Today: High: 48, Low: 39 Thursday: High: 57, Low: 39 Friday: High: 60, Low: 42
Daily Egyptian WEDNESDAY
COLUMN, PAGE 5: Gus Bode says don’t obsess over what is out of your control.
NOVEMBER 18, 2009
VOLUME 95, NO. 61
12 PAGES
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want to assure you all that we are here for the long haul. There are no quick fixes, and we need to all roll up our sleeves and get going.
— Rita Cheng chancellor-select
EMILY SUNBLADE | D AILY E GYPTIAN Rita Cheng, provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, laughs with members of the press after being announced as SIU President Glenn Poshard’s choice for the new chancellor Tuesday in the Student Center.
Stile T. Smith DAILY EGYPTIAN STS34@SIU.EDU
Rita Cheng is SIU President Glenn Poshard’s choice to be the next chancellor at SIUC. Cheng, provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, would begin her duties June 1 if approved by the Board of Trustees. Poshard said Cheng was the best choice to be the next chancellor. “She has shown outstanding leadership under very difficult circumstances,” Poshard said. “She’s proven to be focused on her goals in research and enrollment growth.” Cheng was chosen over Barbara Couture, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Cheng said she would not come
to the university for a short-term stint. “I want to assure you all that we are here for the long haul,” Cheng said. “There are no quick fixes, and we need to all roll up our sleeves and get going.” The SIU Board of Trustees still must approve Cheng as the new chancellor at its Dec. 10 meeting. Tom Britton, co-chairman of the chancellor search committee, said he was delighted to see Cheng selected. “I think she will bring the kind of energy and leadership that we need,” Britton said. “As she said, it’s not going to be a quick fix. She plans on being here to help solve our problems.” Britton said he thought the search committee did a great job of giving Poshard two quality candidates, and Poshard made a great decision in hiring Cheng.
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ur university needs a chancellor whose strong research and scholarly background matches our desire to become a leading research university. Dr. Cheng has that background and more.
Poshard said Cheng was chosen because she matches the needs of the university. “Our university needs a chancellor whose strong research and scholarly background matches our desire to become a leading research university,” Poshard said. “Dr. Cheng has that background and more.” Poshard said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has nearly the same research goals as SIUC, and Cheng has been a pivotal factor in the progress of its efforts.
— Glenn Poshard SIU president
Cheng said her two main focuses when she steps into the position would be enrollment and research. “There are two pillars,” Cheng said. “One is to grow enrollment while assuring the access and diversity traditions of the campus, and the other is to assure our research is excellent.” Cheng said she first wants to get enrollment back to what it was before it began declining then focus on what the best figure is for the university. Poshard said communication
would be pivotal to the success of the university. “Communication is the essence of team leadership,” Poshard said. “Dr. Cheng and I talked a lot about how we communicate, and I’m sure you’re going to see the right kind of communication to give us the right team leadership.” Cheng said she wants to continue the traditions that have made SIUC well known. “I will honor your tradition and champion SIU wherever I go,” Cheng said.
!"#$%&"'%"(%)*+,-%*./0#%1"22*-3$'%$"%-040.%/340%*5 John Bul Dau tells tale of survival in war-torn region Madeleine Leroux DAILY EGYPTIAN MLEROUX@SIU.EDU
John Bul Dau survived starvation, thirst, abuse and bombings to bring a message to the world: Never give up. Dau was one of about 25,000 children between the ages of 3 and 13 who, in 1987, fled their villages in Sudan during a civil war and walked across the sub-Saharan desert to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. Dau, whose experiences have been the subject of a film and memoir both titled “God Grew Tired of Us,” told his story of survival at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in
the Student Center Ballrooms. The civil war between the Arab Muslim population of northern Sudan and the African Christian population of southern Sudan had begun in 1983, Dau said, and did not end until 2005. Dau said he was 13 years old the night his village in southern Sudan was attacked in 1987. “Around maybe midnight, as we were sleeping, the sound of guns, the whistling of bullets, the explosions woke us up in the middle of the night,” Dau said. He said he spent the next five years traveling with a group of displaced boys, known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, across the southern
part of the country. Dau said after his village was attacked, he began traveling east toward Ethiopia, going about three days without food before finding an edible wild plant. Dau said the group of boys traveled for about three months before reaching Ethiopia and, by the time they arrived, about 23 boys had died along the way and only four arrived safely. “Some were killed by lions, some of us were shot and killed,” Dau said. “Others died because of starvation and thirst.” Dau said, once in Ethiopia, the displaced boys were put in groups of about 50 and those groups began to act like a family. He said he was put in charge of a group of 50 boys between the ages of 5 and 15, and over time that group grew to
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e had to take them, to bury their bodies, to give them dignity. It was a very graphic part of our life story, but we didn’t give up.!
about 1,200 Lost Boys. Dau said they spent about four years in Ethiopia before being thrown out of the country by a new government. In that time, he said, about two or three boys were dying every day from diseases such as malaria, measles and chicken pox. “We had to take them, to bury their bodies, to give them dignity,” Dau said. “It was a very graphic
— John Bul Dau author of God Grew Tired of Us part of our life story, but we didn’t give up.” After leaving Ethiopia, Dau said the boys spent nine months moving back through southern Sudan, and in 1992 they arrived at a refugee camp in Kenya, where Dau stayed until 2001 when he came to the United States. Please see SUDAN | 3