BY LAWRENCE SIMMONSStaff Writer

Under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s lead-ership, Turkey became a republic. Eighty-five years later, students and faculty gath-ered in Taylor Auditorium in McCool Hall to commemorate the event.

The Turkish Student Association invited historian and engineer Arnold Reisman who recently wrote the book Turkey’s Modernization to shed light on a segment of history that few historians know anything about.

Americans need to know more about world history, Reisman said.

“Turkey has gotten no credit for saving 190 intellectuals from imminent death,” he said. “Turkey is a bridge between Christianity, Judaism and Islam between developing nations and we know noth-ing about it.”

Reisman said he thought he knew about the Holocaust, yet an owner of a book store informed him about a par-ticular aspect of it.

“I thought I knew about the Holocaust, so the more I looked into it, the more I realized Turkey’s role was a blind spot,” he said. “It indeed is my honor to speak about a part of Turkish history

which English historians know nothing about.”

In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was founded as a secular one dedicated to having an educated populace, Reisman said.

“Literacy was 9 percent at that time,” he said. “Ataturk and colleagues went about making many reforms and they switched the language from Arabic to a Latin-based alphabet, since Arabic was not sympathetic to some of the Turkish sounds.”

As many professors were expelled

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Planning under way for Cooley purchase

BY ERIN KOURKOUNIS

Editor in Chief

As plans unfold for the Cotton Mill Marketplace project, developers aim to purchase the Cooley Building, home of Mississippi State University facili-ties management.

The historic build-ing, which was con-structed in 1902, will become a conference center for the $215 million mixed-use de-velopment, which will be located at Highway 12 and Russell Street. Along with the conference center, the devel-opment will consist of retail space, a cinema, a hotel, offi ce space and resi-dential and student housing.

Developers Comvest Properties, a commercial real estate services com-pany that specializes in retail tenant representation, leasing and develop-ment in Biloxi, and Nicholas Prop-erties in Ridgeland teamed up to de-velop the project.

Vice president for fi nance and ad-

BY JENNIFER LEY

Staff Writer

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama defeated Republican candidate Sen. John McCain for the office of the 44th president of the United States of America. Obama made history as the first African-American president for the U.S.

The first-term senator from Illinois won the popu-lar and electoral vote throughout America. Obama had 349 elector-al votes to McCain’s 163 electoral votes. President-elect Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote, while McCain won 46 percent of the American vote.

President of Mississippi State University’s College Democrats Chris Walton said he is happy about the election results.

“This is one of those things I look forward to telling my kids and grand kids about,” he said.

Walton said he voted for Obama because he agreed with his promises

Noted novelist lectures to McCool Hall group on Turkey’s history

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Students celebrate Turkey’s foundation

Reflector

BY CARL SMITH | News Editor

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees unanimously voted to name USDA Undersecretary Mark Keenum as the preferred Mississippi State University presidential candidate Wednesday.

Open interviews with Keenum and various campus constituency groups have been scheduled for next Wednesday. Following the day-long interview sessions, the Board of Trustees will vote either to name Keenum as the next MSU

president or to continue the presidential search process.In a statement issued following the announcement, Keenum said he is looking forward to addressing the MSU campus during the

interview sessions.“My wife Rhonda and I, along with our children … look forward to our campus visit next week to share with the Bulldog family

our commitment and dedication to the place we still call home,” Keenum said.

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Obama wins inlandslideelection

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