Department of Journalism and Mass Communication Abilene Christian University Serving the ACU community since 1912

WEDNESDAY

IN THIS ISSUE

CAMPUS

Shinnery ReviewThe 2006-07 edition of the Shinnery Review will be unveiled Thursday, page 3

The OPTIMISTApril 18, 2007Vol. 95, No. 49 1 section, 8 pages www.acuoptimist.com• •

Gmail offers hopeTechnology administrators say they hope the new Gmail system will work better than the old e-mail system, page 4

SPORTS

On their way upFive athletes provisionally qualified for the Outdoor National Championships at the Angelo State Relays this weekend, page 8

Get to know a clubSpring rushes for social clubs begin this week. For a full schedule of each club’s rushes see page 4

Keeping the streakThe nationally ranked ACU baseball team won its series against Texas A&M-Kingsville this weekend, page 8

Choose study abroadA new global human resource survey from executives lists study abroad experience as an important asset in landing a job. Nearly 75 percent of employers cite study abroad as important when evaluating the resume of a job candidate. Eighty-per-cent of employers feel this experience is necessary for jobs overseas.

­—thescholarship.com

FEATURES

Finding Christ Student Ashley He recounts her conversion to Christianity since coming to America from China, page 5

‘An unfolding tragedy’

emily smith CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Jay Mendl, freshman musical theatre major from Abilene, prays in Chapel on Tuesday for the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. A moment of silence was observed during Chapel.

n Despite the 1,000-mile distance between ACU and Virginia Tech, students still felt the effects of the shootings that killed 33 people.

DANIEL JOHNSONSportS Editor

Virginia Tech is located in the small college city of Blacksburg, Va., more than 1,000 miles away from Abilene, but the impact of Monday’s tragedy was not absent from ACU and cam-puses across the nation.

“I think a tragedy like this throws us all in the same boat,” said Dr. Royce Money, president of the uni-

versity. “This could happen at any campus.”

On the heels of the great-est tragedy ever to hit an American college campus, Money told Tuesday’s Cha-pel audience that the ACU community’s condolences had been expressed to Vir-ginia Tech through a mes-sage he personally sent Virginia Tech president Dr. Charles W. Steger.

“Words cannot ad-equately express the deep sorrow we feel for the im-mense loss of life,” Money read from the message he sent. “Our hearts go out

Virginia Tech shootings touch local students

n Students who attend the rodeo can sign up to participate in four events including goat or cow milking and steer saddling. No previous experience is required.

By TODD PIERSALL and NATHAN MACDONALD

Arts Editor & studEnt rEportEr

The 51st annual ACU All-School Rodeo hosted by the Agricultural and Environmen-tal Science Club is Thursday

at 6 p.m. It will take place at the Taylor County Expo Cen-ter horse barn with an admis-sion fee of $4.

Secretary of AES, Amanda Baker, senior agricultural business major from Abilene, said AES rodeos are different than rodeos most people are familiar with.

“There’s really nothing typical about it,” Baker said.

Ag club rounds up rodeo participants

n SHADES’s first performance of the semester will take place Thursday and continue Friday and Saturday in Cullen, based on the theme of ‘Convicted.’

By ERIN JORDANstudEnt rEportEr

It’s SHADES show time. SHADES will have its first ACU concert of the semes-ter April 19-21 at 7:30 p.m. in Cullen Auditorium. This year’s SHADES show theme is

“Convicted,” which grew out of the squad’s love of Christ.

SHADES is taking its per-formances to another level this year, with a bigger bud-get and a greater vision.

“It’s going to be a big-ger production we’ve grown from just doing talent shows and regular step shows; this is going to be a production,” said Brandon Jones, co-spon-sor and assistant to Kendall

TIMElINE OF EVENTS

7:15 a.m. A gunman enters West Ambler Johnston, a dormitory that houses nearly 900 students, and begins firing.

9:26 a.m. University officials at Virginia Tech send out an e-mail to students informing them about the first shooting and to look for suspicious people.

9:45 a.m. Police receive a 9-1-1 call about the second shooting at Norris Hall, half a mile from the dormitory.

9:50 a.m. When police arrive at Norris Hall, they find the doors locked and chained from the inside. Once in, they hear shooting on the second floor. A second e-mail is sent out to warn students to stay inside buildings and away from windows.

10:27 a.m. Government officials say at least seven or eight people have been killed.

11:02 a.m. Seventeen people injured are sent to four Virginia hospitals with gunshot wounds and other injuries.

11:06 a.m. University officials release to the media that they are unsure whether the gunman was acting alone or not.

11:25 a.m. Virginia Tech Police say at least 22 people are dead from four classrooms in Norris Hall.

11:26 a.m. Government officials report that the gunmen is also dead, although it is unclear whether it was suicide or if he was shot by police. It is not known at this time if the shooter was a student or not.

1:31 p.m. Government officials declare 31 dead.

3:50 p.m. Virginia Tech president Charles Steger makes a statement saying that 33 people, including the gunman were killed.

4:32 p.m. Steger defends the way the campus handled the shootings after students complain there was no public address or other warnings besides e-mail, which was sent around the time of the second shooting.

6:25 a.m. The university says the shooter was a student at Virginia Tech, and he lived on campus.

8:27 a.m. The gunman’s identity is revealed as Cho Seung-Hui, senior English major from South Korea.

8:37 a.m. Police confirm from ballistics that the same gun was used in both shootings by Seung-Hui.

2:06 p.m. A classmate of Seung-Hui’s explains how all the warning signs were present, but no one would have realized he’d actually begin shooting people after some of the gruesome writings he did for a playwright class.

emily smith CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Dr. Royce Money, president of the university, leads a moment of silence and a prayer for the victims, families, students and all those involved in the Virginia Tech shootings Monday. Money sent a letter to Tech’s president conveying the ACU community’s condolences.

n ACU Police Chief Jimmy Ellison said after Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech, the university will re-examine its crisis plans to see if anything can be improved in case of a shooting.

By KELSI PEACEFEAturEs Editor

In light of the Virginia Tech shootings Monday, colleges across the nation are discussing their campus security, and ACU is no different.

Jimmy Ellison, chief of police, said the tragedy gave reason to examine the university’s crisis re-sponse plans, which were in place long before Monday.

In a situation like the Virginia Tech massacre, Ellison said ACU police would first respond to the shooting and would determine whether or not it was over. If the shooting is ongoing, Ellison said police would enter the building and engage the shooter to end the massacre. In an extreme situation,

Ellison said the Abilene Police De-partment could be called to the scene as well.

“You can have all the plans that you want,” Ellison said, “But every scenario is different.”

In addition to the ACU police’s crisis response plans, the universi-ty also has a Crisis Response Team composed of administrators, facul-ty, ACU police and representatives from support offices that meets

ACU Police examine crisis plans

MONDAy

See VA page 7

TUESDAy

n Date: April 19 at 6 p.m.

n Place: Taylor County Expo Center horse barn

n Price: $4

n Events for women: — Goat dressing — Goat milking — Calf scramble — Rodeo Queen

n Events for men: — Cow milking — Steer saddling — Double mugging — Rodeo King

n Sponsored by: Agricultural and Environmental Science Club

ACU All-SCHOOl RODEO

See SAFETy page 7

SHADES steps onto stage for annual show

See RODEO page 7 See SHADES page 7

SPEED READS

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Calendar Events&

The Optimist maintains this calendar for the ACU community to keep track of local social, academic and service opportunities.

Groups may send announcements directly to optimist@acu.edu or to the Page 2 Editor at mxe06a@acu.edu.

To ensure that an item will appear on time, the announcement should be sent at least 10 days before. The Optimist may edit items for space and style.

Corrections and clarifi cations of published news articles will be printed in this space in a timely manner.

About This Page

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Announcements

Volunteer Opportunities

20 Friday18 Wednesday 19 Thursday 21 Saturday

ID Photos will be used in the 2006-2007 Prickly Pear. Students may go by the Depot no later than April 27 to retake these pictures. Students may also go by the JMC

offi ce and fi ll out an opt-out form to have their picture removed from the Prickly Pear.

Seniors, come to Joe Allen`s Lytle Bend Ranch Thursday from 5

ACU for Abilene is Saturday. This is a time when ACU stu-dents, staff and faculty will join together to serve the Abilene community in a variety of ways at a number of locations. Make plans to sign up for this time of service in the Campus Center ticket windows by Friday, and make a difference in Abilene.

The March of Dimes is look-ing for volunteers for WalkAmer-ica at Redbud park on April 28. Help is needed between 6 a.m. and 1 p.m. in one- to two-hour shifts to help with set up, regis-tration and other aspects of the walk. For more information on this volunteer opportunity, con-tact the Volunteer Service-Learn-ing Center in the Bean Sprout.

MOPS at Highland Church of Christ is having its annual Great Moms Walk and family day out on April 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Nelson Park. For more information, contact Julia Stewart at (325) 690-9023.

Looking for a one-week sum-mertime adventure in Alaska? The Naha Teen Bible Camp, spon-sored by the Ketchikan Church of Christ, is looking for volunteers to work at the camp, which will take place June 4 through June 8. For more information, contact Mark Lewis at Mark.Lewis@acu.edu.

Freedom Fellowship Church needs volunteers who are will-ing to assist with a variety of after-school activities for at-risk youth, including tutoring, bas-ketball and air hockey on Mon-days, Tuesdays and Thursdays

from 3:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. and Fridays from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Contact the Volunteer Service-Learning Center in the Bean Sprout for more information.

Volunteers are needed to be peer visitors or in a support group for amputees. Both men and women are requested to help. For more in-formation, contact Wayne Briggs at (325) 691-1672 or (325) 829-1961.

Meals on Wheels needs vol-unteers to deliver meals to se-niors and adults with disabilities. This usually takes about an hour, and students can have one day of Chapel per week excused for this service. Contact the Volunteer Service-Learning Center in the Bean Sprout for more information.

Big A Club of City Light Community Ministries has an urgent need for volunteers to ride buses and vans with elementary-age children and to help with Bi-ble studies. This takes place on Wednesdays from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Contact the Volunteer Ser-vice-Learning Center in the Bean Sprout for more information.

Girl Scout Troop #1550 needs young women who want to make a difference in young girls’ lives through Girl Scout-ing. The girls are from under-privileged homes, and they need positive Christian influences in their lives. Volunteers will help conduct meetings, including arts and crafts. Help is needed every Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. until May. For more information, contact Diltzie An-drews at (325) 673-6379.

ACU Career InformationUpcoming Career Events and Workshops

U.S. SECRET SERVICECareer Info Session Thursday at 3 p.m. in the Cam-pus Center Living Room

ACU CAREER DAYDeal Or No Deal: Just In Case...You have not yet landed a job,or you don’t know where to look, or you don’t know what to do, or (Career-related fi ll-in-the-blank.) Thursday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.ACU Hilton Room Featuring: -Gifts for graduating seniors -Networking with 20 employers -Resume, Cover Letter, and Job Search Advice -One-on-one with career counselors -Free food and drinks

This Week’s CareerLink Statistics:Number of Part-Time Jobs: 144Number of Internships: 281Number of Full-Time Jobs: 809Number of Employers in Direc-tory: 3,110Number of Employers Added This Week: 32

Hosted By:The Offi ce of Career and Academic Developmentwww.acu.edu/ocad

Upcoming On-Campus Interviews

April 18: J-W Operating Company Human Resources Internship Any Major Open Schedule Sign-up deadline: WednesdayApril 23: WhiteHill Manufac- turing Accountant Open Schedule Sign-up deadline: ThursdayApril 24: AMBA District Manager Trainees and Interns Any Major Open Schedule Sign-up deadline: Thursday

To schedule an on-campus interview, go to www.acu.edu/careerlink or contact Bradon Tharp at (325) 674-2653.

IT’S NOT A JOB IF YOU LOVE IT:Recent Jobs Posted on ACU CareerLink(www.acu.edu/careerlink)Job ID #5512 Media relations internship with the National Men-tal Health AssociationJob ID #5481 Summer tour guide with the ACU Offi ce of AdmissionsJob ID #5478 Assistant business manager with McMahon Law FirmJob ID #5421 Customer services operations coordinator with Cad-bury SchweppesJob ID #5453 Field technology engineer with Halliburton (Houston)Job ID #5454 Advertising account manager with Centro, LLC (Dallas)

Praise Day in chapel with SHADES.

Last day to sign up for ACU for Abilene.

Last day to turn in mentor group leader applications for Welcome Week.

6:45 p.m.Dinner begins for Spring Dinner Theatre. Tickets for dinner and the ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ show are $25.

7:30 p.m.‘Convicted,’ SHADES spring step show, in Cullen auditorium.

8 p.m.‘Little Shop of Horrors’ is performed in Fulks Theatre. Tickets for the show alone are $15.

5 p.m.SA meeting in the Onstead-Packer Biblical Studies Building, Room 114. All students are welcome to attend.

6 p.m.All-School Rodeo in the horse barn at the Abilene Expo Center, hosted by the Agriculture and Environmental Science Club. Tickets will be available at the Campus Center ticket windows from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Students may sign up to compete individually or as a team. Social clubs will nominate representatives to compete for Rodeo Queen and Rodeo Roughie.

7:30 p.m.‘Convicted,’ SHADES spring step show, in Cullen auditorium. Tickets for ‘Convicted’ shows will be sold in the Campus Center ticket windows until Friday for $4. Tickets will be $5 at the door. Children under 5 are free. Tickets purchased from SHADES members are $3.

ACU for Abilene

6:45 p.m.Dinner begins for Spring Dinner Theatre. Tickets for dinner and the ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ show are $25.

7:30 p.m.‘Convicted,’ Shades spring step show, in Cullen auditorium.

8 p.m.‘Little Shop of Horrors’ is performed in Fulks Theatre. Tickets for the show alone are $15.

CreditedChapelsto date:

CreditedChapelsremaining:

Chapel Checkup60 12

p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for free food and fun. Enter the drawings to win priz-es including gift certifi cates and a digital camera. Wear a crazy hat and compete for a prize. RSVP to (325) 674-2737 or seniorexperience@acu.edu by Friday. For more information, go to www.acu.edu/seniors.

Join the ACU Bands for the Spring ACU Bands Concert on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Abilene Civic Center. This concert will feature performances by the Concert Band and Wind Ensemble. Natalie Steele, the associate director of bands who will be leaving ACU to pursue doc-toral studies next year, and John Whitwell (ACU Class of `65), who was director of bands at ACU from 1981-1987 and is on his retirement from teaching, will be honored. The

feature piece of the program is a new work called “Starry Crown,” which is based on three gospel tunes, in-cluding “Down in the Valley to Pray” from the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou.” This piece was composed by Donald Grantham, composer at the University of Texas, in honor of Whit-well. Also featured in this concert will be Kristin Ward, instructor of clarinet at ACU, performing a bass clarinet solo with the Wind Ensemble.

All students are invited to the International Spring Banquet on April 27 at 7 p.m. at Fairway Oaks Country Club. Dress is semi-formal. Tickets are $15 per person and can be purchased by cash or check in McKinzie Hall, room 128. All ticket purchases must be completed by Friday. For more information, contact Laura Blake at laura.blake@acu.edu.

Residence Life is looking for bands for the Backyard Bash on April 28. If interested, contact Jae Webb at jkw02a@acu.edu or at (325) 260-7347.

The First Annual 5k Saving Ba-bies Race will be April 28. This race will be held by March of Dimes in conjunction with Walk America. The race will start at 8:30 a.m. Check in at 7:30 a.m. at Redbud Park. The Entry fee is $25. Awards will be giv-en to the top overall runners and the top-three males and females in each age category. For more information, e-mail sks06k@acu.edu or call (325) 672-0566. Download an entry form at www.abilenerunners.com.

The Spiritual Life Core is taking applications for student leaders to oversee ministry opportunities geared toward ACU students, including prayer ministry, Bible studies, encouragement ministry, etc. A link to the application is available in the Spiritual Life section on myACU. For more information, con-tact Ashley Carr at rac02a@acu.edu or Mark Lewis at Mark.Lewis@acu.edu.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Page 3CAMPUS NEWS

n Sing Song production is looking for students to apply for next year’s Sing Song co-chairs. Applicants will be interviewed Wednesday and Friday.

By SARA SNELSONStudent RepoRteR

Interviews for the 2008 Sing Song co-chairs will be conducted Wednesday and Friday.

Students can pick up appli-cations at the front desk in the Campus Life office. Require-ments for applying include a grade point average of 3.0 and junior hours. Applications are due Thursday.

There are three different co-chair positions: market-ing co-chair, downstage co-chair and upstage co-chair. Each position is in charge of a different aspect in the production, and they all “work together to produce a show that is a big part of ACU,” said Courtney Hem-bree, junior journalism ma-jor from Abilene and this year’s downstage co-chair.

“Being a co-chair is so fun, and you feel very re-

warded afterwards,” said Kendall Massey, director of student productions.

Caddie Coupe, senior communications major from Thousand Oaks, Ca-lif., and this year’s upstage co-chair, said a co-chair re-quires patience and organi-zational skills.

“You should be patient and organized; patience for others in the show and pa-tience for yourself,” Coupe said. “I had no idea what all co-chair entailed and all the work it involved, but after-wards I felt so accomplished and was so satisfied with the job that was done.”

Hembree said Sing Song is a major production that involves on-stage fun with lights and costumes, but there’s more that goes on behind-the-scenes.

“All of that is such a small part of Sing Song,” she said. “There is so much that goes on back stage that not even the students who are in the show know about. I can look back and say I did that.”

“The process of Sing Song is long and could not be done without the people backstage,” Coupe said. “The co-chairs work from August until February in preparation for this event, but it is worth it.”

Hembree said that al-though being a co-chair may take up a lot of time, the re-wards outweigh the costs.

“I strongly encourage oth-ers to participate and think about being a co-chair or backstage help,” Hembree said. “It may take up a lot of your time, but do not let other things stop you from doing it. You will feel truly rewarded in the end.”

Sing Song ’08 seeks co-chairs

n The 2007 edition of the ‘Shinnery Review,’ a student-created literary magazine, will be on sale Thursday for $5. The magazine includes prose, poetry, art and photography.

By LAURA SMITHStudent RepoRteR

The first copies of the 2007 edition of the “Shin-nery Review” will be on sale Thursday. Campus Activi-ties Board will be sponsor-ing the Black Tulip poetry reading that evening at 8 p.m. in the Learning Com-mons where there will be food, poetry and a chance to snag the latest edition of this student-created literary magazine hot off the press.

Every year students sub-mit by e-mail their entry in the form of prose, poetry, art or photography. In the spring semester, the student staff of the “Shinnery Review,” under the guidance of faculty spon-sors, critique and discuss the submissions and make a decision on whether to in-

clude them in the “Shinnery Review” or reject them.

“This year there is a lot of really, really strong pieces,” said Emerald McGowan, senior journalism major from Lake Charles, La., and one of the two editors of the magazine. “Last semester there was a poetry workshop, which made for a lot better writing.”

Each work is judged from a rubric meant to determine if the composition was done artistically or if the artist just happened to get lucky, McGowan said. Although the quality of writing was better this year, submission level was down for literary and art pieces, McGowan said.

In an attempt to remedy this earlier in the year, the “Shinnery Review” staff put on a contest that involved com-bining art and poetry to try and generate interest among students to submit their works in to the “Review.”

“There were two submis-sions,” said McGowan, “and

one of them we did [publish].”At one point McGowan

and her fellow editor Kalyn Gensic, senior art major from Menard, La., were recruiting among their friends for sub-missions. The pair was push-ing for more creative works with an emphasis on art.

“We had a less than nor-mal amount of entries but good quality,” Gensic said. “It was more about quality than quantity. There were excellent submissions with a lot of great poetry and photography and good art.”

The “Shinnery Review” for 2006-2007 will be on sale for $5 as well as the remainder of last year’s copies for a dis-counted price.

For students wanting to be part of the “Shinnery Review: staff, contact McGowan at ea-m03a@acu.edu or check out the Web site at http://www.acu.edu/students/shinnery.html.

‘Shinnery’ to be unveiled Thursday

n Female students can earn an exercise science credit as a new Maymester course that offers outdoor adventure and spiritual wellness at the Big Bend camp site.

By KARIE SCHMIDTStudent RepoRteR

The Exercise Science De-partment is offering a new ex-perimental activity course for this upcoming Maymester.

The course curriculum focuses on exercise and spiritual wellness. For four days, 15 women will go on an outdoor adventure and

will get the opportunity to canoe, hike, mountain bike and go horseback riding at the Big Bend camp site.

Students will spend two days in the classroom reading and discussing the course’s required text, “Liv-ing a Life of Balance,” and the following days will be spent in Big Bend doing all the set activities. Also while at Big Bend, each student will have to write in a jour-nal, which is meant to help write the reflective essay due after they return. Once

they return, students will spend one additional day in the classroom for reflection on their adventure.

“Outdoor adventure is not just physical, it is spiri-tual,” said Lorraine Wilson, associate professor of exer-cise science and health.

Wilson began the vision of this course two years ago when the department said they needed to add a new activities course. She conducted a survey of what students would want in the activities course, where

they would want to go and how much they were willing to spend. The results indi-cated that most students wanted to go to the Gulf of Mexico but were not willing to spend more than $500. After researching the Gulf of Mexico as a possible loca-tion, Wilson found that the price was not within range, but with more research, she found Big Bend.

From there, Wilson said she began setting up activities, and after two years, Wilson got the course in the catalogue.

“It is a short but power-ful course,” Wilson said.

Kerri Hart, associate pro-fessor of exercise science and health, is one of the sponsors helping with the Maymester.

“I am very passionate with the philosophy of the class,” Hart said.

Hart will spend time ex-ercising with the 15 wom-en and also worshiping in God’s creation, she said.

“It’s everything I love in nature — playing in nature and reflecting on God’s cre-ation,” she said.

In order to enroll in this activity course, two prereq-uisites are required. First, there is a strength test, which Wilson said is pretty easy to pass. Second there is a car-dio test that requires the students to run or walk twice around the school track.

“No one should feel in-timidated [by the course],” Wilson said.

New outdoor adventure class offered during Maymester

brian schmidt SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Mathis Kennington, senior Christian ministry major from San Antonio, shared wisdom as one of the senior speakers in Chapel on Tuesday, reminding students to live for Christ.

Live for Christ

E-mail Schmidt at: optimist@acu.edu

n Positions: marketing co-chair, downstage co-chair and upstage co-chair.

n Requirements: GPA of 3.0 and junior hours.

AvAilABlE PoSiTioNS ANd REqUiREMENTS

E-mail Snelson at: optimist@acu.edu

E-mail Smith at: optimist@acu.edu

Page 4 Wednesday, April 18, 2007CAMPUS NEWS

n Professors and students hope the new e-mail system from Google, Gmail, will provide them with a better way to communicate and organize e-mails.

By CAMILLE PAINTERStudent RepoRteR

The umpteen signs posted around campus advertising G-day can now come down. G-day is upon us.

After about four years of us-ing Sun Microsystems to run our e-mail, ACU has switched to Google’s e-mail system, Gmail.

Chad Hutchins, one of five students on a team in charge of spreading the word about the e-mail service change, said there were several reasons for the switch.

“It’s just going to be so much easier and less buggy for the school. The people who are in charge of e-mail right now just hate [Sun Mi-crosystems],” Hutchins said. “Also, for early adopters of Gmail, now that they’ve gone public, there’s no charge for it

so it saves them lots of money in licensing fees.”

Hutchins, junior computer science major from Tyler, is ahead of the average student with the Gmail movement. He has been using his ACU e-mail account but having his e-mails forwarded to his separate Gmail account, the provider he prefers.

Gmail has several new fea-tures: a chat feature, an e-mail rating, a calendar, a more ex-tensive e-mail search system which can search within old e-mails for words, a spam folder that catches spam be-fore it reaches the inbox, and several other features stu-dents and faculty are now able to explore.

“I’m very pleased that this is happening. I’m a Web enthu-siast, and I like Google a lot,” Hutchins said.

Whether the change will be positive, negative or neutral, it will affect nearly everyone on campus because e-mail has be-come such a popular form of

communication.Last year when Vincent

Diggs had a project due in one of his classes, he was counting on his e-mail to hold some of the information he’d use for his presentation. He started to panic when he went to retrieve the information and found that the e-mail server was not work-ing properly.

“I was like ‘Oh my goodness, my presentation’s on my e-mail, and I can’t get to it,’” said Diggs, senior bio-chemistry and pre-med major from Fort Worth.

The server began working an hour before his presentation.

“Ever since then I haven’t been too stressed about e-mail issues,” Diggs said.

Steven Wages told his stu-dents last Wednesday he was behind on his e-mail; he finally caught up three days later.

“I just now cleared out probably 260 e-mails out of my inbox,” said Wages, as-sistant professor of family studies. “At this time of the semester, I can get 50, 60 e-

mails in a day. Or a day or two will go by, and I’m 120 e-mails behind.”

These two problems are ex-amples of issues with e-mail people have been facing since it became popular.

Heather Anderson, gradu-ate psychology major from Lake Jackson, related to Digg’s problem.

“I’ve had Webmail problems — trying to check the e-mail and stuff like that, and it’ll be down a lot — but it sounds like Gmail will be a lot better, and hope-fully they won’t have as many problems, and it won’t be down as much,” Anderson said.

Wages uses e-mail often to communicate with students. He uses e-mail to remind stu-dents of due dates or let them know to look at a Blackboard assignment.

“There’s an efficiency to e-mail that we can get in touch with one another much more quickly,” Wages said. “I like the idea of being able to stay in touch with students.”

But some students don’t re-ceive these e-mails.

Anderson checks her e-mail two to three times a day but still runs into this problem ev-ery once in a while.

“I only don’t get them on time if the professor doesn’t send them on time,” Anderson said. “But there are days when I’ll go to class and a teacher said, ‘I sent you an e-mail ear-lier today’ and well, I haven’t checked it yet.”

Wages said most of the students who don’t receive his e-mails are from a result of timing on the e-mails. E-mail is a double-edged sword, Wages said.

“On one hand, it’s a blessing; on the other hand, maybe you pay a price,” he said. “For the most part, it’s reliable it leaves somewhat of an audit trail; it’s real easy to save e-mail.”

He often saves e-mails from students in old files, so if there’s a question about the communi-cation, he can pull it back up.

Times to communicate are

another benefit of e-mail. “There’s times when we

need to be meeting and talking, but yes, on the other hand, it’s very convenient and eliminates some meetings,” Wages said.

And he can work on e-mails early in the morning and late at night, times when other people may not be willing to talk to him on the phone or in a meeting. It is also more spatially available.

“I can access it wherever I have the web,” Wages said.

However, e-mail is a way people can contact a person, whether the person wants con-tact or not.

“You may get something in an e-mail from someone you don’t want something from and then you’re stuck having to deal with it,” Wages said. “It’s a little overwhelm-ing how many e-mails I get a day, but that goes with the job I guess. It’s the way we do business today.”

ACU hopes Gmail switch works better than old system

n The spring rush season will be a busy time for potential pledges and club members while they prepare for the rushes planned for the week ahead.

By MALLORY EDENSpage 2 editoR

Social club rushes began Monday for students looking to pledge in the fall. While a few rushes have passed, many opportunities to at-tend rushes this spring are still available.

Only five formal rushes remain, including those for women’s clubs Alpha Kai Omega and Sigma Theta Chi and men’s clubs Sub T-16, Gamma Sigma Phi and Galaxy.

“For all the rushes, I hope that freshmen will go to them and afterwards figure out that stereotypes aren’t always true,” said Jeffrey Ed-wards, Galaxy president and biology and pre-medicine major from Bedford. “Every club has a lot of diversity, and if you like a club you should give it a chance.”

Edwards encourages all eligible students to rush be-cause of the free food and the social atmosphere.

“You will make friends that, even if you don’t pledge that club, you will see from time to time,” he said. “[Rushes] have the po-tential to be kind of awk-

ward, but if you go there with the mindset that ‘I am going to have fun,’ you will enjoy yourself more.”

Lindsey Smith, GATA PR and rush director, said she hopes to build relationships and membership through their rushes.

“We have a lot of goals for upcoming rushes,” Smith said. “I am really excited about meeting people. It’s frustrating that we have less members when seniors leave. We want to build up the club, but there is only so much we can do.”

Shannon Lair, Sigma Theta Chi president and education major from Apple Valley,

Minn., said she is looking forward to the “Camp Sig-gie” rush that is taking place April 23 on the Hardin Ad-ministration Building steps at 7 p.m.

“[This is] one of my favor-ite rushes,” Lair said. “We do skits, and it’s always real fun. Siggies are excited to be in the rushing season again and to form relationships with new girls. Rushing is a time when we are reminded of our purpose and what our club stands for.”

Chelsea Power, Ko Jo Kai social director and human communication major from Houston, said her goal is to get as many female students interested in pledging Ko Jo Kai because Ko Jo Kai is a “great group of Godly wom-en with a lot of spunk.”

“There are so many girls on campus here that are like that, and I want to encourage them to get out and rush. It’s a lot of fun,” Power said.

A new feature of spring rushes for women’s social clubs is combined rushes. The purpose of the combined rushes is for each small club to join with a large club to encourage pledging as a whole, Power said.

The first combined rush will be the “Kojie-Kappa Ca-bana” rush between Ko Jo Kai and Tri Kappa Gamma on April 23 on the Hardin Administration Building steps at 5 p.m. The second combined rush will be be-tween Alpha Kai Omega and Delta Theta, which will take place two hours later on that same day at Will Hair Park at 9 p.m.

The third combined rush will be a “Rock and Roll” rush between GATA and Sig-

ma Theta Chi on April 24 at Nelson Park at 7 p.m. for ice cream and games.

Lair said this new type of rush will give students an even greater ability to get to know people.

“We drew for a club to be paired with, and that’s some-thing we have never done before,” Lair said. “We are not wearing any of our club attire, so they won’t know who is from which club im-mediately.”

Following these spring rushes, clubs will begin preparations for fall rushes. Many clubs are still in the planning stages. Some fore-see different types of rushes coming in the fall, and oth-ers see many things remain-ing the same.

GATA plans on still hav-ing its formal “Glitz and Glamour” rush, as well as the “Fun in the Sun” invitation rush. However, they have not planned other rushes.

Galaxy traditionally has a car-bashing rush, and Ed-wards said this is always fun and they will try to have that again next year. They also usually have a Kojie-Moonie cookout that they are look-ing to do again.

“That’s fun because it’s another rush with both guys and girls, and that takes some of the awkwardness out of it,” Edwards said. “And it’s outside, so that’s always good too.”

Most clubs reported still being in the planning stag-es for fall rushes. For more information about rushing, students may contact Mauri Westbrook at (325) 674-2772 or mbm98g@acu.edu.

Rushes give potential pledges chance to know different clubs

Women’s Club Rushes

Alpha Kai Omega Wed. - Living Room, 5 p.m.Mon. - Will Hair Park, 9 p.m.April 26 - 2326 Campus Court, 7 p.m.

Delta ThetaMon. - Will Hair Park, 9 p.m.April 26 - 810 Harrison Ave., 9 p.m.

GATAFri. - GATA Fountain, then 809 Harrison, noonTue. - Nelson Park, 7 p.m.

Ko Jo KaiMon. - Admin Bldg. Steps, 7 p.m.April 26 - 517 College Dr., 5 p.m.

Sigma Theta ChiThurs. - Skatin’ Place, 9 p.m.Mon. - Admin Bldg. Steps, 7 p.m.Tue. - Nelson Park, 7 p.m.

TKGMon. - Admin Bldg. Steps, 5 p.m.Tue. - Sonic, 5 p.m.

Men’s Club Rushes

Frater SodalisMon. - Will Hair Park, 7 p.m.April 27 - Intramural Field, noon

GalaxyThurs. - Skatin’ Place, 9 p.m.Tue. - Will Hair Park, 6 p.m.Thurs. - Rosa’s Cafe, noon

Gamma Sigma PhiThurs. - 609 EN 20th, 7 p.m.Tue. - Sonic, 7:30 p.m.April 25 - 2693 Garfield, noon

Sub-T 16Wed. - Bennett Gym, 9 p.m.Mon. - TBD, noonApril 26 - Will Hair Park, 6 p.m.

TrojansThurs. - Chicken Express, noonApril 25 - Joe’s, 5 p.m.

SPriNG rUSh SChEdUlE

E-mail Painter at: optimist@acu.edu

E-mail Edens at: mxe06a@acu.edu

Religion in Hong Kong

Hong KongInformation courtesy of www.wikipedia.com.

g Buddism and Taoism: About 600 temples

g Roman Catholics: about 240,000 people, 52 parishes

g Protestants: About 300,000 people. 1,300 congregations, 50 denominations

g Muslisms: About 20,000

g Hindus: About 15,000

g Also Confusionism, Sikh and Jewish

Page 5April 18, 2007

E-mail Schlabach at: mes02e@acu.edu

Ashley He attends Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, a church that reminds her of the government-run church she

attends at home in China. Although it’s bigger than Highland, she says.

As the only Christian in her family, Ashley, ju-nior nursing major from Hong Kong, often goes to church by herself unless it’s a holiday when her mom accompanies her.

Ashley’s family’s beliefs vary between family members like her grandmother who worships any God that will help her in life with longevity and prosperity, to her uncle who doesn’t believe in anything at all.

She said her family’s beliefs come from the way they grew up in China during a time when religion was prohibited. Fifty years ago the coun-try followed Buddhism. Today she said most people in the country are atheists.

For now her only ally is her mom, who at least is understanding of why she believes in God.

“My mom kind of understands what I believe, and she thinks that at least Christianity is a good religion because it seems like it helps me in my life and God is guarding me,” she says. “The rest of my family thinks that I was just naïve that I would believe Christianity. They think any kind of religion in the world is stupid, and I’m looking for comfort so that is why I believe a religion.”

To avoid further confrontation for her beliefs, Ashley attends Shenzhen Mengling Christian Church outside of Hong Kong. She said it’s eas-ier to attend a church the government approves than to live in fear.

“If you want to worship in a government-controlled registered church, it is not that hard,” she said. “But if you want to worship in a house church, it is very hard and even dan-gerous because the government might arrest you and then take away all of your property and put you in jail.”

She takes the bus to get to church, and said al-though the design is much different than Ameri-can churches, one would still be able to tell it’s a church because of the cross on the outside of the building. The church has four services and each service is usually full with members, she said. She normally goes to one of the morning services, but said an evening service is also of-fered. One time she went to the afternoon service and was surprised to see only several hundred worshippers in attendance.

“I was confused as to why there wasn’t many people there until they started speaking Korean,” she said laughing. “I was like, ‘Huh?’ because I didn’t understand a thing they were saying. Now I know my church offers a Korean service, and I make sure I get up in time to go to the normal services.”

Americans have much more freedom with religion, she said, but depending on what part of the country you live in, most people wouldn’t notice the religious regulations.

Because the city she lives in is next to Hong Kong and has about seven million people, she said she doesn’t hear about Christian perse-cution as much. The further inland one goes, though, the more they have to worry about being jailed or punished.

Religious freedom in China is better than 20 years ago, she says, but it still has a way to go to be good enough.

Changing a life

Five years ago Ashley came to the United States as an exchange student from State Col-lege, Pa., to stay with R. Scott and Teresa Lenhart. Teresa is the stepdaughter of M.L. Daniels, pro-fessor emeritus of music and composer of Cen-tennial Fanfare.

Ashley was a junior in high school at the time, attending a large public high school with more than 3,000 students. Her host parents were Christians, ACU alumni and the first people to introduce her to the Bible.

“My mom would teach me the Bible stories, and she actually hooked me up with a local Chi-nese church in town,” she said.

Scott was a psychologist in a downtown state college but also the preacher at their small non-denominational church.

Ashley said his preaching was very inspir-ing to her, and attending the church made her feel free.

Her English wasn’t as good then as it is now, so she learned the Bible in Chinese first and then in English so she could pick up the language quicker.

Her host mom introduced her to a Chris-tian group of high school students at school, and it was at one of these monthly meetings that she prayed for the first time and accept-ed Jesus as her savior, she said.

After a year she returned to China to finish high school and then returned to Pennsylva-nia after graduation to begin college at Penn State University.

Before her sophomore year began, she trans-ferred to ACU for many reasons, she said.

First, she wanted to attend a Christian university, and Penn State, with more than 40,000 students, was a public university with Christian students in the minority. She said her host family always spoke so highly about ACU that she decided she needed to try it out, and she was also able to pay lower tuition at ACU than at Penn State.

Ashley enjoys the students at ACU the best and finds she has people she can look up to all around her.

“I haven’t been a Christian for a long time, so I feel like I need to learn more. It’s an ongoing process,” she said in be-tween yelling ‘hi’ to people across the room.

“Do you have a new cell phone number?” she asked a friend who

passed by where she was sitting in the library.

“Sorry, I keep interrupting, but I haven’t seen him all semester.”

As she searches for her phone in her bag, she said, “It’s not about the Bible classes but the environment. You can

find a lot of models here to learn from.”

Making a differenceWhen she graduates from ACU in

2008 or 2009, she said she wants to

do missionary work and help those around her, which is one reason she is taking French next semester. Ashley wants to be multi-lin-gual so she can speak the language anywhere she goes. She already speaks English and three dialects of Chinese fluently, and because she began French in high school, she thinks she can pick it up easily again.

Because of where she grew up, she speaks the local Chinese dialect of her town, Mandarin and Cantonese, two of the hardest languages in the world to learn. She’s also teaching fel-low students at ACU how to speak Mandarin on the weekends.

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world, with close to one billion native speakers. English comes in fourth after Hindi and Spanish. China has more than 1.3 billion people and the world’s fastest growing economy. Many predict Mandarin will become a universal language since China is the most popu-lated country in the world. So even if a visitor doesn’t know the local dialect, he or she can still converse with the native Chinese.

“Nobody here wants to take it because it’s so hard. We even have a hard time learning it. My friends spent years learning how to spell their name because there are so many charac-ters involved,” she says laughing as she spells her name on the notebook in front of her.

“See, mine isn’t even that hard. It even kind of looks like bamboo, but it’s not.”

She explains that Mandarin does have an alphabet to make it easier for Americans and people from the Western world, and that it’s a language thousands of years old that is both phonetic and graphic.

Every Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. she meets with around seven to 10 students and people from the community who want to learn how to speak Mandarin.

Ashley offers the class for free; students only have to pay for copy fees for the worksheets she hands out each week.

Less than a decade ago, the university of-fered a Mandarin course. But before long, the Foreign Language Department had to close it because not enough students showed inter-

est, said Dr. Mark Jones, chair of the Foreign Language Department.

“There wasn’t enough interest from students to learn it, and it seems there was a resistance from advisers and faculty that didn’t think learning Mandarin was important,” he said. “If we could find someone to teach it though, and enough students stuck with it instead of talking about it, I think we’d offer it again. It would be a wonderful idea since the awareness about China has changed. It would definitely be worth a try.”

But until that happens, Ashley continues to offer her course — treating each session like it really was a class and expecting each student to do their work.

She gives her students a quiz before each session, but says she won’t send anyone home if they haven’t done their homework. She said she understands people have other ob-ligations, but she does expect them to know something when they come each week.

Even though she has been teaching this class since she arrived a year ago, she said some of her students still don’t have easy pro-nunciation down yet. With four tones in the language and more than 60,000 characters, she said it’s hard to master.

“I feel proud that I am teaching others my language, and I am proud of them for trying to learn the hardest language in the world,” she said.

Ashley wants others at ACU to learn Mandarin so that one day, people can know the language enough to be fluent anywhere in the country.

“China doesn’t have non-profit hospitals like America does,” she says. “One day if I have a lot of money, or if I have a lot of support and volunteers, I want to open a non-profit hospi-tal in my country to help others.”

Ashley’s goal of teaching others her lan-guage is noble and practical — and something Larry Henderson, missions coordinator for Asia, said would be wise for most people.

“The first time I went deep in main land Chi-na and heard millions of people speaking Chi-nese, it really moved me,” he said. “I wished that if God gave me a language that it was Chinese. There is nothing as useful today as Chinese.”

Coming to understand the Chinese cul-ture and its future effect on the rest of the world will mean different things to different people. For Dr. Royce Money, president of the university, his summer trip to China changed his world view and how he sees the university operating in the future.

“I suspect I will return to China again some-time. I don’t know when that might be, but I will remain open to the leading of the Lord,” he said. “At ACU, we can’t just do business as usual. We have to begin teaching Mandarin Chinese, if one in five people are speaking it right now. We’re a university that has to oper-ate globally and missionally, and we have to send students out in the world that can do that too. For us, China is just the start. We’re not stopping here, but looking to the rest of the world.”

ChristianityinChina

This is the final installment in the series in the Optimist documenting Christianity in China and various mission fi elds where people associated with the university serve.

EMILY SMITH CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Ashley He teaches Mandarin to about 10 community members every Sunday afternoon. Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world — about one billion speak the language.

China: Only the beginning“For us, China is just the start. We’re not stopping

here, but looking to the rest of the world.”Dr. Royce Money, president of the university

Story by Mallory Schlabach / Design by Kelsi Peace

EMILY SMITH CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Hong Kong’s Protestant church offers social services, including 57 Christian bookshops.

ViewswednesdayOptimist

The Virginia Tech tragedy is the deadliest shooting in American history, and I’m ashamed to say my first re-

action was disinterest.

“Just an-other school s h o o t i n g , ” I thought when I first heard of the m a s s a c r e . “Time for Bi-ble class.”

Some may think, “What a selfish jerk.”

And its true, I am. I let my daily routine over-shadow a tragedy that af-fects all college students across the nation, even us here at ACU.

Although my only connec-tion to Virginia is a sister liv-ing in Lynchburg, this trage-dy is directly relevant to my life and all of our lives.

The Virginia Tech trag-edy is an example of some-thing that could happen on any college campus across the nation.

What if you heard gun-shots while walking to Eng-lish class in the Administra-tion building or while waiting in line for a cup of coffee at the Starbucks in the Learn-ing Commons?

What would you do? How would you react?

Those are the questions that ran through my mind as the story unfolded on TV. I couldn’t help but wonder the horror and fearful exposure the students at VT felt after 33 of their classmates were confirmed dead. And before

I knew it, the feelings I imag-ined of all involved became my own. I was overwhelmed with horror, shock, disbelief and most of all fear.

And that’s when I started praying.

I know it sounds corny and like advice your mom would give you when some-thing bad happens in your life, but when I searched my mind for what I can do, prayer seemed to be the best answer.

And that is something hard for me to admit.

I believe little in God and even less in God’s reaction to prayer, but I do believe this tragedy is out of my hands.

I abandoned the declara-

tive hostility I often hold to-ward God and came to him with one request: to be with the people in Blacksburg, Va.

There is little a person in the small city of Abilene, miles away from the tragedy, can do to personally affect this tragedy, but I believe that shouldn’t encourage apathy and disinterest.

Keep your eyes glued to the television and as the sto-ry continues to unfold, don’t react with anger, react with understanding and peaceful-ly grieve the students who were murdered.

We all can do something about this no matter how small, and we should not let this tragedy slip under the lie that we don’t have an impact.

I just hope my prayer was heard.

The issue:Radio announcer Don Imus was fired for making a racial comment about Rutgers women’s basketball team.

Our view:Words are powerful but can have the potential to be hurtful. They cannot be taken back.

The solution:Honor your First Amendment rights by considering how your words affect others.

Page 6 April 18, 2007

Imus eats words, leaves public cautiousSomeone ought to thank

Don Imus. Not for the offen-sive racial and sexual com-ments he made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team this month, but for the reminder that with the right to free speech comes the responsibility of self-regulation.

Imus himself does not seem to have learned this lesson — nor, apparently, has he had reason to. In 1996, the New York Times reported that Imus had re-ceived some criticism for making rude comments to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton at the Radio and Television Correspon-dents annual dinner, among

them call-ing Clinton a “pot-smok-ing weasel” to his face. The offense is not an iso-lated incident, and now it appears that even Don Imus is paying for failing to cen-sor himself as CBS has can-celled his show, “Imus in the Morning.”

Words are powerful — and it seems we often re-member this only after we have said something hurt-ful, only to remember those words cannot be taken back. For public figures and those whose words are broadcast on live television or radio,

words are even more pow-erful and more permanent. However, this is not to say that those who are not in the public eye should treat their free speech lightly.

For example, students at Tarleton State University surely felt they were ex-ercising their right of free speech when they posted photographs from a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party in January. However, the pho-tographs caused an outrage,

and the uni-versity held a forum to discuss ra-cial issues on campus as a result.

As a society, we seem to expect less from one an-other in regards to speech today than we did 20 years ago. Coarse language and of-fensive jokes can be found online, on TV and on the street. But now, more than ever, we need to remember how powerful our words are, both to offend others and to taint our own reputations. Employers, professors and peers have access to profiles and posts at Web sites like

Facebook and MySpace, and an offhand comment could wind up affecting its author with harsh consequences.

The First Amendment pro-tects the right to free speech — a right vital to democracy, a right that has spurred great changes and drawn atten-tion to many injustices. But with such an important right comes important responsi-bility. Honor that right and uphold your responsibil-ity with your words. Words are more compelling when thought can back them up.

The place of prayer in the face of tragedy

The Kennedy assassina-tion changed journalism forever. It marked the time when TV surpassed the

newspaper as the pri-mary means for covering an ongoing event. From then on, the public turned to t e l ev i s ion for break-ing news coverage.

T h a t day in Dallas launched the careers of journalists like Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. Journalists and viewers looked at news differently from then on. Viewers expected immedi-ate updates, and journal-ists were expected to live up to the new standard.

Journal-ism’s next big change h a p p e n e d Monday in Virginia.

T h e r e , among all the chaos and con-fusion of the shootings at Virginia Tech, TV reporting failed where the Internet and cell phones thrived.

While huddled in class-rooms or just wondering where friends were, people turned to their phones and even Facebook to see what was happening. Some even used their camera phones to document what took place.

The news reporters, news gatherers and historians are these people.

The ABC World News only added commentary to facts about the shootings. Any re-porting they used was from cell phone videos or Face-book accounts — very little of the reporting was from its own work. A majority of its reporting came from Face-book. They even showed a guy’s wall post saying he was tired of reporters trying to talk to him.

The phonebook is being replaced by Facebook. No reporter will go to a phone-book when so much more background and contact information is available on Facebook.

Meanwhile, students went to Facebook, as is the custom for any event now, to update profiles and make groups.

None of this is a surprise,

it takes a major event to show us when the norm has changed. If Monday’s shoot-ings happened just two or three years ago, we would all be glued to the TV.

I was not, however. I read a short report on-

line to see how many were dead or injured. Cell phone videos were already online to watch what happened. I didn’t need TV shots from the events that happened outside of the building when first person accounts were a click or two away. I, like TV reports that night, turned to the Internet. The only reason I know what the national news aired that night was because I was at a class event watch-ing the TV. Otherwise, like 364 days in the year, I would not have seen the nightly news.

Think back to similar events, like Columbine or Sept. 11. In a relatively short time, the way similar events are covered changed from getting just in-terviews after-

ward. Now, the need for in-terviews is almost useless because we already have the first-hand knowledge from the witnesses with-out the cuts and edits of a newscast.

Monday was so differ-ent because technology is available that wasn’t then. But mostly, there is an ex-pectation from younger generations for multime-dia news and a new under-standing by the media to supply that need.

Where technology-de-prived generations want their news fed to them in a TV or newspaper report, the technologically savvy want not only a variety of news outlets, but to be the news providers as well.

Just like newspaper, this change won’t mean the end for TV reporting. The difference now is that so many more people can be more than just a wit-ness to history. We can be authors. Where the Kenne-dy Assassination launched the careers of a few, Mon-day’s events will make us all reporters.

E-mail Fields at: jrf03b@acu.edu, optimist@acu.edu

StereotypeFree

DanielJohnson

Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Optimist and may not necessarily reflect the views of the university or its administration.

Signed columns, cartoons and letters are the opinions of their creators and may not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the Optimist or the university.

The Optimist encourages reader response through letters to the editor but reserves the right to limit frequent contributors or to refuse to print letters containing personal

attacks, obscenity, defamation, erroneous information or invasion of privacy.

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Online:www.acuoptimist.com

Editorial and Management Board

Mallory SchlabachEditor in Chief

Jared FieldsManaging Editor

Michelle JimenezCopy Editor

Lauren SuttonOpinion Editor

Emily SmithChief Photographer

Kelsi PeaceFeatures Editor

Daniel JohnsonSports Editor

Todd PiersallArts Editor

Shelby CoatesVideo Editor

Christi StarkAdvertising Manager

Kenneth PybusAdviser

As a society, we seem to expect less from one another in regards to speech than we

did 20 years ago.

E-mail the Optimist at: optimist@acu.edu

Cole WilliamsLet Loose

The phonebookis being replaced

by Facebook.

E-mail Johnson at: ddj04a@acu.edu, optimist@acu.edu

Facebook trumps news in VT incident

I abandoned the declarative hostility I often hold toward God and came to him with one

request: to be with the people of Blacksburg, Va.

In Your WordsWhat was your reaction to the shootings at Virginia Tech University?

Justin Ruizsophomore youth and family ministry major from Belton

I was shocked.I was wondering what I would have done if I were in their shoes.

Chandler Harrisfreshman broadcast journalismmajor from Fort Worth

I like the way the nation addressed the problem.

Kelly Kerchezalsophomore interior designmajor from Houston

Fields of Dreams

JaredFields

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Page 7FROM THE FRONT/SPORTS JUMPS

in the nation, into a three-set battle that ended in a 4-6, 6-0, 7-5 win for Harknett. In the No. 2 match, sophomore Ryan Hudson rolled over Fil-ip Ziyojinovic 6-1, 6-3. Hud-son’s dominating play car-ried over into the following day’s match against the No. 1 team in the Central region, St. Edward’s. Hudson, along with Nunez, senior George Carstens, senior Bryce Hicks and freshman Luke Hawk, helped mount a come-from-behind 5-4 victory over St. Edward’s.

“It was good to play at a high level the day before,” Jones said. “We like a good struggle.”

The ACU women also had to conquer some struggles as they traveled to Houston to play a pair of matches. On Thursday, the Wildcats took down Lee College, the No. 2 junior college team in the na-tion, 7-2.

After downing Lee, the women fell 5-4 to Rice on Friday. ACU came out of the gates strong by sweeping all three doubles matches. Junior Aina Rafolomanan-tsiatosika and sophomore Irene Squilliaci teamed up to take the No. 1 doubles match 8-3. Seniors Holly Lindloff and Lana Pavlin triumphed in their doubles match 8-4. And the team of junior Meagan Brown and freshman Dina Pavlin won 8-2.

However, in Division I matches, the team that wins the majority of doubles matches earns only one point in the overall match, as opposed to Division II play where each match counts as one point. So, instead of be-ing up 3-0, ACU was leading 1-0 when it started singles play. After the singles match-es were complete, Rice came out with the win.

Playoffs: Women defend LSC titleContinued from page 8

E-mail Freeman at: mxf04b@acu.edu

stands at 21-20 overall and 7-13 in the division.

“Our main problem all sea-son has been taking our mo-mentum to the next game,” Wilson said. “Our pitching and defense were not able to hold off Eastern’s offense. We hit the ball well enough to win three out of four.”

The losses make next week-

end’s games even more im-portant because they are still fifth in the Lone Star South division. To make it into the conference tournament, the team has to be ranked fourth or less, and for that to hap-pen, ACU must win all four of next weekend’s games against West Texas A&M.

“We have to sweep WTAMU to get us to 11 conference wins,” Wilson said. “We have a

shot being at that number, but it is not for sure, and we will have to let the rest of the con-ference games play out.”

ACU, who had been the pre-season pick to win the LSC South division title, can only hope they get some help from Texas A&M-Kingsville, Texas Woman’s University and Angelo State. Those teams will be play-ing Eastern New Mexico and Tarleton State, the two teams

immediately ahead of ACU in the conference rankings, and if they have any losses, ACU’s chances are higher of getting into the tournament.

“This team has known the past three series what they needed to do,” Wilson said. “The pressure has always been there. It is in their hands wheth-er they want it bad enough.”

Softball: Sweep necessary for playoff berthContinued from page 8

from Abilene and intramural coordinator of officials. “So far this year, the weather is good and the season is on schedule.”

Because of last season’s can-cellation, club teams who paid

in 2006 were allowed free entry for the number of teams they paid for last year. Non-club teams were allowed to keep their rosters for free, paying $10 for each additional player added this season, Saffel said

“In the men’s champ league,

there is no clear favorite be-cause each team has quality players. The same goes with men’s rec and in the women’s league,” Saffel said. “However, freshman teams usually have a good chance to win in the rec leagues because of students

coming out of high school ath-letics.”

Reid Overall, senior missions major from Abilene, is excited about the new season.

“The best thing about play-ing is getting together with a bunch of different guys and

hanging out,” Overall said. Overall plays for the Tom

Emanski All-Stars in the men’s champ league and is looking forward to the competition.

Weather permitting, the season will continue until the week before finals, but Saffel

said games may be played dur-ing the weekend because of the limited field space.

Intramural : Club teams waived entry fee because of 2006 cancellation

quarterly to discuss crisis sce-narios and recent trends and to further develop the university’s response. The university can communicate with students, faculty and staff through e-mail, internally on the myACU page and externally on the ACU home page. Ellison said these methods are used in less ex-treme situations, such as the severe winter weather that can-celed classes at the beginning of the semester. In severe in-stances, Ellison said the PA sys-tem in the Tower of Light could be used for announcements.

“We reserve that for extreme circumstances,” Ellison said, explaining that the university doesn’t want to “cry wolf” too many times.

The department has also been considering purchasing programming that will send instant text messages across campus. The department has been “exploring the possibil-ity actively” for a few months, Ellison said. The immediacy of text messaging in a generation of students very connected to their cell phones makes the technology a tool guaranteed to reach students in situations e-mail and Internet announce-ments might not, Ellison said.

“[Monday’s] incident just un-derscores the need,” he said.

Ellison emphasized that the ACU campus is safe, and the police department is profes-sionally staffed 24 hours a day. While the administration has the responsibility to have a cri-sis response plan, Ellison said,

students, faculty and staff also need to think about their own responses.

“We’re here to protect,” Elli-son said, “But we need students to do their part.”

Ellison said this includes thinking ahead, being obser-vant and alert and reporting suspicious behavior.

“We would much rather re-spond and find out it is noth-ing,” Ellison said.

Monday’s tragedy also serves to remind students that a trag-edy can happen anywhere.

“No plan is capable of ad-dressing the carnage that oc-curred at Virginia Tech,” Ellison said. “We are part of the world, and things can happen.”

Safety: Students must respond tooContinued from page 1

Massey, director of student productions.

This year’s show will fea-ture about 15 performances, said Sara Eligado, woman’s captain and junior nursing major from San Jose, Calif.

“There will be more variety of performances, not just hip hop or a band singing, it’s ev-erything,” Eligado said.

With the theme “Convict-ed,” the squad hopes to show how they have grown over the years.

“This show will reflect how we’ve been convicted on the inside,” Jones said.

The show also has a literal and metaphorical meaning.

“In the show the girls are inmates and the guys are SWAT, so they will show that they are convicted by jail and convicted by Christ through our performance,” said Ca-mari Carter, head captain and junior political science major from Los Angeles, Calif.

SHADES hopes to draw a bigger crowd by adding Thurs-day to its performance menu.

“We decided to perform three days to appeal to the people. Thursday appeals to our crowd that goes out of town for the weekend. Fri-day and Saturday is for the people coming from out of town to see the show,” said Jonathan Holloway, men’s captain and senior biology

major from Abilene. “Yeah so this year people

have to come; there is no ex-cuse,” Carter said.

SHADES practices have doubled leading into opening show night.

“At the beginning of the se-mester we practiced Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the last few weeks, practice has been pretty solid Monday, Tues-day, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays,” said Rebecca Schumacher, women’s captain and sophomore interior de-sign major from Abilene. “A full semesters worth of prepa-ration has gone into the show, a lot people and their ideas.”

The ACU community may be used to seeing a SHADES performance once a semes-ter; however, they decided to spend last semester serving the community.

“We usually do a show per semester but we dedicated our first semester to community service and our second semes-ter to a show,” said Carter.

“The community can come out and expect to get their money’s worth,” Jones said.

Tickets go on sale April 15. Ticket prices are $3 if bought from a SHADES member, $4 pre-sale in the Campus Center ticket window and $5 at the door.

SHADES: Extra days added to boost support

Continued from page 8

E-mail the reporters at: optimist@acu.edu

to the victims, their families, friends, students, faculty and staff at Virginia Tech.”

Money sent the message on the day the massacre of 32 Vir-ginia Tech students and suicide of shooter Cho Seung Hui, to let Virginia Tech administrators know that the ACU communi-ty’s thoughts and prayers were with their campus.

In addition to the letter, the campus observed a moment of silence, and Money said a spe-cial prayer for the victims, their families and friends affected by the tragedy. And beyond the formal observances, numerous current and former ACU stu-dents were directly affected by the tragedy.

Randy Woods, sophomore electronic media major from Falls Church, Va., said his first response to the tragedy was to call everyone he knew at Vir-ginia Tech.

“I just went down the line and called them to make sure they were alright,” Woods said.

Once Woods reached his friends and knew they were safe, his thoughts traveled to what could have happened if he chose to go to Virginia Tech instead of ACU.

“Virginia Tech was one of the schools I was considering going to,” Woods said. “I was

scared that I could have been there and that all my friends were there.”

Jenia Clark, who transferred to Virginia Tech from ACU in fall 2006, was on her way to work at the Home Depot in Blacksburg when she first heard of the massacre.

“My first thought was about my best friend that I grew up with, she is like my little sister, and I had to make sure she was safe,” Clark said through in-stant message.

Clark’s friend was safe, but she said one of her friends jumped out of a window to avoid the shots of the shooter and is in the hospital because of his injuries.

Like most other Virginia Tech students, friends and family contacted Clark to make sure she was safe. The sopho-more psychology major was contacted by most of her ACU friends electronically through the social networking site Face-book.com and through AOL in-stant messenger.

More than 500 global groups in less than 24 hours were cre-ated on Facebook — the largest group had more than 100,000 members — in remembrance of the Virginia Tech victims. And numerous ACU students joined those groups and changed their

profile picture to a symbolic black ribbon with the Virginia Tech logo in front to honor of the victims.

“It is amazing to see the re-sponse from other schools,” Clark said.

Brian English, freshman integrated marketing and communication major from North Richland Hills, had two friends locked in a building during the tragedy and joined the Facebook group “Pray for Virginia Tech,” in support of the victims.

“If it can happen to a small boring town in Virginia, how can it not happen to Abilene?” English said. “Just because we live in a great Christian com-munity doesn’t mean it can’t happen here.”

By Tuesday not even half of the identities of the people killed have been released and no motive for the killings has been discovered. And as Dr. Jeff Arrington, associate dean of Campus Life, said as he opened Chapel on Tuesday, the story of the Virginia Tech massacre is far from over.

“This a tragedy that will un-fold for sometime,” he said.

Mallory Edens contributed to this report

“It’s really funny.”Baker said participants

don’t need to know how to ride a bull in order to be involved. This year’s rodeo will consist of several differ-ent events for both men and women. The rodeo includes four separate events, three of which require a team of four. The women’s events include: goat dressing, goat milking, calf scramble and a competition for Rodeo Queen. The men’s events include: cow milking, steer saddling, double mugging and a competition for Ro-deo Roughie.

Rob Matthews, animal science major from Winter Springs, Fla., and vice presi-dent of the rodeo, said it is entertaining for both the people that participate and the people that just watch.

“Its funny to watch people with animals who haven’t done anything like that before,” Matthews said.

Matthews also said that registration is high for wom-en’s events, however, very low for the men’s events.

While some are involved with the rodeo for the en-tertainment, others get in-volved for the rush. Jeremy Gudgel, communication major from Andrews, has been involved in the rodeo for the past two years with the steer-saddling event and plans on doing it again this year.

“It’s fun. The adrena-line rush of taking a steer to the ground is awesome. Everyone should experience that,” Gudgel said.

Students are still able to sign up for the rodeo at the Campus Center ticket win-dows until Thursday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

Rodeo: Men needed to competeContinued from page 1

E-mail Davis: optimist@acu.edu

E-mail Peace at: knp04a@acu.edu

VA: Student check on Tech friends

E-mail Jordan at: optimist@acu.eduE-mail Johnson at: djj04a@acu.edu

E-mail Abston at: optimist@acu.edu

Thursday

OUTDOOR SOCCERSee intramural board for schedule.

SOFTBALLSoftball began Monday, see intramural board for team names and schedule.

SportSWedneSdayPage 8 April 18, 2007

SCOREBOARD

Standings

InTRAmURAL ROUnD-Up

n The intramural schedule and points seen on the Optimist sports page are not final and subject to change. Any last-minute changes can be viewed on the intramural bulletin board in Moody Coliseum.

Scoreboard as of Tuesday

BASEBALLTeam Div. OverallACUAngelo St. TAMK-UTarletonENMU

WTAM

9-39-36-65-74-61-9

34-1133-1323-2323-2419-2610-31

SOFTBALLTeam Div. OverallAngelo St. TAMK-UTarletonENMUACU

TX Woman’s

19-111-59-78-87-134-12

40-628-1429-1223-2121-2018-31

WTAM 2-14 14-31

Upcoming

Thursday

WOmEn’S TEnnISACU 7, Lee College 2

Friday

BASEBALLACU 7, Texas A&M-Kingsville 6

ACU 7, Texas A&M-Kingsville 3

WOmEn’S TEnnISRice 4, ACU 3

Saturday

BASEBALLACU 5, Texas A&M-Kingsville 3

Texas A&M-Kingsville 7, ACU 3

SOFTBALLACU 17, Eastern New Mexico 8

Eastern New Mexico 10, ACU 5

Sunday

SOFTBALLEastern New Mexico 13, ACU 9Eastern New Mexico 10, ACU 2

Scores

Briefs

Four golfers honored

n ACU head gold Coach Mike Campell was named Lone Star Conference Coach of the Year and Wildcats golfer Hugues Joannes was named LSC Freshman of the Year on Sunday. Also honored were Curtis Harris, who was named second team all-conference and Stephen Knight, who was named honorable mention.

nunez named player of the Week

n ACU tennis standout Juan Nunez was named LSC men’s Player of the Week on Thursday after beating regional opponent Cameron’s No. 1 player Jordi Mullor on 6-3, 6-3 on April 6.

n Three men and two women from the ACU track and field teams provisionally qualified for the outdoor nationals at the Angelo State Relays on Saturday.

By JARED FIELDSManaging Editor

Despite giving many ath-letes a week off, the men’s and women’s track teams gained two women and three men provisional qualifiers at the David Noble Relays at Angelo State.

This weekend, head coach Don Hood will take a major-ity of his team to TCU. Until then, Hood is content with those who competed at An-gelo State.

Johnny Jacob ran the 400-meters with a winning time

of 47.64, something, Hood said, showed signs of im-proved health that can only get better.

“It was like he was warm-ing up, and he was still up front,” Hood said.

Jacob said the cautious start could be improved and drop a second off his time.

“I wasn’t even running, just chillin’,” Jacob said about the first 100 meters of the race. “Then I thought, ‘I’m cool,’ and took off after that. … I didn’t feel bad but didn’t feel like I did before indoors.”

In the men’s 110-meter hur-dles, Matt Pugh and Andrew McDowell posted provisional marks just one-hundredth of a second apart with times of

14.48 and 14.49, respectively. “I was out the first two

weeks [of the outdoor sea-son],” Pugh said. “At least I got a time down … 14.2 is what I’m shooting for this week.”

Like Jacob, Pugh said he’s been battling an injury and isn’t quite up to full strength.

“Two weeks or so I’ll be feeling top notch,” Pugh said. “Things are going good.”

Pugh’s conditioning doesn’t affect his 110 hurdles but does on the 400-meter hurdles.

“I need a little more con-ditioning for the 400s,” Pugh said. “Coach Brown’s really helped me on keeping my form as one of the strong points this year.”

Rounding out the men provisional qualifiers, Land-on Ehlers’ pole vault of 16-

0.75 not only provisionally qualified him, but earned him a second-place finish in San Angelo as well.

On the women’s side, Keva Wilkins’ preliminary time of 56.04 provisionally qualified her while she won the meet in the finals with a time of 56.42.

Shawna-Kaye Thompson ran 1:03.08 in the 400-me-ter hurdles to post a provi-sional mark.

Two men bettered previ-ous provisional times: Marvin Bien-Aime and David Walker.

Bien-Aime won the 100-meters with a time of 10.49, and Walker improved his long jump mark with a jump of 23-10.25.

Five qualify in Angelo

No. 13 ACU win first Divisional road series

n After losing a series to Eastern new mexico this weekend, the ACU softball team needs to sweep West Texas A&m to have a chance to make the conference tournament.

By RACHEL DAVISSportS WritEr

The Wildcats dropped three games this weekend, further diminishing hopes for this year’s postseason confer-ence tournament.

The ACU softball team took on Eastern New Mexico this weekend in Portales, N.M., and it looked like its postsea-son hopes might still be alive after a 17-8 thrashing in the Saturday’s first game.

“Leisha Johnson and Kas-sidy Rotter both hit the ball well with a combined five homeruns,” said head coach Chantiel Wilson. “Rotter’s game-one grand slam was what we needed to seal that game.”

However, the team was not able to carry the excitement over to the following game, where they lost Saturday’s sec-ond game 10-5 and then lost both of Sunday’s games, 13-9 and 10-2. Their record now

Losses lessen playoff chances

n The intramural softball season was canceled last year because of weather, and intramural officials hope weather will not interfere with the 2007 season.

By GRANT ABSTONSportS WritEr

The intramural softball season began April 9 and is off to a successful start with a total of 29 teams competing.

There are six men’s teams in champ league, 12 men’s teams in rec league and 11 competing in the women’s league.

Last year, the intramural softball season was cut short because of bad weather, but this year, participants and in-tramural staff are optimistic about the new season.

“Last season there was a lot of rain and there was no way to get a full season in,” said

Officials hope weather doesn’tinterfere

n Both ACU tennis teams will compete at the Lone Star Conference Tournament on Thursday and Friday in Oklahoma City.

By MICHAEL FREEMANonlinE Editor

With the regular season over, the Wildcat tennis teams are preparing for the Lone Star Conference Tournament this Thursday and Friday in Oklahoma City. The men, ranked No. 28 nation-ally, ended their season with an overall record of 22-10, and the No. 6 women closed at 22-4.

“You never know what’s in your team’s head,” said head coach Hutton Jones. “But in my perception of our team, we are really looking good, and I feel like we’re going to have a good tournament.”

Last year, the women won the confer-ence tournament, and the men made it to the finals before losing to Midwest-

ern State. The draws for this year’s tournament have not been finalized, but Jones said he expects the men will first face East Central, and the women will most likely go up against either Central Oklahoma or Eastern New Mexico in the first round.

“I feel like both teams are ready to take it up a notch,” Jones said. “If somebody beats us, they’re going to have to play re-ally, really above their normal level.”

ACU’s opponents had to rise to a high-er level last week to compete with the Wildcats as the tennis teams wrapped up their respective seasons. On April 10, the Wildcat men lost to No. 27 Rice 5-1. Sophomore Juan Nunez dragged Rice’s Ben Harknett, the No. 28 singles player

Cats’ postseason begins

UpcomingThursday

mEn’S TEnnISACU at Lone Star Conference Tournament, Oklahoma City

WOmEn’S TEnnISACU at Lone Star Conference Tournament, Oklahoma City

brian schmidt SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Irene Squillaci returns a ball against Cameron University on April 6. The ACU women’s tennis team will compete at the Lone Star Conference tournament starting Thursday.

Tennis

brian schmidt SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Matt Pugh clears a hurdle during practice Monday. Pugh finished third in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 14.48 at the Angelo State Relays on Saturday. Pugh’s time was good enough to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships in Charlotte, N.C., on May 24-26.

n The ACU baseball team won its first road series in Lone Star Conference South division play after winning three out of four games this weekend.

By DANIEL JOHNSONSportS Editor

ACU closer Jameson Maj has already secured his spot in the ACU history books, and after two more solid performances in Kingsville this weekend, Maj’s name is now among the best pitchers in the history of the Lone Star Conference.

In only his first season at ACU, Maj broke the LSC single-season record for saves after adding two more against Texas A&M-Kingsville this weekend for a season total of 12.

“He’s definitely been our workhorse out of the pen,” said head coach Britt Bonneau. “He’s

been the one consistent thing we’ve had all year.”

Maj already holds the ACU single season and career saves records, and his confer-ence record is two more than the pre-vious one set by former Northeastern State pitcher Joe Ornelas in 1991.

“If you’re going to win a championship you need a good closer,” Bonneau said. “The rea-son why we’re 34-11 is because we have a closer that can come in and hold the lead.”

Maj and the rest of the na-tionally ranked Wildcats re-tained their spot atop the LSC

South after winning three out of four games against Kings-ville this weekend. ACU swept the first three games of the se-ries, 7-6, 6-3 and 5-3 and lost the final game 7-3.

Despite dropping one spot to No. 13 in national rank-ings, the three wins extended ACU’s conference record to 9-3, and ACU is now tied with Angelo State for first in the LSC South. Angelo moved to 9-3 after sweeping last place West Texas A&M.

Bonneau blamed the game-four loss on the absence of con-sistent day-two starters; a kink ACU has little time to fill since the postseason is less than three weeks away.

“If this team’s going to go anywhere come playoff time we need to find good second-day starters,” Bonneau said.

ACU’s day-one starters,

Trey Watten and Chris Wiman, both picked up their seventh wins after they each posted a six-inning performance in Friday’s games.

Wiman kept the Wildcats in a close first game after match-ing Kingsville ace Raul Trevino for six innings.

ACU won the game after Mike Elkerson scored the game-winning run on a sacri-fice fly ball from designated hitter J.J. Pacheco.

Watten, who is 7-0 on the mound, only gave up three runs and five hits in game two after the Wildcat gave him

the run support he needed by scoring three runs in the fourth and adding onto the lead with a run in the sixth and seventh innings.

ACU secured the series by winning game one Saturday behind a seven-inning perfor-mance by Brian Kennedy. Kennedy pitched seven in-nings and allowed four hits and three earn runs and ex-tended his record to 7-2.

See SOFTBALL page 7

See InTRAmURAL page 7

See pLAYOFFS page 7

Baseball

Track & Field

E-mail Johnson at: djj04a@acu.edu

E-mail Fields at: jrf03b@acu.edu

“If this team is going to go anywhere come playoff time we need to find good second day starters.”

britt bonneau, head baseball coach

maj