Sports: Running back Brennan Clay shines this season in absence of a stable passing attack (Page 6) The University of Oklahoma’s independent student voice since 1916
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FRESHMAN EXPERIENCE
Four freshmen in their first weeks at OU This story is a part of the The Oklahoma Daily’s multimedia Freshman Experience project following five new Sooners through their first year of college. CARMEN FORMAN • SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR
Melanie Purdy Melanie Purdy thanked God out loud for the healing she hoped would come. The next day, God delivered, she said. Purdy was at an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Bible study when she was asked to voice her prayers. Like she does frequently, she prayed for her dad who was diagnosed in February with stage four liver cancer.
MELANIE PURDY
Her dad called the next day with good news — his doctor had CT Scan results and said the tumors had shrunk by about eight centimeters. “Our hope is really renewed right now,” Purdy said. “This is just the encouragement we both need and that my dad needs to go forward,” Duane Purdy was told his cancer was inoperable and that even with chemotherapy treatments, he had no more than five years to live. He went to treatment sparsely and skipped more and more often because of the bleak
prognosis and the painful chemotherapy. The family supported this decision, she said. “It seems like more possibilities are open and maybe for him, doing the chemo isn’t pointless,” Purdy said in a choked voice. “It isn’t just causing him pain when, ultimately, he’s not going to make it.” While Purdy was rejoicing over good news, other freshmen were going to first football games, going SEE FRESHMEN PAGE 2
DISCUSSION
NEVER FORGET
Sooners remember those who lost their lives Students took a moment to remember 9/11 by placing flags in the ground on the South Oval Wednesday morning. Members of Sigma Alpha Lambda provided 100 flags for students passing by to stick in the grass south of Bizzell Memorial Library, said accounting and prelaw junior John Farley. Within 30 minutes, all the flags were in the ground. “Even a small gesture like placing a few flags on campus can have a significant impact,” Farley said. “We felt this was a very good way to show our appreciation for people who lost their lives.” Farley said he saw several students walking by stand still for a moment to look at the flags and reflect. “I think we should all take a moment to reflect,” he said. Arianna Pickard, Campus Editor
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MID-AMERICA CONFERENCE
Upcoming event to discuss minority culture Lectures and workshops will highlight transnationalism MAX JANERKA
Campus Reporter
A conference spotlighting transnationalism and minority cultures will be held Sept. 26 through Sept. 28 on campus. The event will include two keynote lecturers Jonathan Holloway, an African American studies professor at Yale University, and Shari Huhndorf, an ethnic studies professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said Janet Ward, conference organizer and OU history professor. Holloway, who also teaches history and American studies, will discuss diaspora using his new book “Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and
Identity in Black America Since 1940” as a reference in his lecture, Ward said. Huhndorf, Native American Studies director at Berkeley, will lecture about gender and transnationalism based on her new book, “Indigeneity and the Politics of Space: The Gendered Geographies of Native Women’s Culture,” Ward said. While the event is part of the Mid-America history conference consortium, its focus is more interdisciplinary, Ward said. There will be almost one hundred participants from many disciplines and universities, Ward said. The conference will include workshops organized by archivists and curators at the OU History of Science Collections, Western History Collections and art museum highlighting transnational and minority materials, she said.
L&A: Why go to a concert just to stand there? Our columnist explains why enthusiasm is important. (Page 5)
AT A GLANCE Lecture schedule Jonathan Holloway: 7 p.m. Sept. 26 in OU Outreach College of Continuing Education’s B Wing, located at 1700 Asp Ave Shari Huhndorf: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art’s auditorium REGISTRATION Admission is free and required registration can be completed at the conference website. Source: Janet Ward, conference organizer and OU history professor
Panel speaks about Syria Conference to explain conflict BENNETT HALL Campus Reporter
In an attempt to bring Syrian conflict to the forefront of students’ minds, O U ’s e x p e r t s o n t h e Middle East are holding a panel discussion at 8 p.m. Thursday in Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The panelists will discuss developments leading to the present state of p olitical unrest in Syria internally and with other countr ies, said Mike Boettcher, journalism professor and correspondent-in-residence at Gaylord College. “This is an effort to bring students in touch with world events,” said Boettcher, who is one of the panelists. Several OU faculty and administrators felt that OU students weren’t very concerned with the issue of chemical weapons and how the U.S. should respond to them, Boettcher said. Boettcher said he can remember a period in the 1970s when college students like himself were highly informed about the events of the decade, particularly the Vietnam War, because the possibilities of the military draft were an immediate concern to their lifestyles. “These days, the issues of going or not going to war resonate less with students SEE SYRIA PAGE 2
Opinion: Former first lady Barbara Bush tells girls in Moore to ‘marry well.’ Why we oppose her statement (Page 3)
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