And the winner IS...

There simply are no words to describe how excited I am that the Baptist & Reflector discovered that there are three universities in Tennessee associated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Congratulations to the PR departments at Union, Carson Newman, and Belmont for getting the good news about your U.S. News and World Report rankings in front of the editors at the B&R. Now, we have clear evidence of who the favored children are and who are the adopted children in our Baptist/Christian college ranks.

Here is the breakdown of the article*:

• Union's record of ten years worth of recognition as a top tier school, this year ranking 25th in the Master's category takes up roughly 60% of the space in the article.


• Carson Newman's recognition as the only Tennessee College in the Best Value for the money category received 25% of the space.


• In the also mentioned, Tennessee-Baptist, adopted-child category, is a token mention of Belmont University achieving a Top Ten ranking (Number 10), a mere 15 places above Union's ranking in the same category.

It is pretty obvious to me that Union University is the Baptist and Reflector's favorite child...and rightly so, Union's advertising in the B&R surpasses that of Carson Newman and Belmont by a considerable margin....my favorite Union University ad is the one in the last issue that included a nearly life-sized picture of Rev. Jerry Sutton, Union's poster boy for encouraging cooperative program destruction in the Southern Baptist Convention. With friends like that, Union may continue thier cheer of "We're Number 25!" Whoopie! As for Carson Newman, their teacher to student ratio and the low cost (after scholarships) makes them a great deal on the value-for-your-money list. I hope they can survive and prosper and maintain their course without (more) hassles from the TBC.

I have seen publicity for a number of Ice Cream Sundays in area churches...it is an idea whose time has come. If only the former Church Training Department from the Baptist Sunday School Board could have altered their Church, the Sunday Night Place promotion to say Church the Sundae Night Place, then we might still be enjoying good numbers in Sunday evening worship. Phil Harris would have liked that a lot. Here's to a double scoop of homemade, candy cane, ice cream...the perfect collegiate cooler for celebrating our institutions of higher education.

*Actual count using MSWord
Total Words in B&R Article = 550 Words
Union 320 - 58.2%
Carson Newman 135 - 24.5%
Belmont 95 - 17.3%