Regent Royals’ Summertime Sagas
This summer, Regent Royals embarked on adventures at home and abroad. Here are some of the ways professors and students spent their time off from school!
Dr. Larson
English professor, Dr. Larson, had the opportunity to host and organize an academic conference on Regent’s campus this summer. The event was one of several regional conferences held all over the United States. This event was organized through the Conference on Christianity and Literature (CCL), a society that delves into the ways literature connects with Christianity. The conference’s theme was “Transformations in Literary Traditions” and hosted a keynote speaker from Baylor University.
“One participant came all the way from South Korea, and we had people at all levels read papers, including undergraduate students, graduate students and professors,” Dr. Larson shared. “Among the presenters were two Regent undergraduates and a recent Regent graduate who is working on a Ph.D. in English at Baylor University.”
The CCL event at Regent was only the beginning of summer conference adventures for Dr. Larson. He was proud to organize his first conference on Regent’s campus and, in July, he also presented at an international conference in Toronto. Beyond the excitement of speaking engagements, Dr. Larson was most excited to spend his summer with his family and enjoyed a lovely vacation with his three daughters.
Study Abroad: Literary Britain
A group of 25 Regent students led by Dr. Fraser, Dr. Baugus and Marjorie Ackerman embarked on a tour of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England this past May. The students were able to visit the European countries through a Study Abroad Trip of Literary Britain and Ireland in correlation with an English class focused on some of the great Romantic novelists and poets.
The group visited a variety of historical landmarks and sites with literary significance to explore the places of inspirations for these great writers. Sites on the trip included the Kilns (C.S. Lewis’ home), Edinburgh Castle, the tower of London and other exciting locations in the four countries.
A particularly rich experience was the Westminster Abbey, where over 100 poets and writers are buried and memorialized in the Poet’s Corner. The students were able to see the memorials of renowned figures such as William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. The Corner also acts as the burial site of authors like Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling.
On the tour, students were also able to study the life of Scottish economist Adam Smith and his impact on the United States. They visited the Adam Smith Institute in London, 92 Avenue Champs-Élysées (Thomas Jefferson’s Paris residence) and Hotel d’York (the place where the Revolutionary War peace treaty was signed). The trip gave students a firsthand experience of their course subject matter while also showcasing the unique cultures of each country.
Dr. Mattix
Dr. Mattix, another professor in the English department, had a summer packed with travel. This past May, Dr. Mattix and his wife ventured down to South Carolina for his son’s graduation from Erskine College, a Christian liberal arts school in Due West. They then visited their daughter, a Regent alumna, traveling all the way up to Victoria, British Columbia, to meet her newborn daughter and their first grandchild, Cordelia.
June brought even more adventures for Dr. Mattix and his family – they flew to Austria to attend the wedding of another daughter, followed by a weeklong trip to his wife’s home country of Switzerland. Dr. Mattix spent his time in Switzerland visiting his wife’s family and biking across the beautiful country. In July, Dr. Mattix came back to the United States to give a keynote lecture discussing “The Future of Literary Criticism.” The lecture was held at the University of St. Thomas for their Summer Literary Series, an annual event held in Houston, Texas, to celebrate the literary arts.
In the midst of the exciting travel, Dr. Mattix also took some time to enjoy his passions. “In addition to writing a handful of reviews and working on my German,” he noted, “I spent much of the rest of the summer working on a new book on the importance of beauty and form in literature.”
Other Adventures
Regent students also made sure to stay busy on their own this summer, and brought a spirit of leadership with them wherever they went.
Jessica Neer (CAS ’24) spent her summer working for the U.S. Senate, leading young students while experiencing one of our most valuable branches of government firsthand.
“I’ll be working on the chamber floor where all of the voting happens,” Jessica explained.
Another student, Chloe Warren (CAS ’26) visited Tupelo, Mississippi this July to volunteer in the American Family Association’s Marriage Family Life Conference. Chloe contributed as a chaperone, helping clean and set up games for the duration of the youth conference.
Whether it was here at home or in lands far, far away, Regent students and professors all had summers to remember. Message us on Instagram to share your own summer sagas!
