College of Health Sciences missions program gets a $100,000 booster shot

Lipscomb’s medical missions got a boost with a $100,000 donation from the Vultee Charitable Foundation on Giving Day 2026.

By Janel Shoun-Smith | 615-966-7078  |  02/27/2026

Lipscomb’s College of Health Sciences (CHS) is on a mission to build on Lipscomb’s longstanding tradition of short-term missions with an even stronger, vocationally focused missions program in the health sciences, and this week they got a big booster shot toward that goal.

The Vultee Charitable Foundation, a local foundation created by the former Vultee Church of Christ in Nashville, has donated $100,000 towards the college’s effort to coordinate and expand Lipscomb’s medical missions through its own interdisciplinary College Medical Missions Committee.

The Vultee contribution to support faculty and student mission trip scholarships will “fill the gap” to allow those who want to be involved, but who are not financially able, to live out that desire and help communities near and far, said CHS Dean Lynette Austin.

“This will be a good start!” said Phil Henry (BS ’73), one of the three board members of the Vultee Foundation, which has also established a Student Missions Endowment Fund for the campuswide Lipscomb Missions office and contributed funds to various renovation projects on campus. “To be able to do something like this is a great blessing, and God is right in the middle of it.”

The foundation prioritizes giving to specific projects that the  board believes are “truly saving lives” around the world, and Lipscomb’s medical missions fit that bill, he said.

The contribution follows the October 2024 creation of the CHS’s College Medical Missions Committee, an eight-member committee from all health science disciplines represented in the college and charged with creating meaningful partnerships with community stakeholders to promote and expand these transformative, spiritual and educational experiences, both locally and abroad.

“The vision is to eventually create a donor-funded medical missions center in the college to broaden the impact for involved students, faculty and the communities served,” said Anne Lowery, chair of the CHS missions committee, dietetic internship director and associate professor. “We want to increase interdisciplinary domestic and global trips led by faculty or alumni, through long-term, sustainable and ethical partnerships.”

“Health science students love serving on international missions, but not all health science programs have the opportunity to take students to learn in their discipline-specific area. That’s a unique advantage we can provide,” said Austin. “The committee is working to expand those discipline-specific mission opportunities and to ensure those trips are providing the best and most relevant vocational experience possible.”

The committee’s work to form strategic partnerships is already bearing fruit. Two new mission trips have been established for spring break in March. One will take seven physician assistant students, one graduate dietetics student and three faculty leaders to Predisan Health Ministries in Honduras. The second will send a team of nursing and nutrition students with two faculty leaders to serve at the Health and Hope Clinic in Pensacola, Florida.

Those opportunities complement Lipscomb Missions’ existing medical mission trips traditionally led by CHS faculty to Blessings Hospital in Malawi, Africa, and a trip with Health Talents International to Guatemala, expanding the college's reach while maintaining its commitment to sustainable partnerships.

Jennifer Hicks, instructor in nursing, leads the Guatemala trip in June. She appreciates the committee’s focus on involving multiple disciplines and said that it “will enhance the number of, and quality of, mission opportunities for students.”

Jenni Whitefield, adjunct faculty in nursing, has led the Malawi trip since 2013. “This trip offers the perfect collaborative model of working effectively and compassionately alongside many different professionals, all serving different needs on the medical/surgical spectrum in order to offer safe, streamlined, Christ-like care,” she said.

Since the creation of the CHS missions committee, the group has been strategically developing a process for formal evaluation for existing and potential new partnerships for trips, said Lowery, noting that other new locations are currently undergoing that evaluation.

The committee is building on mission work previously done by Lipscomb Missions and the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering’s Peugeot Center for Engineering Service in Developing Communities, to “tailor and refine plans to both enhance health science students' education and serve others through Christ-centered missions,” said Linda Elrod, member of the committee and associate professor in physician assistant studies.

“We recognize the need to begin our engagements with a thorough assessment of the needs of the communities that we are to serve as well as an assessment of the existing health care infrastructure,” said Elrod. “The committee is working toward partnering to enhance delivery of care for both the physical and spiritual needs of those they serve.”

“We consider factors such as cost, safety, alignment of vision, sustainability, leadership, student interest, and many other elements that contribute to the success of these trips,” said Kathy Williams, member of the CHS missions committee, adjunct faculty in the School of Nursing and co-leader of the Malawi and new Florida mission trip.

“The committee developed assessments for each new site to ensure that whenever we begin working with a new location, it shares the same vision as Lipscomb and the same love for the Lord,” said Williams. “In addition, the committee raises and allocates funds to support faculty leaders who often use their own time off and personal finances to lead, which can make it challenging to recruit leaders.”

Freeing up resources to allow more faculty to lead mission trips will be a major benefit of the Vultee Foundation donation, said Austin.

The responsibilities of leading a mission opportunity make for “a very intense time for faculty,” said Austin. “It is difficult to ask faculty to give of their own money when they are already giving so much of their own heart. Through this donation, faculty can be supported financially so that they can pour all of their work and caring into the students. The Vultee gift will also allow us to assist students with limited financial resources to participate in trips that would otherwise be out of their reach.”