Opinion Page 4
Pledge Perplexities vol. 103, no. 5
1 SECTION, 6 PAGES
friday, september 5, 2014
Our flowchart makes the choice simple
INSIDE SPORTS New faces help Wildcats in first Southland Season.
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NEWS The Bean makes changes to menu and food preparation.
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ARTS Check out this month’s new movies, books and music.
RUSH HOUR
Emily teel staff photographer
Mabree Moore, sophomore education major from Brownwood, and Mikayla Beebe, sophomore accounting major from Vernon, enjoy sparklers and conversation at GATA’s rush on Tuesday night.
Universities discuss Yik Yak issues Tommy Evans Online Editor Page 5
SPORTS Football hosts FCS opponent Northern Arizona in the first home game.
The advent of the anonymous social media app Yik Yak has not just been a hot topic in the ACU community. Many universities and schools across the nation are having to address some of the problems the app causes. “It is impossible to think that we are the only ones having this discus-
sion,” said Scott Kilmer, director of online marketing for ACU. “Schools like SMU and University of Miami are having huge issues in dealing with this app.” Last spring, the SMU Student Senate was voting on adding a seat for an LGBT representative. The measure was passed among the senate members at a vote of 43 to 3, but the student body failed to pass the two-thirds ma-
jority needed to ratify the position according to the Lone Star Q. A case was made among the student body that Yik Yak was used to both rally support for those opposed to the measure, and to also stage homophobic attacks and cyber-bullying against the LGBT community at SMU. “Yik Yak also deals with more serious things other than hate speech, such as bomb threats,”
Kilmer said. “There is that level of seriousness that is out there.” Kilmer said unlike in the past when Twitter and Facebook accounts have falsely represented the university, he believes Yik Yak represents more of the community voice, and, while it does not represent ACU as a whole, it represents the community and student body. “We do not have a specific way of policing Yik
Yak because we don’t have access to everyone’s personal info, but what we see is that the conversation has definitely changed since the first week of school,” Kilmer said. Phillip Lamborn, a senior political science major from San Diego, California believes that Yik Yak has gotten worse see app page 3
PepsiCo truck gets MakerLab overhaul elijah evans staff reporter Page 6
SPORTS Cross country travels to Snyder for its first meet of the year Page 6
NEWS CEO kicked off entrepreneur speaker series for the semester Page 3
VIDEO Hannah Little gives the weekly update on ACU Athletics in the JMC Sportscast
Read more at acuoptimist.com
A multidisciplinary food truck initiative headed by Dr. Stephen Johnson, the dean of the graduate school, and designed by Nil Santana, director of the MakerLab, recently partnered with PepsiCo Inc. to eliminate a food desert in south Dallas. Johnson and Santana desire to create a graphically-robust vehicle for educating the south Dallas community on healthy eating habits and the importance of healthconscious food choices. PepsiCo Inc. donated the food truck to ACU students and the PepsiCo Foundation provided a grant to fund the project. Johnson highlighted the collaboration between PepsiCo Inc., ACU CitySquare and the Mak-
erLab to tackle a problem in south Dallas, as an example of the school’s mission to impact the world. Hayden Walker, junior graphic design major from Bridgeport, Texas, said, “I’m excited about the project, it’s really cool to be able to impact kids in this way. It’s fun, it’s creative, and hopefully it makes a splash in the lives of these kids.” Walker expects his duties will pertain to the design of the truck’s exterior. He said, “As far as I know, the main designing that will need to be done, will be wrapping the truck with some type of image and signage.” Nil Santana invited Walker to assist with the design. Santana is facilitating the design of the Itzel Garcia De Alba staff photographer truck through the MakerDr. Stephen Johnson and Nil Santana, make plans for a food truck that was donated to Lab. ACU students by PepsiCo Inc. see truck page 3
ACU applies for $4M grant from USDE Department of Education’s website, the grants will fund the development and testing of innovation The university has ap- approaches and strategies plied for the U.S. Depart- at colleges and universiment of Education’s First ties that improve college in the World grant which attainment and make would provide almost $4 higher education more afmillion over four years to- fordable for students and ward expanding existing families. student programs at ACU Mark Billingsley, direcCitySquare Dallas. tor of research and sponAccording to the U.S. sored programs, said the
madeline orr
editor in chief
program at CitySquare is helping students from the Dallas Independent School District make college affordable in an outof-the-box way. “The reason it’s so creative is because they are looking at things like portfolios, work already done in other capacities and credit that could be given,” he said. “We’re going to have to look at different
Abilene Christian University
ways to train students instead of just having bodies in a classroom.” Dr. Robert Rhodes, provost of university, said the grant would be used for applying a competencybased approach to our work with students both at CitySquare and the Abilene campus. “It’s very competitive but it’s worth pursuing,” Rhodes said.
The application was due by June 30 but the U.S. Department of Education has not announced when winners of the grant will be awarded. “I hope we get it because I’m excited about the vision for the future,” Billingsley said. contact orr at mco10b@acu.edu