Class Offerings

Rob Touchstone learned to be an entrepreneur while finding and selling golfballs as a kid growing up near a golf course in Marietta, Ga. He has a passion for the marginalized and impoverished and believes that one of the most effective ways to address local and global needs is through business as mission. Touchstone wrote the vision for and co-founded The Well Coffeehouse in 2012 as a social enterprise that turns profits into hope for those in need. He received the NASBA Center for the Public Trust Making a Difference Award in 2017, was named Nashville’s Business Innovator of the Year in 2016, and awarded the Mary Morris Award For Exemplary Service in 2015. Touchstone is the creator and Director of the Center for Business As Mission where he teaches and mentors students to think missionally about business and entrepreneurship.

He earned a Master of Divinity from Lipscomb and served students for 16 years as a youth minister. Touchstone says his greatest blessing is his family. He is happily married to Aimee and they have four children.

Tim Johnson joined the Lipscomb University faculty in 1991, and he is professor of history and chair of the department. He teaches the following courses: U.S. History I and II, National Period (1776-1850), Civil War and Reconstruction, U.S. Military History, The South in American History, Vietnam, and Senior Seminar. Dr. Johnson’s research interests are in the Mexican War and Civil War. The Virginia Historical Society has named him an Andrew J. Mellon Research Fellow twice (1994, 2002). Recently, Yale University named him the Archibald Hanna, Jr. Research Fellow in American History for 2005, and he will be in residence at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library on the Yale campus during the spring semester. Dr. Johnson received the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award from Lipscomb in 2001, and he has been featured on C-SPAN’s BookTV (1999) and The History Channel (2003). His published works can be found at the Faculty Publications link.

Linda Peek Schacht is leader in residence, associate professor of practice and strategic advisor to the dean in Lipscomb’s College of Leadership and Public Service. She also is the founding director of the Andrews Institute for Civic Leadership, now a part of the new College.

For forty years, she has advised government, business and non-profit leaders on communication and strategy. A veteran of the Carter White House press office, she has held the top communication positions for a national Presidential campaign, USA Today, the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate and the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

Linda spent over a decade at The Coca-Cola Company in New York and Atlanta, serving three Chairmen and retiring as Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs Strategy. In addition to her media, public relations and corporate communications responsibilities, she represented the company at the World Economic Forum and oversaw research on the economic and public affairs impact of the company’s global investments, helping shape the emerging corporate social responsibility movement.

In 2002, Linda began her encore career in education as a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was affiliated with both the Center for Public Leadership and the Center for Business and Government. For the next four years, her workshops and research focused on leadership and communication. Concurrently, from 2004- 2008, Linda was the interim chair of the political and organizational communication department at Emerson College in Boston.

The academic and community programs of the Andrews Institute, which she launched as its first executive director in 2010, reflect her commitment to developing leaders for the common good at every stage of their careers. She has advised emerging, mid-career, and veteran leaders in both the Master’s in Civic Leadership program, in the Cable Executive Leadership Academy, and as adviser to the women’s leadership cluster for Cab!e. Linda has produced leadership training for Nashville Neighborhood leaders through the Office of the Mayor and for high school girls through Music City Girls Lead! She currently advises the Tennessee Accelerated Leadership Institute (emerging leaders), is a coach and presenter for LEAD Tennessee, the state’s award- winning leadership development initiative, and is a frequent presenter for Commissioner Leadership Institutes and the League of Cities.

Linda is a former Woodrow Wilson teaching fellow and a long-time board member of the International Women’s Media Foundation where she helped develop leadership training for women in media around the world. She is a board member of Athena International; Fifty Forward; Rock the Street Wall Street; and Centerstone Military Services. Since 2013, she has directed the Fellows program for the Global Action Summit. A frequent speaker and commentator on leadership, communication, and, in election years, politics, she is the recipient of three lifetime achievement awards for her career and her work in leadership development for women and girls: the 2012 NBJ Women of Influence Trailblazer award, the 2014 Athena Award, and the YWCA’s 2015 AWA award. She is a graduate of Lipscomb University and The Ohio State University.

Rob McRay received his B.A. from Abilene Christian University and his M.A. in Biblical studies from Wheaton College, and did further graduate study in the Ancient Mediterranean World at the University of Chicago. Rob is an adjunct instructor in Bible at Lipscomb University and the Executive Director of Youth Encouragement Services in Nashville.  He served for more than 30 years as the senior minister for several congregations, including the Donelson Church of Christ.  Rob has lived in Israel and traveled extensively in the Middle East, including leading several Holy Land tours.

Tom teaches undergraduate Bible courses as well as Biblical ethics and textual studies. He received his BA in Biblical languages from Lipscomb in 1971, his M.T.S. degree from Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C. in 1976, and his D. Min. degree from Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, TN, in 1999. In addition, Tom has completed post-doctoral work in Pentateuchal Studies and in Religion, Politics and Social Issues from Vanderbilt University. He has published Proverbs: Wisdom for All Ages, Sermon on the Mount for Modern Living, and The Quest for Spiritual Maturity. He has served as pulpit minister in Virginia, Tennessee, and Colorado, and is presently outreach minister for the West End Church of Christ in Nashville, TN. Tom is actively involved with the Instituto Biblica Interamericano in Lima, Peru, serving as International President. Tom and his wife, Barbara, have three children: Amy, Tom Jr. (deceased), and Melanie, along with three grandchildren.

Dennis Loyd, retired professor of English at Lipscomb University, has taught in the Lifelong Learning program since its beginning. A specialist in American literature, he has taught such classes as Revolutionary War Literature, Civil War Literature, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Tennessee Literature, Nashville Writers, William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. This class will focus on the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, best known for his use of Puritan America as subject matter and his use of symbolism as a developing technique. Loyd is a graduate of David Lipscomb College and holds the Ph.D. from George Peabody College for Teachers.

Scott Sager became vice president of church services at Lipscomb University after 15 years as pulpit minister for the Preston Road Church of Christ in Dallas . Sager received his doctorate from SMU while focusing upon evangelism and mission in the local church. With an undergraduate degree in business, he worked with church leaders to create innovative and entrepreneurial ministries for the local church. His DMin project founded Christ’s Family Ministries, a fully functioning health clinic serving the working poor located in the Preston Road building. Involving about 15 doctors, the clinic provides a medical home for almost 400 area workers. Scott worked in the inner-city of Dallas and was an important ally in the growth of Central Dallas Ministries as the largest food pantry in Dallas. He also helped to found New Friends, New Life (a ministry to women leaving the sexual entertainment industry) and is on the board of the Christian Relief Fund, where his focus is on supporting AIDS orphans in Africa.

Sager holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Abilene Christian University as well as a doctorate of ministry from Southern Methodist University. He and his wife, Suzanne, have two children, Anna and Will.

Hearn came to Lipscomb University in Fall 1999 from Valdosta State University, where he taught for nine years as a tenured associate professor and graduate faculty member, including a stint as director of its Writing Center during the digital revolution of the early 1990s. At Lipscomb, Hearn chaired the English Department from 1999-2013, earning recognition twice as Outstanding University Teacher (2006 & 2011) and twice as Outstanding Academic Advisor (2004 & 2005). He has twice been elected to the Faculty Senate Council and currently serves on the university’s Health Professions Advising Committee.

With professional specialties in Middle English literature and literary theory, Hearn’s diverse teaching repertoire also includes courses in basic writing, advanced composition, world literature, Shakespeare, and film studies. He also designed and taught interdisciplinary undergraduate courses that combine biology and literature, theology and literature, history and literature, and film and literature; and he has frequently led or taught courses for Lipscomb’s Global Studies programs in London, Vienna, and Florence. His professional publications and presentations address a wide range of topics, from medieval literature and film studies to legal writing and interdisciplinary teaching, and he currently serves as a writing consultant for judges serving on the State of Tennessee’s Board of Workers’ Compensation. Hearn and his wife Mary have two adult sons (both Lipscomb alums) and worship at Otter Creek Church of Christ, where he serves as a pastoral elder.

Hearn holds degrees from Lipscomb University (BA in English ,1977), Vanderbilt University (MA in English, 1981), and Duke University (Ph.D. in Literature, 1990)

Rocky Horton received his undergraduate education at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. He received an MFA in studio art from West Virginia University in December of 2003. 
Since that time he has served as an Associate Professor of Art at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Horton is an internationally exhibiting conceptually based multi-disciplinary artist whose spans painting, sculpture, video, and performance. He has taught a variety of courses from foundations to upper-level studio courses, art theory, and art history.

Horton was the recipient of the SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference) juror’s award in 2013, Greensboro, N.C.

He has published in the SECAC review, presented and chaired sessions, and acted as a mentor at SECAC and FATE conferences. He is also an active founding member of COOP, a curatorial collective in Nashville, established in 2010.

Charlie McVey began teaching German and Russian at Lipscomb in 1975, after serving as a Russian-German linguist in the US Air Force in Germany. Trained in historical Germanic linguistics (M.A. / Ph.D. – U. Tenn; Russian – USAF/Syracuse University), he has taught a wide range of courses in addition to all levels of the German program and Elementary Russian at Lipscomb (Old English - Russian Cultural History - the German Fairy Tale - Business German Right from the Start – The German Bible). Working closely with Lipscomb’s global learning program in Vienna, Austria, he also involves students in area multicultural service opportunities, sponsoring the on-campus organizations Germania, Keltae (the Celtic Society) and the Native American Interest Council. Summer grants have had him doing research in Vienna and studying the letters of German POW interned in Tennessee during World War II. He is an ‘1860s Civilian Reenactor’, has been shepherding a small herd of Scottish Shetland Sheep for wool production, and enjoys playing Celtic music.

Guy Vanderpool has been a visiting professor of political science at Lipscomb since 1996. He teaches History of Modern China and the Far East, American Foreign Policy, and Intelligence and National Security. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for International Peace and Justice. Vanderpool came to Lipscomb after a 35 year career with the National Security Agency where he specialized in foreign policy issues and counter-intelligence.