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Monday, October 7, 2013
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CEMETERY WALK • LOCAL, A3
Arkush: Bears in over their heads with Saints
Civil War history explored at annual event
Jay Cutler (right) and Malcolm Jenkins
Libya to U.S.: Explain the raid
Thomas Oestreicher
NIU ADMISSIONS PROGRAM REACHES MILESTONE
2nd chance to succeed
Incursion captures suspect in 1998 embassy bombings By ESAM MOHAMED and TONY G. GABRIEL The Associated Press
John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, said Sunday that a pair of U.S. military raids against militants in North Africa sends the message that terrorists “can run but they can’t hide.”
Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, alias Abu Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the U.S. for more than a decade.
A suspected Libyan al-Qaida figure nabbed by U.S. special forces in a dramatic operation in Tripoli was living freely in his homeland for the past two years, after a trajectory that took him to Sudan, Afghanistan and Iran, where he had been detained for years, his family said Sunday. The Libyan government bristled at the raid, asking Washington to explain the “kidnapping.” The swift Delta Force operation in the streets of the Libyan capital that seized the militant known as Abu Anas al-Libi was one of two assaults Saturday that showed an American determination to move directly against terror suspects – even in two nations mired in chaos where the U.S. has suffered deadly humiliations in the past. Hours before the Libya raid, a Navy SEAL team swam ashore in the East African nation of Somalia and engaged in a fierce firefight, though it did not capture its target, a leading militant in the al-Qaidalinked group that carried out the recent Kenyan mall siege. “We hope that this makes clear that the United States of America will never stop in the effort to hold those accountable who conduct acts of terror,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday at an economic summit in Indonesia. “Members of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations literally can run but they can’t hide.” Nazih Abdul-Hamed alRuqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Libi, was accused by the U.S. of involvement in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam,
Photos by Rob Winner – rwinner@shawmedia.com
Former CHANCE Program director Leroy Mitchell reacts while receiving a standing ovation from the audience during an awards ceremony Friday at the Regency Room on the Northern Illinois Campus in DeKalb. Mitchell was the director for 28 years. CHANCE stands for counseling, help and assistance necessary for a college education.
NIU program marks 45 years of looking beyond test scores By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI
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Even with doubts going through my mind constantly, I knew that one day, all my hard work would pay off. I was the first person in my family to attend college, like many other CHANCE students.
jduchnowski@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Christopher Gatrel was active in several sports and had solid grades in high school, but he was rejected from 11 of the 12 colleges to which he applied. He figures it was his low ACT score. But, after being admitted to Northern Illinois University through the CHANCE Program, he’s graduating with a degree in kinesiology and was offered a job Wednesday at the high-end gym where he has been an intern. The CHANCE Program, which offers relaxed admissions standards and extra support for students who show academic promise, also led to Gatrel receiving a scholarship his sophomore year after his loan options fell through. “Finally, I am able to pursue my passion for helping others get the most out of life,” Gatrel said. “Even with doubts going through my mind constantly, I knew that one day, all my hard work would pay off. I was the first person in my family to at-
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Christopher Gatrel College of Nursing student Heather Gregory speaks Friday about what the CHANCE Program at Northern Illinois University has meant to her during the 45th year anniversary and awards reception at the Regency Room on the NIU campus in DeKalb. tend college, like many other CHANCE students.” Gatrel was among the handful of success stories NIU officials shared Friday at an awards ceremony celebrating the 45th year of the CHANCE Program, an acronym for counseling, help and assistance necessary for a college education. The program grew from 56 students, including nine transfers and four GED
students, in January 1969 to routinely admitting about 500 students a year. The program grew out of the civil rights movement, according to a history Leroy Mitchell, former director of the CHANCE program and co-pastor at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, read at the reception. About a month after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, black
Beneficiary of Northern Illinois University’s CHANCE program
NIU students upset about the lack of minority representation on campus staged a sit-in at Lowden Hall. At the time, less than 300 of the university’s 18,000 students were black. “The black students produced a list of seven demands for the president,” Mitchell said. “One was a request for a waiver of the usual admissions
See CHANCE, page A3
See LIBYA, page A3
Church’s furniture donations aid NIU students, professors By FELIX SARVER fsarver@shawmedia.com
Provided photo
Sougata Dhar (left) and Saptarshi Chatterjee (right), NIU graduate students from India, carry a desk into an apartment building in DeKalb in September 2012.
SYCAMORE – Dan Stovall’s trip to China this summer was marked by generosity. It was the kind of generosity the pastor of the Sycamore Baptist Church shows for people who visit and live in the U.S. When Stovall and his wife went to Beijing, they were invited into the home of a man who had been a visiting professor at Northern Illinois University. Stovall had helped this pro-
fessor when he lived in the U.S. by providing free furniture. It’s one of the many services his church provides not only to visiting professors but international students in the DeKalb and Sycamore area. But it’s not all about giving away furniture. “The nice thing about this is that we don’t just provide the furniture, we begin a relationship,” he said. Stovall said he started the service five years ago to meet the needs of international students who come to NIU without desks, couches
or tables. The international students can get in touch with the church by phone, email or social media to request furniture they need, he said. The church doesn’t provide smaller household items such as pots and pans, though. “We’ve been at this long enough to know the students’ needs as well as our limits,” he said. Kalyani Sunkara, an NIU mechanical engineering graduate student from India, said she found the program helpful and the people who volunteer for it friendly.
“It’s kind of cool,” she said. “It’s so helpful.” Demand tends to be high at the beginning and end of the semester, and the program has grown in size over the years, Stovall said. It has provided furniture for more than 200 students this semester, he said. Volunteers started with one storage space for the furniture and now have three. Much of the furniture is donated either from the community or in the Chicago area. Some international students ask him why he runs a
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program like this, since they do not find one in their own country. Stovall said it’s because he wants to show them Americans are good people, and Christians are, too. “I’m a Christian and I want you to know Christians are OK people,” he said. International students can learn more about the program by emailing the Sycamore Baptist Church at sycamorebap@yahoo.com or by calling 815-895-2577. Donations of furniture can also be made to the church.
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