Campus News

Sam B. Hall Lectureship To Be Held February 22 at ETBU

MARSHALL, Texas (2/05/10)- The recipient of the first Sam B. Hall Jr. Civic Service Award will be announced during the Sam B. Hall Lectureship Banquet at East Texas Baptist University on Monday, February 22, at 7:00 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the Mamye Jarrett Library.

The program will include a banquet, musical entertainment and a lecture on the ETBU campus. Ticket information is available by calling the School of Humanities at (903) 923-2083 or e-mail at humanitas@etbu.edu. Advance reservations are recommended as seating is limited; a few tickets may be available at the event.

Dr. J. David Holcomb of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton will speak on the theme "Up Against the Wall: Church, State, and the U.S. Supreme Court.” His lecture will address recent Supreme Court decisions related to religious liberty and separation issues.

Dr. Holcomb is an associate professor of history and political science and associate director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the UMHB. He is a graduate of William Jewell College and Baylor University, where he received the M.A. and Ph.D. in church-state studies. His academic specialty is church-state relations, and his publications have appeared in the Journal of Law and Religion, Journal of Church and State, Church-State Issues in America Today, Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics, Baptist History and Heritage, and the Journal of Texas Baptist History.

In addition to teaching courses in religion and politics, constitutional law, and political theory, he provides administrative oversight to UMHB’s Honors Program and London Studies Program. Currently serving on the Board of Commissioners of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Dr. Holcomb is a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Meadow Oaks Baptist Church in Temple. Dr. Holcomb’s wife, Dr. Carol Crawford Holcomb, teaches in the School of Christian Studies at UMHB. They are the proud parents of three young boys.

The Sam B. Hall Lecture Series was endowed in 1993 by the family and friends of Congressman and U.S. District Judge Sam B. Hall, Jr. A native of Marshall and an alumnus of the College of Marshall, now ETBU, and the Baylor University School of Law, Judge Hall was a member and president of several civic organizations and the Marshall Regional Medical Center before his death in 1994. The Hall Professor of History is Dr. Jerry L. Summers, chairman of the department of history and political science and dean of the School of Humanities at ETBU.