A imperfectly perfect year: Journey after a rare, unexpected diagnosis
vol. 103, no. 47
wednesday, arpil 15, 2015
Feature Page 5
1 SECTION, 6 PAGES
ON YOUR
what’s INSIDE NEWS Annual Miss Frontier Texas competition crowns winner Page 3
SPORTS Baseball suffers first conference sweep against TAMCC
MARK
GET SET GO GRAY
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OPINION Campus carry bill in the Texas legislator is messy, even for private universities Page 4
SPORTS ACU inducts five new members into the sports Hall of Fame Page 6
yam saowatarnpong staff Photographer
Top: Ed Gray, the late Elmer Gray’s son, fires the starter pistol for the ceremonial races at the opening of the new stadium. Bottom: Students fill up the new stands at Friday’s pep rally after Chapel.
Jennings elected treasurer in run-off
OPINION Brittany Jackson shares her clicking confession
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the beginning. “Chuck and Cameron were great and I was super nervous about everything,” Morgan Jennings was elect- she said. “It definitely ed the 2015-2016 Students’ wasn’t something I could Association executive trea- take for granted.” surer in the run-off elecJennings said she spent tion Tuesday. Jennings beat all of Tuesday texting and Chuck Oputa by 29 votes. messaging students on Jennings, sophomore Facebook. accounting major from “I sent messages to 390 Abilene, said she was ner- people almost,” she said. vous about the race from “I didn’t want to be obtru-
madeline orr
editor in chief
student reporter
KACU seeks supporters in annual spring pledge drive Page 3
SPORTS Track and field place second in the Wes Kittley Invitational
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Current freshmen can look forward to online-only housing registration that will let them choose where they want to live, right down to their room number. An update to the housing registration software used by the Office of Residence Life Education and Housing will allow freshmen to pick their roommate, select their preferred hall and choose their room. An information meeting explaining how to use the
ONLINE Savanah Silva hosts this week’s newscast covering arts, sports and more
Read more at acuoptimist.com
goals for next fall. “I really want to be better about communication within SA, about budgets and why decisions are made,” she said. “I can’t wait to meet with everyone and see what they need this year.”
contact orr at mco10b@acu.edu
new housing system will be from 7-8 p.m. April 22 in Hart Auditorium. This is the first time the ResLife office has done online selection for housing, and Director of Residence Life Bob Strader is already preparing for improvements to the system. “When you do something for the first time, you usually have some glitches that you need to improve on the next year,” Strader said. “I feel really good about this, but I also know we’ll find some things we’ll need to do differently as we move forward.”
Residential Services Coordinator Debbie Stewart said this new system will be an easier, more efficient way for students to register for sophomore housing. “In the past with the lottery system, if you didn’t have a high lottery number, you weren’t guaranteed to get the place that you wanted and couldn’t be sure what your housing situation was going to be like,” Stewart said. “Once you select a housing assignment on the new online system, you know immediately what your housing selection is going to be.”
Students will be able to validate their roommate selections with PINs they must set up in order to register. “The PIN number will be given to the person you want to room with, so if you don’t want to room with someone, do not give them your PIN number,” Stewart said. After students follow the instructions for roommate selection, they can then choose their desired dorm, look at a map of each floor and select which room they want to live in. The map shows exactly how many beds are in a room, which
rooms are still available and where rooms are in relation to exits and lobbies. Strader said this new system will be an improvement in the registration process for students and administrators. “I think it’ll be easier on everybody,” Strader said. “Students won’t have to wait, they’ll have much more access to specific rooms and, of course, we won’t be sitting behind a desk seeing one person at a time.” contact the optimsit at jmcnetwork@acu.edu
Speaker from UN Women Skypes in with faculty abbey bowling
what’s online
gress next year.” Orr said he is excited for Jennings. “She is very experienced and I jennings can’t wait to work with her in the SA office next year,” he said. Jennings said she is excited to work with Carter and Orr and has lots of
New software streamlines housing process mercedez Hernandez
NEWS
sive–I felt like we had already gotten our message out.” Caleb Orr, recently elected SA vice president, said he thought the treasurer race was exciting and close on both sides. “I’m really thankful for Chuck for running,” Orr said. “He’s one of our most passionate SA congress members and I hope that he’ll do great things in Con-
student reporter Dina Deligiorgis, a representative from UN Women, spoke to ACU faculty, staff and students Tuesday about the progression of gender equality and how to end violence against women. Deligiorgis is a knowledge management specialist for UN Women, a United Nations organization that was created to address the issue of gender inequality. “From a young age, I’ve been very concerned with everyone’s wellbeing and it’s just over time that I started realizing that my heart was really in gender equality work,” Deligior-
gis said. “Violence against women and girls, in particular, is such a lifelong detrimental experience for women. It actually impinges everything else – it impinges their productivity, their mental and physical health... it’s something that colors the rest of their life experience.” UN Women particularly works with prevention methods of violence against women. They implement concepts at the individual level and community level with institutions to deconstruct masculinities, femininities, relationships and social norms, Deligiorgis said. “A trend we’ve seen in the last five years is engaging men and boys to end
violence against women and girls,” Deligiorgis said. “Not because they’re primarily the perpetrators, which does happen to be the truth, but because there are a lot of male champions out there who understand and believe that violence is wrong.” This semester, a faculty reading group has been reading former President Jimmy Carter’s book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power, in which Carter addresses the issue of ongoing discrimination against women. “Carter’s book reads almost like a catalog of erika bolado Staff Photographer 11 primary ways that vioDina Deligiorgis, UN representative speaks in the Adams lence Center on Tuesday. see speaker page 3
Abilene Christian University