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Pg. 8 Nationally ranked football team to host home opener

Friday, September 12, 2008 :: Vol. 97, No. 6 :: 1 section, 8 pages :: www.acuoptimist.com

Inside This Issue:

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Money theft: President’s portrait stolen during summer holiday

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Find cheap places to eat around town beside your fast food favorites

Athletics Department sponsors benefit run for ill infant

Enrollment numbers increase from 2007-08 year By Laura Acuff Opinion Page Editor

ACU officials announced enrollment numbers for fall 2008 Wednesday, confirming this year’s freshman class is the third largest in the last six years, according to an ACU press release.

“We had an aggressive enrollment goal,” said director of Admissions Haley Webb. “To have the success that we did was something we attributed to the hard work put forth by our campus-wide partners and the entire enrollment staff.” Nine hundred and seventy-

four students enrolled in the 2008 freshman class compared to 890 enrolled freshmen in 2007, a difference of 84 students. The difference partially may be attributed to the Mobile Learning Initiative implemented this fall, but no one can know its exact impact; it

definitely excited students, Webb said. While the greater enrollment numbers required some adjusting, Webb said the ACU community has handled it well and was happy to do so. Changes this year included the housing of some freshman men in Edwards Hall and

And the winners are...

By Michael Freeman Managing Editor

By Daniel Johnson-Kim Editor in Chief

The votes are in and several students earned spots in the Students’ Association Congress for the 2008-09 school year. Only five of the 13 races for elected positions in the SA Congress were contested, and several of the students who lost various races may be appointed to different offices in the future. More than 400 students cast a ballot in the election. All of the students who won offices are required to attend a Students’ Association Retreat where they will learn about parliamentary procedures and SA’s function on campus, said Vice President Sarah Pulis. “We have a lot of new members in Congress this year,” Pulis said. “The senior class last year was very active, and they all graduated, so a majority of our Congress are underclassmen.” Zach Linge, Jacob Groves, Carson Henley, Hailey Clinton and Kelly Lytle defeated Amie Cavitt and Colin Barnard to win seats as Freshman Senators. Jake Hutto and Connor Best defeated Jacob Raitz and Jay Morales for the Mabee Zak Zeinert :: chief photographer Jordan Johnston, sophomore Bible major from Carollton, casts his vote Wednesday in the Campus Center.

Elections page 4

“There’s a lot of excitement right now at ACU,” said Phil Schubert, executive vice president for ACU, in an ACU press release. “We have a lot of innovative programs and initiatives, and that creates vibrancy on campus. We are See

Numbers page 4

Summit brings host of changes

Students vote in 2008-09 Congress

See

the reopening of McDonald hall, which remained empty of residents last year. Graduate and online programs also increased enrollment; 764 graduate students and 260 online students enrolled this fall compared to last year’s 679 and 124 students, respectively.

Lectureship will have more than a new name this year; it will have new featured speakers, meetings and opportunities for student involvement. For 91 years, ACU’s annual weeklong Bible lecture series was called Bryce “Lectureship”, but this year, the name for the event will be “Summit”. “‘Lectureship’ is not really a word that people on the outside have any knowledge of,” said Brady Bryce, director of ministry events. “It is also a word that communicates a one-sided conversation—there is an expert at the front speaking down to a group of people.” The focus of this year’s event will be to involve more people in a conversation on daily ministry, biblical matters and moral issues, Bryce said. Bryce researched the history of Lectureship and realized students were heavily involved in the event when it first began. Over the years, Lectureship centered on church leadership and history and slowly became more of an alumni event. “My desire is [to] bring the students back,” Bryce said. “For alumni, I think that they’ve been excited to hear about how students will be involved.”

Instead of in the mornings, most Summit meetings and classes will occur in the afternoons and evenings, a change tailored to work into students’ academic schedules. Twenty-three Chapel credits also will be available for students during Summit, and in some meetings, students will have the chance to text in questions to the speakers to add their voices to the conversations, Bryce said. The three featured speakers for Summit will be Brian McLaren, J. Matthew Sleeth and Sam Solomon. McLaren is a Christian author and church planter who has appeared on Larry King Live, Nightline and Religion and Ethics. Sleeth is an environmentalist and former emergency room doctor who has written the book Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action. Solomon is a former Muslim terrorist who converted to Christianity and became a lawyer and adviser to the United Kingdom’s Parliament. Students played a role in helping to bring all three speakers to the campus. “This is a great event,” Bryce said. “We need places where we can talk. I don’t want to have safe conversations; I want to create safe places for conversations to take place and I feel like ACU can model that.” For more information on Summit, students can visit www.acu.edu/events/summit.

E-mail Freeman at: mxf04b@acu.edu

Authors’ forum gives students first-person perspective By Kelline Linton Head Copy Editor

Gumercindo Holmes sat in Moody Coliseum, listening intently as Ron Hall and Denver Moore told a tale of redemption, friendship and God’s love in Tuesday’s Chapel forum. Holmes had read the same story in the book the Same Kind of Different as Me, but hearing about the real-life events from the au-

thors themselves changed his whole perspective. “When I first read the book, I was wondering who the characters were in real life, if they were authentic,” said Holmes, sophomore psychology major from Pennsgrove, N.J. “They were very real.” More than 2,800 people from the Abilene and ACU communities packed Moody Coliseum to hear the authors discuss their book.

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It was like an assembly where they talked to us. :: JoJo Boyle, sophomore social work major from Memphis, Tenn.

“It was truly amazing,” said Dr. Charles Mattis, dean of the First-Year Program, in an e-mail. The authors’ visit was the