New Meredith president takes helm. Jo Allen starts her tenure as president of Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. on July 1. Allen, elected April 18, is the first Meredith alumna to serve as president of the 120-year-old college, with historic ties to Baptists. The North Carolina native has been senior vice president, provost and professor of English at Widener University in Chester, Pa.
Former Chowan artist unveils new series. David Parker, an artist who chaired Chowan University’s department of visual arts for almost 20 years, unveiled this spring a series of paintings featuring the Stations of the Cross. The paintings were exhibited in the Green Hall Art Galleries on the Murfreesboro, N.C., campus of the Baptist-affiliated school. Parker, who taught at Chowan from 1973 to 1992, has retired but continues to teach part-time at Cateret Community College in Morehead City, N.C.
Panels to study BF&M, alcohol use. Baptist State Convention of North Carolina leaders in April named two study committees — one that could lead to the adoption of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as the BSCNC’s official doctrinal statement, and another that would exclude those who use alcohol as a beverage from convention employment or election to its committees and boards. Bobby Blanton, a Huntersville, N.C., pastor who chairs the BSCNC’s executive committee, told the convention’s board of directors May 17 that the committees had begun their work, according to the Biblical Recorder, the convention’s newsjournal. The committees were created in reponse to motions made at the BSCNC annual meeting last fall, and the panels will report to the executive committee in August and the board of directors in September.