speak on “The Physics and Engineering of Nondestructive Evaluation Technology” at noon Friday, October 28, in the Finch-Gray Science Building room S105. The McMurry University Physics Department and the McMurry Chapter of the Society of Physics Students are sponsoring the event.

Dr. Light is the director of the Department of Sensor Systems and Nondestructive Evaluation Technology in Mechanical and Materials Engineering Division of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, TX. Dr. Light received B.S. degree in Physics from McMurry College in 1972, M.S. degree in Atomic and Nuclear Physics from University of North Texas in 1974 and Ph.D. in Atomic and Nuclear Physics from University of North Texas in 1978.

For several decades in Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Dr. Light has developed sensors, systems, and new techniques for nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of materials and structures. He has applied these efforts to metals, composites, and ceramics. His expertise includes ultrasonic inspection (UT) technology and trans­ducer design, eddy current (ET) probe design, digital radiography, computed tomog­raphy, infrared thermography, and shearography. He is internationally recognized for his activities in the American Society of Metals (ASM). He has over 110 papers and presentations on NDE-related topics.

Prior to joining SwRI, Dr. Light worked in atomic and nuclear physics, concentrating on experimentation in L-shell and K-shell X-ray production cross sections using ion bombardment. He also was involved with photo-optical, electro-optical, and nuclear instrumentation systems. He has been awarded 14 patents: a pulse-echo, ultra­sonic squirter; a pump-shaft inspection system; a sound transducer apparatus system and method; an X-ray fluorescence test of laminate structures; a UT transducer for extreme environments; embodiment of a variable-angle RFC ET probe; gas-coupled ultrasonics for gas pipeline inspection; the use of a priori CAD/CAM data to develop computed-tomography scan plans; a charged particle battery based on secondary Beta ray emissions; and method and apparatus for short-term inspection and long-term structural health monitoring. 

For more information, please contact Dr. Tikhon V. Bykov, Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Physics at 325.793.4875.

The acronym MPG offers a quick way to remember the essential values of servant leadership. M is for motive. A servant leader’s primary motive is to serve. Robert Greenleaf said, “A servant leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.” In other words, the servant leader seeks a positive goal in behalf of all involved. He or she isn’t seeking to aggrandize the self.

Next, servant leadership is a relational process between the servant leader and those who are served. Older leadership theories were all about the leader. Servant leadership recognizes that leadership is always a process of influence between leaders and those who are led. It is highly mutual and interactive, characterized more by a synergistic circle than a top-down pyramid.

Finally, servant leadership results in the growth of others. Greenleaf said that the test for servant leadership is this: “Do those served grow as persons? Do they while being served become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?” Servant leadership is about Motive, Process, and Growth.

McMurry’s servant leadership program seeks to equip McMurry graduates to carry these values into family life, the church, their vocations, and the world. One does not have to be in a specific position of leadership to be a servant leader. The positive influence of servant leadership can be offered from any position in a church, business, or family.

Servant leadership is both curricular and co-curricular. The curriculum includes five courses: Concepts and Techniques of Servant Leadership, Formation in Servant Leadership, Theories of Leadership, Dialogue with the Other, and Senior Capstone/Internship. Co-curricular opportunities include the Servant Leadership Council, which serves as a liaison among campus organizations to keep all apprised of service opportunities, training needs and offerings, and collaborative efforts and the Resident Servant Leadership Learning Community. The learning community is being developed and will be implemented in the fall of 2011.

So, why the title, Servant Leadership, McMurry University, and You? What does this have to do with you? McMurry graduates will be in your congregations, businesses, and communities. They may even be part of your families. A McMurry grad could marry your son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter. A McMurry grad could be your employee, your neighborhood police officer, your pastor, or your youth minister. Our vision is that our graduates will take their servant leadership values with them wherever they go. So, servant leadership at McMurry isn’t just about college, it is about the future of our graduates as their paths cross yours in everyday life.

More information about Servant Leadership go to http://www.mcm.edu/newsite/web/academics/servant/index.htm.

McMurry University Narrows Mascot List to Three Names

McMurry University has narrowed the choices for a new mascot to three names: Bison, Circuit Riders and War Hawks.

McMurry's selection committee — made up of students, alumni, faculty and staff — met on Monday to narrow the list to the three names after receiving input from focus group meetings in Abilene, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Round Rock, Houston, El Paso and Artesia, N.M. Focus groups were asked to recommend three finalists from the eight names that emerged from the preliminary vote.

A final voting process will be conducted on-line and through paper ballots beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 9, when alumni and students will be asked to vote for one name.  The final mascot recommendation will be presented to the Board of Trustees in mid-March.

McMurry discontinued use of Indians as its mascot in 2006, as did other colleges and universities with similarly named mascots, because of NCAA regulations.

Students travel to Haiti

By Tim Palmer, Associate Chaplain at McMurry University

When I was a freshman in high school, I attended a summer camp at which noted preacher Louie Giglio spoke. He was preaching about the Great Commission and the words he spoke have resonated in my heart since I heard them. “Go,” he proclaimed, “unless you are called to stay.” Like some kind of spiritual Marine Corps, we think that Jesus’ words in Matthew 28 are meant for the select few, brave and willing enough to step out of the comfort of their native culture and settle in a foreign land in order to share the Gospel of Jesus as full-time vocational missionaries. “The few, the humble, the missionaries,” we say.

The truth is I always thought I would be in that select group. My parents were Southern Baptist missionaries when I was a child. So, when I heard Louie’s words, I fully expected to “go,” to leave my hometown of Abilene and live a life of ruthless faith in Jesus somewhere else. “Anywhere,” I prayed, “I’ll go anywhere for you, Jesus… but here.”  But here is where I still am almost fifteen years later. Much to my chagrin, I felt called to stay, perhaps even constrained, convicted, forced to stay here in dusty ol’ West Texas. But, in time, I’ve come to find the truth that all of us are called to live a life of going wherever we are. We go to the store to buy bread, and while we do, we are emissaries of His love. We go on vacation to Dallas, Austin, New York, and as we do, we are conduits of his grace.  Even our staying turns out to be a form of going where God leads.

In the years that I’ve been in ministry (by the way, I should mention that I did spend some time on the mission field, in a culture not my own… in Slaton, Tx), there have been times when I’ve felt the strong compulsion to go somewhere else. In January of 2010, we all watched in dismay as the small island nation of Haiti was turned inside out by a vicious earthquake. In a matter of seconds, millions of people in a 20 mile radius lost their homes, friends, family members and livelihoods.  The destruction was swift and the human toll was staggering.  At the time, I was working fulltime as the college and outreach ministry director at Aldersgate UMC, here in Abilene. It was in the early moments of this tragedy that a small group of us began to feel that tug, that call to “go.” Almost a year after that devastating earthquake, a group of mostly McMurry students woke up at 4:00 in the morning and boarded a flight to Port-au-Prince. Our desire and goal was to “bring hope to Haiti.” Walking out of the airport and into the streets of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere was all it took to nearly deflate our hopeful hearts.  Most of our students had never been out of the country before, and only a few of us had seen anything remotely close to the poverty and desperation that confronted us as we drove to the Methodist Guest house in Petion-ville. Clogged, trash-filled streets bespoke of a government unconcerned with the plight of its people in this city of 2 million. Our hearts were heavy and we wept together on our first night in Haiti.

As we hoisted our heavy hearts and perplexed minds into bed that first night, a clearly time-challenged and crazed rooster began to crow. Since we had arrived in Haiti, it seems like everything in life was backwards or upside-down, nothing seemed to be what it should be. Roosters were crowing at night. Buildings were turned inside out. Toilet paper went in the trashcan, not the toilet. Streets had no lanes. And motor vehicles seemed to have no weight capacity. And all our priorities and life rhythms had been tossed in the air in what became a liminal experience for us all.  As we laughed (sort of) and tried to sleep through this ridiculous rooster’s morning song, the thought entered my mind that perhaps this rooster wasn’t that crazy. After all, isn’t the darkest time of night the perfect time to beckon morning’s light? For the next 8 days, that is exactly what our team did.  We laughed with children from the streets of Petit Goave.  We hoisted cement, bricks, and mortar with Haitian workers and, in the midst of destroyed buildings, together we constructed two new restrooms at the Methodist Guest house in Petit Goave.  We learned new dances, sang silly songs with children at the Brakeman School, and worshipped with the saints in two churches.  And, as the days rolled into one another, that hopelessness began to give way to new hope; hope for Haiti and hope for ourselves. In the end, I think that this is one of the reasons why Jesus calls us all to go, wherever we are. When we do, we make disciples.  But, going also makes disciples out of us. I don’t know if my family and I will ever pack up all we own and move to a different country. But, if Haiti taught me anything is that darkness is a reality everywhere, in my own heart, in the streets of Abilene and in the streets of Port-au-Prince. But it also reminded me that morning is coming, and that I am called to sing the song of that morning in the midst of the darkness. So go! And as you do remind a world walking in darkness that hope is on the horizon, morning is coming, and with it, the light of God’s love.