ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY

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Volume 92, Issue 36

Gospel A gospel choir came to ASU to perform for the end of Black History Month

News 4

Thursday, February 28, 2013

This week in history:In 1975, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed a bill establishing a branch of ASU at Highland in Sharp County.

“ “I don’t believe you need to coddle your students. I do believe they should be able to ask you a question face to face and expect to get an intelligent answer.”

Days left until Spring

Break

#Life|3

QuoteableWhat’s InsideOpinion.........................2#Life...............................3

Sports............................ 6News..............................4-5

Xinzhong Zhao | Staff PhotographerThe Saint Paul Missionary Baptist Church Choir sings Tuesday evening at the Gospel Explosion as a part of the end of Black History Month at ASU.

RESEARCH, 4SOLDIERS, 4

15

WOMEN, 4

Many departments are collaborating to cre-ate a well-rounded program for Women’s History Month.

The events will kick-off on Friday with a round-table discussion of “The Feminine Mystique Revis-ited,” that is then followed with a short play and talk on the life and times of Queen Elizabeth I by Carole Levin, the Willa Cather professor of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, according to the

press release. The events will be held at 4:30 p.m. in Wilson Hall Auditorium.

“Women’s History Month is dedicated to high-lighting the accomplishments of women in the past who may have otherwise been ignored or sidelined in ‘traditional’ histories that focus more heavily on men,” said Kate Krueger, assistant professor of English and Philosophy. “Essentially, it is meant to create a more full and balanced picture of the ways in which women have played pivotal roles in our collective history. After all, women do make up half of humanity.”

For a number of years, the event was to cele-brate Senator Hattie Caraway, the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate in the early 1930’s, said Sarah Wilkerson-Freeman, associate professor of History.

“She was of Jonesboro and we were able to cel-ebrate local U.S. women’s history,” Wilkerson-Free-man said. “This year we will instead focus on the now and how history has taken a different turn.”

Another event that is part of Women’s Histo-ry Month that takes the history side is the topic of “Women’s History, Health and Reproductive

ASU gears up for Women’s History MonthDebate team extends win streak

Israeli soldiers share stories

After a nearly flawless season, four members of the ASU debate team will be tak-ing their A-game overseas next week as they travel to Antwerp, Belgium for the International Forensics As-sociation’s annual speech and debate tournament.

Team member Micah Christensen, a junior com-munication studies major of Cheyenne, Wy., said the team’s most recent victory at Louisiana State Universi-ty was an illustration of the success the team has experi-enced all season. “We didn’t just win LSU, we really won LSU,” Christensen said. “Not only did we win all the rounds but we also won all five of the top speaking positions.”

Christensen’s debate part-ner Ken Corbit, a senior com-munication studies major of Jonesboro, added to the list

Two soldiers from the Is-raeli Defense Force shared their stories with students Monday in a presentation de-signed to show a human side of the Israeli military. The two female soldiers, Orit and Drew, spoke with students and community members about the trials and rewards of serving as a front line sol-dier in the Israeli Defense Force.

Orit, a native Israeli Jew, related her experience as a front line combat medic in the West Bank, a narrow strip of land between Israel and Jordan. “I had the privilege of taking the operations on the front line,” Orit said.

Her story, however, was not one of violence, but rath-er of mercy. As a combat medic, Orit was responsible for treating whoever needed medical aid, be they Jew or gentile, soldier or civilian, in-nocent or guilty.

On one evening, Orit was summoned from her quarters

Month

BlackHistory

Staci Vandagriff | Staff PhotographerThe ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha pave their way through “boot camp” to win first place in the National Pan-Hellenic Council’s (NPHC) Best Steppers on the Yard Stepshow held Monday night in the Nettleton Performing Arts Center. Zeta Phi Beta placed second and Phi Beta Sigma placed third.

Students to present researchThe Middle Eastern Studies Night has been go-

ing on for more than 15 years, and each year about 75 students come to the event to enjoy Middle Eastern cuisine, and to find out the winners of the research grants.

About 20 years ago, King Faud of Saudi Arabia gave about 20 million dollars to the state of Arkan-sas to promote Middle East Study activities within the state; Arkansas State was one of the universities chosen.

When ASU hosted a Saudi Arabian custom center on campus, the Saudi Arabian group that visited, donated more than $800,000 to ASU, ac-

cording to Gil Fowler, chair of the Department of Journalism and Middle Eastern studies committee member.

“The money was then put into an endowment and interest or funds generate from the endow-ment each year,” said William Roe, associate dean of the College of Business. “When ASU received the funds we decided to use funds for research travel to other countries for faculty, staff and students.”

Research grants are given to students who send proposals to the Middle East Studies Committee before the end of January each year. The proposals ask the committee for funds so students can go to the country of their choice to research it and help people in the country.

The presentation will talk about the research the winners accomplished and how the opportunity af-fected the students and faculty chosen. Door prizes at the event will be given.

“The event is open to faculty, staff, students, and even community members that are interested,” Roe said.

“It’s an opportunity to learn about the adven-tures students and faculty have had on their coun-try visits. Good evening to share ideas and look at the possibilities that are open to all of us,” Fowler said.

For as long as Fowler can remember, Middle Eastern night has always been a great success. There are always a variety of people who attend,

CRYSTAL CUMMINGSSTAFF WRITER

TANYA GIRALDONEWS EDITOR

BETHANY GALLIMORESTAFF WRITER

BETHANY GALLIMORESTAFF WRITER

DEBATE, 4

Abortion laws are an in-creasingly hot topic across the US.

Everybody wants to know where you stand on the issue. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice.

Being pro-life means you advocate full legal protec-tion of fetuses. Being pro-choice means you believe the mother should get to choose whether to get an abortion.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of abor-tion, at the end of the day it is still the woman’s decision whether or not she carries her child to term or gets an abortion early on. Thanks to Roe v. Wade this remains na-tional law.

But what about the baby’s father? Does he deserve a say?

If a woman has a child and doesn’t want the father seeing him, she can take him to court and fight for custo-dy rights and he can fight for

visitation rights. She also has the option of

suing for child support until the child turns 18.

But what about rights be-fore he is technically a father? When the fetus is still in the womb? Does the father de-serve to have any rights then?

If the mother has options when the father doesn’t want the child, why is the father not given some of the same options?

If the mother doesn’t want to have their child then she

can get an abortion and be on her way. The father, on the other hand, has no say.

We are always asking the mother how she feels when she finds out she’s pregnant but we never consider the fa-ther.

Yes, it is her body and it is her right to abort but the fa-ther should have a say to his future child’s life.

Without him, and his sex-ual contribution, there would be no fetus or child in ques-tion. It takes two to make the baby so it should take two to

decide it’s future. If the father wants to have

the baby and the mother doesn’t want to, there should be some kind of loophole for the father so he doesn’t have to just accept that his child will be aborted.

There should be some way he can get full custody of the fetus before the child is born if the mother wants to get an abortion.

That way he can still have the child but the expecting mother can rest easy knowing that she will not have to be a parent to the future child.

We allow the women to have certain parental rights as the mother.

Should we discriminate against the fathers just be-cause he wasn’t born with the necessary parts to create, car-ry and deliver a child?

Sharanda Crews is a sopho-more political science major of Jonesboro.

The issue of military aid is a big deal for those of us who keep up with world politics.

With revolutions abroad and the apparent need for rebel groups to receive assis-tance, it is something a lot of people are thinking about.

Since World War II for-eign military aid has been seen as a valuable tool for increasing both diplomatic relationships and global se-curity.

The United States in par-ticular has provided billions of dollars in foreign military aid over the years.

Take a couple of our larg-est recipients for example: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Both of these countries have extensive problems with militant Islamic extremism.

So it makes sense we would want to be sure their governments are able to combat these groups effi-ciently enough to insure our own security.

However, once we send the money and equipment or give the training, we have no surefire way of controlling what a government might do with it.

Regime changes, eco-

nomic hardships, civil unrest, ideological shifts and the like are all common events that can drastically affect the way a government uses its mili-tary.

This can lead to human rights abuses, the squashing of democratic movements, or even mean that we end up fighting a war against weap-ons we paid for ourselves.

The last 60 years of Iranian history is an excellent exam-ple where the United States essentially built the Shah a massive, modernized mili-tary.

We backed an elitist dic-tator and overthrew a demo-cratically elected prime min-ister, Mohammed Mossadeq.

After few decades under

this American-backed dic-tator, there was a revolution. This revolution ended with the Shah being overthrown in favor of a new dictator, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

This is how the current regime in Iran came to ex-ist. Consequently this means that all those aircraft and ar-tillery and the like we gave them, outdated though they may be, now belong to a gov-ernment that prides itself in being an enemy of the West.

When the Ayatollah came to power, Saddam Hussein’s government initially support-ed the revolution.

However, due to rising tensions between Hussein’s ruling party and the new Ira-nian regime, Iraq preemp-

tively attacked Iran on Sept. 22, 1980, starting the Iran-Iraq War.

Once again our govern-ment invested in military aid, this time to Iraq. This includ-ed the necessary materials for chemical and biological weapons. You read right, the U.S. gave Hussein the ingre-dients for WMDs as part of the aid package.

The U.S.’s military aid doesn’t stop at these two countries.

We give billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, who has been condemned for hu-man rights violations against Palestinians; killing thou-sands of innocent civilians.

We gave billions of dollars in military aid to the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union.

We gave the government of Tunisia millions of dollars in military aid right up un-til the Arab Spring erupted there. Which means U.S. tax dollars contributed to the deaths of civilians fighting for democracy.

Although, military aid is a legitimate tool for improv-ing relations and security in friendly nations, we have a moral imperative to make sure money is not being used in irresponsible or morally deplorable ways.

We pride ourselves on be-ing at the forefront of democ-ratization in the world, on fighting human rights abus-es, feeding the hungry, being a place where you have the freedom and ability to make a good life for yourself.

It is extremely important, then, that we make sure these principles aren’t violated by the weapons and funding we send abroad.

Clint Simpson is a senior po-litical science & philospoy major of Russelville.

THURSDAY, FEB. 28, 2013 PAGE 2ASUHERALD.COM

Submission GuidelinesStory ideas or news tips may be emailed to Lindsey.Blakely@smail.astate or Tanya.Giraldo@smail.astate.edu. The Herald welcomes comments, criticisms or ideas that its reader-ship may have. We encourage you to send a Letter to the Editor to Micah.Christen@smail.astate.edu

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LINDSEY BLAKELY, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

TANYA GIRALDO, NEWS EDITOR

MICAH CHRISTENSEN, OPINION EDITOR

CAITLIN LAFARLETTE, PHOTO EDITOR

CALEB HENNINGTON, LIFESTYLE EDITOR

CARA PRICHARD, SPORTS EDITOR

RACHEL CARNER, ONLINE EDITOR

JANA WATERS, AD MANAGER

BONNIE THRASHER, ADVISER

Editorial PolicyOpinions expressed in personal columns are those of the writ-ers and may not reflect the opin-ions of the staff as a whole. “Our View” represents the opinions of the editorial staff and is written by members of the editorial board. Columns, letters to the editor, cartoons and other content on the opinion page are the views of the author. Content does not neces-sarily represent the opinion of The Herald.

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Our ViewBlack History Month is officially coming to an end as the

month of February closes. 2013 marks the 38th successful year of Black History

Month since its creation in 1976. For 38 years Black History Month has been honoring the work of African Americans while signifying unity across all racial boundaries.

This celebration originated in 1926 when Carter G. Woodson, who served as a professor and historian, started Negro History Week.

Originally, Woodson saw a need to champion black writers whose literary works were overlooked and even sometimes suppressed by writers of history textbooks.

Now, 88 years later, the weeklong celebration has developed into a month long festivity that highlights the efforts of numerous African Americans and others who have established our national identity.

Since its creation all people have been able to benefit from the unifying experience of valuing all cultures and peoples. Black History Month has especially been a success on our campus as we were able to highlight speakers, enjoy meals, presentations and music.

It is hard to imagine where our society would be without the efforts put forth by Woodson and others.

While a month has been dedicated to the achievements of those who participated in emancipation, the civil rights movement and the on going anti-racism, it should not stop here.

It is high time that Americans stop relying on Black History Month for being the only time of year where we highlight the work of African American pioneers.

There needs to be a continuous push to teach students nation wide about all of the great thinkers, cultures and identities found in our great country.

Just as Woodson saw a need for Black history included in textbooks this needs to be a continuous goal as our country moves forward. To continue to educate, inspire and build up each other as our country faces new challenges in the future.

Where holidays like Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day can act as the sole event that we express our love in relationships and give thanks; let’s not stop appreciating everyone throughout the entire year.

It takes a conscious effort on the behalf of everyone in our society from history textbook makers, to normal college students.

Next month as we celebrate Women’s History Month let’s keep this goal in mind. Our desire is to echo Woodson and his wish to honor everyone’s gifts, regardless of race.

“The different ness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess.” – Carter G. Woodson

“Our View” is written by the editorial staff. The opinions are not necessarily reflective of the student body, faculty or

administration of Arkansas State University.

“Yes, it is her body and it is her right to abort but the father should have a say to his future child’s life.” -Sharanda Crews

“After all, once we send the money and equipment or give the training, we have no surefire way of controlling what a government might do with it.”

-Clint Simpson

Hear anything interesting on campus? Visit

us on Twitter @OverheardAtASU

and let us know what YOU overhear.

Could be arming future enemies

Men deserve rights, too

Learning to appreciate year round

As much as Arkansas State has changed over the last 50 years, one man has main-tained a constant presence.

For almost 100 semesters, assistant pro-fessor Sammy Gennuso has held court on the third floor of Wilson Hall, teaching genera-tion after generation of ASU students, from Gorillas to Red Wolves.

The 87-year-old professor, a son of Italian immigrants and the only sibling of 13 to at-tend college, first stepped on the Jonesboro campus in the fall of 1963. At the time, ac-cording to an October article in the Herald, 3,508 students called Arkansas State College home. A far cry from the more than 14,000 who attend in 2013.

Gennuso came to Jonesboro fresh from teaching journalism at Northwestern Univer-sity in his home state of Louisiana, where he also earned his masters in English at LSU and worked at a daily newspaper after serving in the Navy during World War II.

Gennuso never intended to stay in Jones-boro so long, planning only to teach for two or three years to establish residency in the state before making his way to the master’s program at the University of Arkansas.

“When I came here the first time, there was no (Carl R) Reng Center, that was all field back in there,” Gennuso said while sitting in the office area he’s occupied for 40 years. “Ev-erything was very small; it was much smaller than Northwestern because it had been there longer. It was an older school.”

When university President Carl R. Reng, who held the position from 1951 to 1975, hired Gennuso, the Dean B. Ellis Library and old Reng Student Center were still under con-struction and set to open within the year. This put many different aspects of campus life into one building: Wilson Hall.

“You walked in and the president’s office was on the right, the vice president of aca-demic affairs was on the left and down the hall was the finance office. Over on the basement floor, where (the) history (department is), that was all the library,” Gennuso recalled.

The library occupied the western side of

the basement floor, while the eastern half housed the Student Union, which included a cafeteria, the faculty lounge, as well the cam-pus bookstore and post office. All of this was in the same building as the English, history, science and social science departments.

For Gennuso, the feat was “amazing.”Having taught for 50 years, Gennuso has

seen the evolution of both students as they were influenced more and more by advance-ments in technology for education, but also entertainment.

“(The students) dressed better. You wouldn’t see people wearing, I call them ‘thongs,’ sandal type things,” Gennuso said. “I think they were better prepared. You barely had TV; it was coming of its own.”

At a time when everything north of Nettle-ton Avenue was dirt road and fields, students in 1960s Jonesboro had limited entertain-ments options to keep them occupied.

Gennuso remembers when, rather than the current 15-screen Malco, Jonesboro had two movie theaters in town, one at the Forum that showed one movie a week and another near where the Brickhouse sits. The latter theatre showed B-movies and Gennuso de-scribed it as a “rat house,” where a moviegoer took their lives in their own hands, “because rats would run through your legs while you’re sitting there.”

As a way of both entertaining students as well as pushing an educational effort forward, Gennuso advised a student literary magazine for 15 years called “The Arrow.” The professor funded the magazine by showing movies on a projector and charging students 25 cents to watch.

“You had to manufacture things to do. You were limited. Therefore, people got along bet-ter,” Gennuso observed. “Sororities had their things and their formals...and you had your intramurals even then.”

While it wasn’t intramurals, Gennuso be-came a prominent part of Arkansas State’s athletic program three years after arriving on campus. During a period when many of the opponents ASU’s football team played were from Louisiana, the “Pelican State” native was asked to take over PA announcing duties by a

friend in the athletic department because of his natural ability to properly pronounce play-er names.

With all of his duties, including serving as the faculty advisor for the Kappa Alpha frater-nity, Gennuso continued to teach English to undergraduates on campus and didn’t receive any extra pay. Among those students were current Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, cur-rent athletic director Terry Mohajir and quar-terback Ryan Aplin.

“I would like to think that most of the stu-dents that come through my class, come out of there with a little broader idea,” Gennuso said. “They become a little more skeptical of the fact that they’re 100 percent correct.”

Another former student of Gennuso’s is current ASU theatre professor Molly Simp-son.

Simpson graduated from ASU with a the-atre arts degree in 1976, and was a student of Gennuso in the fall of 1973.

“It was obvious he loved what he did. He seemed like he was glad he was there in the classroom. He set the mood,” Simpson said. “It was a congenial place to be. He was always open to things we wanted to do in class.”

Simpson said it was typical for Gennuso’s classroom to “veer” off the lesson plan if the topic of discussion was interesting. As part of the laid-back atmosphere, Gennuso once held a talent show in class, inviting Simpson to play a song on her guitar for her classmates.

“He was always happy for people to express themselves in the classroom if they saw fit,” Simpson said.

Gennuso still takes on a full schedule of teaching four classes each semester, including Intro to World Literature. Sara Weick, a soph-omore nursing student of Pocahontas, takes the class on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Weick said Gennuso is more fun than her other teachers, still taking the class on tan-gents with stories, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t getting something from his 50 years of teaching.

“I love his history, that he’s been here so long,” Weick said. “It gives him more credi-bility because he’s been here so long and he’s been teaching these subjects for so long.”

Gennuso said he will “spoon feed” his classes up until a point. When reviewing with his World Literature class for a recent test, the professor discussed philosopher David Hume’s four reasons for believing a miracle could not happen.

Gennuso told his students the first tenant, but not the other three, saying the first wouldn’t be accepted on the test. It would be up to the students to engrain them into their minds in time for the test.

It’s personal teaching methods like this and his “15 centuries in 15 minutes” lesson that Gennuso believes are potentially threat-ened by the furthering of online courses for students in place of physical instruction.

“Somewhere along the way that personal touch is missing. I don’t believe you need to coddle your students,” Gennuso said. “I do be-lieve they should be able to ask you a question face to face and expect to get an intelligent answer.”

It is the establishing of an intelligent con-versation, as well as the broadening of his students horizons that has galvanized Gen-nuso’s nearly 50 years as a professor at ASU and what he hopes will propel the university through its next 50 years.

“I think it’s the feeling of satisfaction of getting a new group and making sure that they kind of get their money’s worth and re-alize that it’s not just a bunch of people and poems,” Gennuoso said, “but that they have some significance in shaping their attitudes and their philosophies.”

This is a condensed version of the article. The story can be found online at www.asuher-ald.com.

Although no release date or price has been set for Sony’s newest con-sole, PlayStation 4, the company did reveal several new features and specs for the long awaited next-gen console.

Sony is the second of the big three in the video game world (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) to reveal a next generation console, following Nintendo’s Wii U launch back in November 2012.

Then PS4 will come with some of the same standard features as the PS3, such as a built in Blu-ray drive, Wi-Fi capabilities, Bluetooth 2.1, and HDMI, Analog-AV and optical digital output. What’s new to the system is the 8-core processor with state of the art graphics unit capable of rendering incredible detail that wasn’t possible on the PS3.

Mark Cerny, lead system archi-tect on the PS4, said the new system was developed “by game creators, for game creators.” He also revealed the PS4 will be “like a PC, but super-charged,” after the upgraded CPU and graphics card.

Another new addition to the PlayStation repertoire is the new DualShock 4 controller. The new controller will have the same basic layout as the past four PlayStation controllers, but will also feature an integrated touch pad in the center of the controller, a headset jack, and the “start” and “select” buttons will be replaced by “share” and “options” buttons. The share feature will al-low players to upload game stats, screenshots and even gameplay vid-eos with other users on the PlaySta-tion Network.

The PS4 will integrate social media into the gaming experience as well, with PSN profiles that are similar to Facebook and Twitter profiles. Players can check the stats and trophies of other players, chat, invite players to games, look at up-loaded gameplay videos, and even watch live streams of other players’ game sessions.

Many of the classic game titles from the PS2 and PS3, such as Kill-zone, Infamous and Final Fanta-sy, will be returning for the fourth generation console, but Sony has already revealed trailers for some

unique and engrossing new games coming to the PS4.

Studio Japan’s comical and quirky game, Knack, is one of the Sony exclusives coming to the PS4. The game trailer shows a very Ratchet & Clank-like game that focuses on a tiny protago-nist with incredible potential.

Infamous: Second Son, an-other PlayStation exclusive se-ries, will feature a brand new main character with his own unique powers rather than the series well known and outspo-ken anti-hero, Cole MacGrath. The game will take place in Seat-tle and the new protagonist will have “smoke” powers rather than the electrical powers seen in the previous two games.

Although a new gaming console is definitely big news for gaming enthusiasts, there are mixed feel-ings about Sony’s big reveal and the timeliness of it.

“I think it’s going to be a very powerful system, but in the end it’s all going to depend on the games. The developers are going to have to take full advantage of the systems

hardware for it not to be just anoth-er game console,” said Ben Eckerson, a senior engineering major of Little Rock. “I wouldn’t have revealed the PS4 until the big gaming conference (E3) but maybe just hinted at it.”

Other students, however, aren’t impressed by the PS4 reveal.

“I feel like there aren’t many in-novations left to make from the PS3. I see it more as a complete money-maker for Sony. Maybe it

will add a few new and interesting quirks, but it will just be a PS3 Plus addition. Nothing that will blow me away,” said Mark Reider, a junior history major of Cabot.

Sony hasn’t revealed any other information about the PS4, but is most likely saving the answers to the big questions for the E3 confer-ence June 11-13 in Los Angeles. A physical console, price and release date have yet to be revealed by Sony.

THURSDAY, FEB. 28, 2013 PAGE 3ASUHERALD.COM

Daniel McFadin| Staff WriterSammy Gennuso sits at his desk typing in the office he has occupied for 40 year.s. Gennuso has held numerous faculty positions during his time at ASU and continues to teach English courses in Wilson Hall.

87-year-old professor dedicates 50 years to ASU

CALEB HENNINGTON#LIFE EDITOR

DANIEL MCFADIN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Sony (sort of) unveils next-gen console, PS4

Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, Dean B. Ellis Library Sammy Gennuso, top left, with the staff of the ASU literature magazine “The Arrow” , 1964.

THURSDAY, FEB. 28, 2013 PAGE 4ASUHERALD.COM

WOMEN, Continued

Have a news tip?We want to hear from you.

Please send your tips tolindsey.blakely@smail.astate.edu tanya.giraldo@smail.astate.edu

Day One • Lunch at the Delta Cultural

Center Museum• Speaker - Mark Christ, Member

of the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicen-

tennial Committee

• Tour - Delta Cultural Center Vistor’s Center, Moore-Hornor House, Estevan Hall, Freedom Park

• Dinner at the Historic Pillow - Thompson House

Day Two• Tour - Helena Phillips County

Museum, Windsheld Tour of Batteries A-D, Confederate Cemetery.

• Speaker - Cathy Cunningham, Director of Community Outreach,

Southern Bancorp How to register:Online: www.astate.edu/ceco • Phone: 8a.m.-5p.m. (870) 972-3052 • E-Mail: ceco@astate.edu

All expenses paid for the first 25!Civil War Helena Tour -March 29 & 30

Rights,” to be presented by Rickie Solinger, award winning historian and author.

On Tuesday at 4 p.m., in the Student Union Auditorium, Solinger will give a “frank and civil examination” about how women dealt with health during an era when their deci-sions were decided for.

“She will talk about a time were they really came out about women’s pregnancy,” Wilker-son-Freeman said. “Women were treated dif-ferently, not only because of their gender, but also on their race and class.”

There will also be a panel with experts on women’s health during this modern period, said Wilkerson-Freeman.

“It will be communicated to us how the affordable care act will work for women,” she

said.Along with history-related events, experts

in domestic violence and health issues like Cathy Young, ASU director of nurse practi-tioner program, will discuss issues in health safety and how to prevent violent situations.

“The speakers are people who work in this field. They examine and testify about inju-ries related to domestic violence,” Wilker-son-Freeman said. “This event isn’t just for women, anyone can benefit as well.”

Wilkerson-Freeman stresses that the events are centered on value and integrity.

“It’s a good line-up that are speaking from experience,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to introduce topics that are not brought out of the shadows and therefore encourage stu-

dents to break out of the shadows too.”Krueger thinks the events will benefit stu-

dents.“We hope that students become more ed-

ucated about the way in which women have shaped our past and are more aware of the challenges that women face as potential lead-ers of the future,” Krueger said.

The events will also introduce leaders such as the First Lady of Arkansas, Ginger Beebe, who will speak at the luncheon address along with the second annual Women’s Leadership Conference later in March.

Wilkerson-Freeman sees the line-up of events as perfect opportunities for students to get involved in different kinds of campus events.

“When you go to a university, you are ex-pected to be exposed to different situations and experiences that go beyond every day occurrences,” she said. “These events create an environment, experience, and concepts of knowledge that go beyond the comfort zone.”

With a co-ed campus, Wilkerson-Freeman believes the campus tends to keep students from being more honest about certain situa-tions.

“What affects women essentially affects everyone,” she said.

“(Friday’s event), and Women’s History Month in general, highlight and celebrate the way in which women have impacted the world,” Krueger said.

of ASU’s victories, and said “Not only did we win ev-ery tournament this year, but every tournament we went to we got the top speaker award, which means that we are handling ourselves in a way that ASU can be proud of.”

The debate team has ex-perienced similar winning seasons before but not at the level they are achieving now, according to Christensen. “It’s not rare for ASU to be this successful, but it’s rare for ASU to be so successful at this caliber, above and be-yond just winning,” he said.

The competitors will leave for Europe March 7, giving them time for a brief stop to tour Amsterdam before com-petition begins on the 10th. The tournament will include individual speech contests in the styles of impromptu, en-tertainment, poetry, prose, dramatic, and rhetorical cri-tique, as well as two-person team debates such as parlia-mentary procedure, accord-ing to Corbit.

“This year will be the larg-est tournament they’ve ever had,” Corbit said. “There were over 200 (competitors) last year, so I would venture to say there are going to be a minimum of 20-25 states represented, and 200 people coming to compete.”

Competition will conclude on the 12th with a banquet sponsored by the host city of Antwerp in honor of the par-ticipants. “The banquet is the culmination of (the tourna-ment),” Corbit said. “On the last night, they will recog-nize the winners and present the awards, and the mayor will come and give a speech. They’ve really got a whole bunch of things planned just for that night, which is really exciting.”

The competition will like-ly be even more challenging than the ones typically faced here in the states, accord-

ing to Christensen. “These tournaments are going to be more of what the schools consider to be their elite. Not everyone’s going to be able to go, because it’s an expensive trip,” he said.

“We took four (competi-tors) last year, and we’ll take four again this year,” Corbit said. “Traditionally the ones you will have there are the elites of the program being represented. For us, it’s our top two varsity teams.”

“Debate programs range in size, smaller programs may only have two or three teams (of two people), so they’re only able to travel with maybe six competitors,” Christensen said. “But other schools will have 13 teams, 12 teams, 10 teams, so they’re traveling with 20 to 26 people.”

Corbit said there are a lot of advantages to being able to participate in the tour-nament. “Being exposed to some of the brightest young minds of an entire nation is very cool,” he said.

“The goal of debate is to learn topics, and what better way to learn about a country than being there and experi-encing it,” Corbit said. “For instance, when we’re there, most of the debates and speeches will be specific to that country.”

“Right now, we’re studying Belgium history, Belgium in-tegration problems, politics, and the economics of what’s going on,” Corbit said. “When we get there, we will probably know more about Belgium than the people in Belgium know about it!”

Preparation is key to suc-ceeding in debate, accord-ing to team member Benton Bajorek, a sophomore com-munication studies major of Conway. “It’s no fun going in there blind,” he said. “We’ve all been doing research about the country and then pre-senting it to the debaters as

a whole, so that way we can kind of get a little bit knowl-edgeable about the country before we go.”

“But even if we don’t de-bate about these topics, at least we’ve learned about these things,” Bajorek said. “The sport of debate is all about educating yourself.”

Christensen agrees. “De-bate is really a game of chess you play in your mind.”

“It may sound really dull and boring, but to spar in-tellectually with someone, and to have that competitive element too, it’s pretty cool,” Corbit said.

Also competing for ASU in Antwerp will be senior political science major Clint Simpson of Jonesboro, Ba-jorek’s debate partner. “We’ve cooperated a lot more as a team this year, and gotten a lot more knowledgeable about competitions,” Bajorek said.

Christensen said the team’s success starts with having good people in the program, and could not be possible without the sup-port of the university-level leadership. “The IFA tourna-ment, it’s huge because some colleges don’t have the sup-port to even be able to do it,” Christensen said.

“The type of support we are getting from our admin-istration is priceless,” Corbit said. “We would be remiss if we did not tip our hat and let those who are supporting us know how much we appreci-ate it.”

With the support of the university and a solid win-ning streak behind them, Corbit thinks the chances of an ASU victory are looking pretty good. “I’m not saying that out of arrogance. We’ve been on a roll,” he said.

“We’re going there with the idea of enjoyment, but we’re going to win,” Corbit said. “That’s our focus.”

DEBATE, Continued

to the security prison to treat a recently captured prisoner. But when she arrived in the facility, she saw that the prisoner she had been asked to treat was not an ordinary in-surgent, but a well-known terrorist bomber who only two weeks before forced his sister to commit a restaurant suicide bombing.

“I had pictures of his victims just crashing through my mind, and there he was, the man responsible for all this,” Orit said. “He made his own sister commit a suicide bombing to murder all these people, and there I was, only 18, asked to treat this.”

“I knew I had to treat him. I was trained to be a medical aid regardless of who the person is,” Orit said. “It wasn’t an easy moment for me, because I felt like I had betrayed the vic-tims of his actions.”

“But I was a medic, and that was my job, so I did it. And I still feel like I would do the same thing today,” she said. “I am proud to be a part of an army that is clear cut about hu-man rights.”

Contrary to Orit, Drew’s story was that of an American Jew. “I was born in Minneapo-lis, Minn., and was raised in Phoenix, Ariz.,” Drew said. “I was the only Jewish kid on my block, the only Jewish kid in my class, and the only Jewish kid in my Girl Scout troupe.”

After struggling through a childhood of trying to fit in with her peers, Drew felt a call-ing to join the IDF. “I realized that as a Jew, I am responsible for the state of Israel, because it is my homeland,” she said.

After traveling overseas to join the mili-tary, Drew was placed in the Civil Adminis-

tration organization, which serves as the li-aison between the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli government, as well as functioning as an ambassador between international orga-nizations.

Through her position, Drew was able to help forge new understandings between Mid-dle Eastern states, and one of her victories was arranging mutually acceptable meeting times for Palestinian families whose relatives were being held for war crimes.

“If anything, my story and all these stories we have shared with you show the human side of the IDF,” Drew said. “You see me now, but if I were standing in uniform in front of you, I would not be a different person.”

“Except the green would bring out my eyes,” Drew laughed.

The presentation was sponsored by the ASU chapter of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), in a partnership with the speakers’ organization StandWithUs.

“I think it is important for students at ASU to hear firsthand accounts of the situation overseas,” Geoffrey Payne, ASU CUFI vice president and sophomore wildlife ecology major of Doniphan, Mo., said. “It is important for us to get that information from someone who was actually there, as opposed to some-one from the media.”

StandWithUs is a nonprofit Israeli educa-tion organization, said spokeswoman Vida Velasco. “Our goal is very simple,” Velasco said. “We want people to understand the real-ities of what is happening on the ground, the facts that affect the people living in Israel.”

SOLDIERS, Continued

from international students to Native Americans to natives of Arkansas.

“Learning about others is how you make it in the real world tomorrow,” Fowler said.

“The Middle Eastern Studies committee consist of faculty and representatives from different colleges on the campus that admin-ister the funds,” Roe said.

The committee members include: Roe (College of Business), Jerry Farris (Depart-ment of Biological Sciences), Thomas Fia-la (Department of Teacher Education), Gil Fowler (Department of Journalism), Erik Gil-bert (Department of History), Bill Humphrey (Department of Agricultural Studies), Kath-leen Carrick (Department of Social Work), and John Salvest (Department of Art).

“Getting a research grant will help you learn more about other country’s economies, governments and the society in general,” Roe said.

If the proposal submitted gives a good ar-gument and has a reasonable budget, then the recipient will be chosen.

The question Fowler usually asks when reviewing a proposal is whether it is going to work and will it be a positive experience.

“We will not turn people down on the subject matter, we are open to almost any idea,” Fowler said. “Got to do your homework though.”

Students who want to consider submit-ting a proposal should do thorough research about their topic.

“If we see things that wont work we will critique it and tell you what you should fix. We are not out there to say no. We are here to say yes, so you can do the things that you want to,” Fowler said.

This year five proposals were sent to the committee.

Three want to venture to Turkey, one group wants to go to the Jordan and another to Ethiopia.

Not only do students get to see if their pro-posal was chosen, but they get to experience a dinner of a different culture. “(They get) a better understanding of the Middle Eastern cuisine. We never know how many students are going to show, but usually a pretty good turnout of students.” Roe said.

The research grant winners will be an-nounced at the Middle Eastern Studies Night this Monday in the Fowler Center at 6 p.m.

RESEARCH, Continued

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State University Board of Trustees recently elected Mike Gibson of Os-ceola to serve as its chairman for 2013.

Gibson has served on the board since 2004, when he was appointed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee, and previously served as chair-man in 2007 and 2008. Gov. Mike Beebe reappointed him to a five-year term on the board in 2009.

The 1968 Arkansas State graduate practiced law in Os-ceola for 38 years following service in the military, and now serves as Osceola Dis-trict Judge and Trustee of the Judd Hill Foundation.

“It’s an honor to serve my alma mater, especially at a time when we welcomed the

most academically qualified freshman class ever,” Gibson said. “From the growth of our community colleges to the continued rising of the Red Wolves athletics program, I’m convinced that even bet-ter days are ahead for the entire ASU System. I’m very proud of the success of all of our campuses as we prepare more than 22,000 students for their lifelong journeys.”

Gibson has served Arkan-sas State in many capacities, including past member and chairman of the ASU Foun-dation Inc. Board of Direc-tors and past member of the Red Wolves Foundation Board of Directors. Gibson Hall, which serves as the con-ference room for the ASU Foundation’s Judd Hill Cen-ter, is named for Gibson and his wife, Marsha, who is also an ASU graduate.

“Mr. Gibson has provided leadership and vision to Ar-kansas State for many years, beginning with his under-graduate service as student body president and continu-ing today as chairman of the Board of Trustees,” said Dr. Charles L. Welch, president of the ASU System. “We value his many contributions both individually and through the Judd Hill Foundation.”

The ASU System serves more than 22,000 students throughout Arkansas and includes Arkansas State Uni-versity, a four-year research institution in Jonesboro; ASU-Beebe, with additional campuses in Heber Springs and Searcy; ASU-Newport, with additional campuses in Jonesboro and Marked Tree; ASU-Mountain Home; and instructional sites in Para-gould and at the Little Rock

THURSDAY, FEB. 28, 2013

There is a well-known rumor in the English department of a possi-ble Creative Writing minor.

While the minor isn’t created yet, Jerry Ball, interim chair of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences said there have been steps towards making it available to stu-dents.

“It’s something we’ve been working on for a number of years and there’s been some interest ex-pressed in it,” Ball said. “It was put on hold for a while.”

Ball said there have been many attempts towards creating the mi-nor, but they have all been delayed due to several obstacles.

“Aside from having limited per-sonnel, for a long time we couldn’t figure out how to get the hours for the courses. We need 18 hours to make it a minor,” Ball said. “After working on it for a while, we final-ly got the idea that we could offer the minor if we required the people who were seeking the minor to take the two basic courses, introduction to fiction and introduction to poet-ry and drama.”

It was realized that the two basic courses are requirements already for an English major and could eas-ily be used for creative writing as well.

“In that case, it made it possible that you could come up with courses that made up 18 hours which would be enough for the minor, but then we encountered another problem,” Ball said. “When the registrar start-ed checking the courses, checking the wording, they discovered that

the wording made it seem like you were taking the same course twice.”

Most of the courses have the same name and could affect a stu-dent’s financial name because it would seem as if the student was taking a course again, even though it was a different genre.

“We redid the descriptions for the courses,” Ball said. “The prob-lem we have to work on now is the sequencing of the courses. How to stagger courses so that people could actually take them and finish them in a year”

Once the department can come up with a way to take care of the sequencing problem, making sure a person can enter into the creative writing minor and be able to com-plete it within a year or two, it needs to get approved by the undergradu-ate curriculum committee.

“I anticipate getting the paper-work through there by the end of this semester,” Ball said. “It could be as early as next semester, but more than likely it will be available the se-mester afterwards, so next spring.”

Ball acknowledged how the length of this process could hinder upperclassman’s decision to declare this minor.

“Once it’s approved, while it may not be in the bulletin, we may be able to offer it because it’s been ap-proved,” Ball said. “That’s another question we have to answer. We’ll get those questions answered.”

Frances Hunter, associate pro-fessor of English and one of the creative writing professors, believes creative writing is a minor that most students can relate to.

“Every person has a story to tell and what we want to do is help you

tell it to the best of your abili-ties,” Hunter said. “ASU has an emphasis in writing. Creative writing is a very right brain experience that satisfies.”

Creative writing is essential for any sort of major Ball said.

“For one thing (creative writing) is a way to improve your writing without having to do what we call academic writing, which people consid-er to be very dull,” Ball said. “Let’s say you are in a com-pletely unrelated field, not English. If a person is looking at your résumé and looks at what your degrees are, they see that you have a minor in creative writing, that will im-ply that not only do you know your field but that you’re also a person who can write well and that is of great value to a lot of working communities.”

The department also en-courages students to have their work from class pub-lished.

“We encourage students to write for publications and the Tributary or other places,” Hunter said. “While it isn’t for student writing, we also have a fine literary magazine on cam-pus, The Arkansas Review.”

The faculty also encourag-es writing outside of the ASU campus. While Hunter serves as chair of the freshman com-position writing class, Robert Schichler, professor of En-glish, is the chair of the High School Writing Prize, according to Hunter.

“We have students from high

schools submit essays, short stories and poetry, so we embrace all those disciplines and we want to see our teachers and our students in the

region as well as here to be better writers,” Hunter said. “(Creative writing) is something different that you don’t get in many areas.”

ASUHERALD.COM PAGE 5

English department hopes to develop new minorTANYA GIRALDO

NEWS EDITOR

ASU Board of Trustees elects new chairman

How to Prepare:--Have the Career Management Center review your resume. You can stop by or call us at (870)972‐3025.

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Need Help? Call 870-972-3025

Career FairAll Majors

March 5th, 2013, 10:00 am-2:00 pm

Education, Nursing and Health Professions Career Fair

March 6th, 2013, 10:00 am-2:00 pmStudent Union, Centennial Hall

Paige Walker | Staff PhotographerCreative writing classes are offered at ASU but the process of making creatinve writing into a minor is still in the works.

ASU PRESS RELEASE

The women’s basketball team fell to North Texas 53-51 last night.

The Mean Green led 53-48 with 2:37 to go in the game, but the Red Wolves cut the lead to two after a 3-pointer with 1:33

left. Jalen O’Bannon missed a shot with 27 seconds and North Texas controlled the rebound.

With a foul to give, the Mean Green fouled Ashley Olvera before she could get a shot off with eight seconds to play. The Red Wolves turned the ball over on the inbound and the Mean Green ran out the clock to escape with the victory.

Hanna Qedan led ASU with 17 points, including a ca-reer-high five 3-pointers, while Morrill finished with 11 points. Jalen O’Bannon grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, while Olvera dished out six assists.

“It was a game of runs and they made the last run when they had to,” head coach Brian Boyer said. “We had a huge to start to the second half and that is probably the most disap-pointing because we had an eight point lead and we turned it over and it just gave them life and energy.”

ASU refused to go quietly and the Red Wolves took the lead back at 43-40 lead after back-to-back layups from Morrill with 11:06 to play. Carlisha Wyatt gave A-State a 45-43 edge with 6:41 to play, but it would be the last time that ASU would lead in the game.

“These kids really battled to put themselves in a good po-sition and this was a tough one,” Boyer said. “We just have to bounce back and see what happens on Saturday.”

The Red Wolves started the game cold and fell behind 15-7 with 11 minutes to go in the first half, but a 10-0 run gave the Red Wolves their first lead of the game at 17-15 with 6:24 to go in the frame.

Morrill sparked the run with a turnaround jumper in the lane and Qedan followed with her first of three, 3-pointer of the half.

Morrill pulled the Red Wolves within a point after another jumper and McDowell put A-State on top with a steal that she turned into a three-point play on the offensive end.

Qedan finished with 11 first half points on 4-of-8 shooting, including 3-of-6 from beyond the arc, while McDowell eight first half points.

A-State will travel to Little Rock this Saturday to take on UALR in the regular season finale for both teams. The game is set to tip-off at 4:30 p.m.

When Terry Mohajir got the call, he was at the Soho House club in New York City.

Jamie Foxx was performing on the piano.The person on the other end of the line was head football

coach Gus Malzahn, who had just led Arkansas State to its second straight Sun Belt Conference championship. Malzahn was calling to tell his boss, of three months, he had accepted the head-coaching job at the University of Auburn.

Mohajir asked the coach if he was sure he wanted to take the job and if he was aware of the cloud of NCAA allegations hanging over the program in the wake of the firing of Gene Chizik.

Malzahn answered yes to both questions.“Okay coach, best of luck to you,” Mohajir said. For the next two days Mohajir wasn’t worried about who

would take over as the Red Wolves head coach. All he cared about was making sure the football team had a clear leader for its date against Kent State in the GoDaddy.com bowl on Jan. 6.

Mohajir wasn’t interested in a “cameo” from Malzahn, but he did want his staff, some of who would later leave for Au-burn, to stick around.

It took two days for the athletic director to decide on an interim head coach to lead the Red Wolves to its first bowl win since rejoining the Division I-A level.

“There were a few guys on the staff that wanted the (head coaching) job. Strategically, I knew we were not going to go with an internal candidate,” Mohajir said. “So I needed to find out who was the best person to help with the transition. That’s how I picked John Thompson.”

Mohajir, still three months fresh into his tenure as athletic director, then put all of his energy into finding the next Arkan-sas State head football coach.

While the post-Malzahn hoopla was underway in Jones-boro, 650 miles away in Austin, Texas, Bryan Harsin was knee deep in preparation.

The offensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns, the highest profile program in the Big XII, Harsin was busy game planning for the Longhorns game against Oregon State in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 29.

A Boise, Idaho, native and former assistant coach at BCS-buster Boise State for 10 years, Harsin was as surprised as everyone else when Malzahn had left SEC powerhouse Au-burn for ASU in the Sun Belt.

“Anytime guys move around, they make changes like that, you kind of watch,” Harsin said. “I followed him, I followed Arkansas State. I knew about the change when he was going back to Auburn. I obviously knew about this being an oppor-tunity. I didn’t know whether it would be an opportunity for me or not.”

Mohajir was looking for a specific kind of coach in Jones-boro. One who had experience building a national brand and was capable of developing different kinds of quarterbacks, es-pecially with the imminent departure of senior Ryan Aplin.

“The fact that Hugh Freeze and Gus Malzahn are at places making $2 million a year is because they had a great quarter-back. I’m not against defense; I’m a defensive guy by nature,” Mohajir said. “I needed to find a guy that has run offenses.”

Harsin was one of many coaches interested in the open po-sition. Mohajir fielded inquiries from at least one coordinator at every SEC school, except the University of Alabama.

“There’s obviously a hundred other guys saying the same thing I’m saying. They’ve got to filter through all of that,” Harsin said. “Like recruiting, they know what their model is and what they’re looking for.”

His history of developing quarter-backs like Kellen Moore at Boise State gave Harsin a boost in the search. It didn’t hurt that he was also respon-sible for the play-calling that put the Broncos on the national stage.

“He was fearless when he was of-fensive coordinator. They beat Geor-gia at the Georgia Dome,” Mohajir said. “They beat Virginia Tech when they were ranked in the top-5 in RFK Stadium. They beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.”

It was this resume that led to their phone interview and then a face-to-face meeting in Austin with Mohajir, System President Chuck Welch and ASU-J Chancellor Tim Hudson. The hour-and-a-half meeting was one of the three in-person interviews the trio conducted.

“The more I talked to (Harsin), the more I was impressed,” Mohajir said. “He’s very knowledgeable, very poised. A good person. He’s outgoing, but se-rious. He can be fun loving and a little bit of everything.”

The meeting didn’t focus on the schemes the 35-year-old coach would institute, but more on what his goals were, following on the success of the last two seasons.

Harsin has played football as long as he can remember.

After graduating from Capitol High School in Boise, Harsin attended and played quarterback for Boise State from 1995 to 1999. It was during this time Harsin took it upon himself to be a student of the game and in his senior year decided to head down the path of being a football coach.

“I wasn’t ready to leave. That’s pretty much what it was. I think I did a good job with studying the game. I thought I knew the game pretty well. Reality kind of set in that I could do this,” Harsin said.

In 1999, Dan Hawkins, at the time Boise’s tight ends coach, sat Harsin down to give him advice for his path to being a head coach.

“(Hawkins) really set me straight on the whole deal. He took two sessions for one-hour and had no reason to do this,” Harsin recalled. “He gave me the whole layout. He was to a T, of exactly how things are going (to go) for me, of this is what you can expect.”

Harsin left Boise for one year to coach the running backs and quarterbacks at Eastern Oregon University. When Haw-kins was named the head coach at Boise State in 2001, Harsin returned to the home of the blue turf in a volunteer position until a graduate assistant position opened up. Then things be-gan to build.

In 2005, Chris Peterson was named to the head coach po-sition and hired Harsin and another coach, both at the time just 29-years-old, to the offensive and defensive coordinator positions. Peterson received speculation for hiring someone so young, but that didn’t deter him.

“That never even kind of mattered to him. He was like, ‘You’re the two best guys for the job and here’s what I want to

do,” Harsin said. Peterson’s Broncos, with Harsin calling the plays, would go on to upend the BCS, with their defining mo-ment being their win over Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.

Harsin aims to impart the knowledge he attained from his time with Hawkins, Peterson and Brown to his own staff and first football team.

“With Coach Harsin, he’s really good with adjusting to the players. It’s real easy just to talk to him, just tell him your opinion about anything,” said Sterling Young, a junior defen-sive back. “He brings a lot of energy to the table and is a very serious guy.”

To Young, the biggest difference between Harsin and his predecessor is his availability to players.

“You can walk right in his office and express your opinion. It’s all face-to-face,” Young said. “With Malzahn, you had to talk to your positions coach first. You had to go through a cou-ple of people, then you finally got to talk to him.”

If there is one thing Harsin has learned on his journey be-coming ASU’s 29th head football coach, it’s that change can be a powerful thing.

“I never planned on leaving Boise,” Harsin said. “As you get older and start to figure things out, sometimes there’s change that needs to be made and sometimes you have to do certain things, not for any other reason than that there’s an opportu-nity to do it.”

THURSDAY, FEB. 28, 2013 PAGE 6ASUHERALD.COM

DANIEL MCFADINSENIOR STAFF WRITER

SPORTS INFORMATIONPRESS RELEASE

Ashley Helliwell |Staff PhotographerHeach coach Bryan Harsin shows his support for ASU at the GoDaddy.com Bowl in Mobile, Ala.

Xinzhong Zhao | Staff PhotographerFreshman forward Jalen O’Bannon goes up for a shot against UALR opponents on Feb. 13.

‘Change is a powerful thing’

Lady Red Wolves fold to Mean Green

The Arkansas State Soft-ball Club will begin their 2013 season this weekend against Crowley’s Ridge Col-lege in Paragould.

Just a year young, the team has already recruited players with experience to improve the program.

“The key to improving is to keep getting experienced players to join the outstand-ing players that started this thing last year,” said head coach Chris Powers.

“We’ve recruited players from a lot of other schools like SEMO, Lyon College and Arkansas Tech,” said soph-omore outfielder Katelyn Brown.

Despite the lack of finan-cial support from the univer-sity, the team says the money isn’t important.

“This is our sport and we’re all here because we love to play the game, not be-cause it pays for our school,” Brown said. “The financial aspect would be a lot easier to handle if we were a regis-tered sport but the game will always be the same to us.”

Although they aren’t of-ficially a NCAA sanctioned

team, the players show their dedication to the sport by working on drills, not just in practice, but also on their own time.

“The weather hasn’t been cooperating with us as far as getting a lot of outdoor prac-tice,” Powers added. “The girls are doing a lot of extra hitting on their own around their schedules.”

Growing a program isn’t easy to do, but the team has high hopes and will power to earn respect and become a recognized sport.

“We want to make sure this gets turned into a real program, not for us, but for all the softball players around this area that are talented in this sport,” Brown said.

Making them known is not the only goal in sight. They’re main objective this season is to compete in conference and the club World Series.

“I expect to build on the success we had last fall and follow that up with a con-ference championship and World Series birth,” Powers said. “Good pitching and sol-id defense is what I think will allow us to win.”

There will be two games this Saturday starting at 4 and 5 p.m.

CARA PRICHARDSPORTS EDITOR

Softball club begins season