LehighWeek Volume 14, Issue 7

              An ear lor technology
Engineering     professor
joins musical gift and
computer    expertise
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Volume 14, Issue 7
LehighWee/c
The campus digest for innovation, news and events
Women's soccer, football
advance
Teams notch road wins at
Lafayette, Harvard
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October 18,2000
Photo by Elizabeth Keegin Colley
William L. Smith
When diversity
cuts like a laser
Diversity can be a powerful resource to build a collective future,
a federal education official told
college alumni, faculty and local
teachers at the College of Education Alumni Day on Saturday
(Oct. 14).
William L. Smith, director of
the Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Program in the
U.S. Department of Education,
encouraged his audience to share
their support for diversity in a
world obsessed with fears of differences, and preoccupied with
domination and control.
"At times, we may have to
whisper our message like a
prayer, but at other times, our
words, our example, our lessons
and our shared leadership must
be like a laser, cutting through
darkness and despair," he said.
Smith decried what he called
the lack of much lasting progress
in society in the 36 years since
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
since the legislation of the 1970s
correcting injustices to women.
But he cited signs of hope, noting
that in the September 2000 issue of Forbes Magazine list of the
400 richest people in America, 43
were women.
Diversity, Smith said, should
not only include racial, cultural
and ethnic groups, but also individuals with other differences.
"The ignorance that makes an
employer fearful of hiring a
woman or anyone from a minority background is the same type
of ignorance that will keep an
overweight, blind or very short
person from being hired," he said.
Diversity should be celebrated, Smith said, and there
is no better place to promote this
attitude than in the classroom.
Students need to understand
each other not merely by celebrating unfamiliar holidays or other
superficial activities, but by seriously studying other cultures,
traditions and historical experiences.
Please See DIVERSITY Page 3
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Lehigh President Gregory Farrington (right) joined city Mayor Don Cunningham at a press
conference Oct. 13) to unveil plans for a $23-million Campus Square at New and Morton
streets.
Trustees approve $23 million
for Campus Square at New & Morton
Lehigh's board of trustees has approved a $23-million plan to build
Campus Square, a project at the intersection of New and Morton Streets
that provides more campus student
housing, alarger bookstore, and retail
shops and eateries at the university's
gateway into South Bethlehem.
Pending local and state approvals, Lehigh hopes to break
ground in spring 2001 and complete the project by the start of
the 2002 fall semester. A significant portion of the project will be
financed through a bond issue.
"Campus Square will breach
the asphalt moat separating
Lehigh University from the rest
of Bethlehem," President Gregory Farrington said at a press
conference Friday (Oct. 13).
"Many universities have asphalt
moats. But Lehigh is part of
Bethlehem; it is part of the community. We are consciously locating this complex at New and
Morton Streets because we think
it will be a catalyst for downtown
revitalization.
"Our goal is to blur the boundaries between university and
town, entice students off campus,
and be a magnet for students and
residents to infiltrate and mix."
"This project," said Bethlehem
Mayor Don Cunningham, "is part
of an unprecedented partnership
between Lehigh and the City of
Bethlehem. It represents a $23-
million investment in the neighborhoods of South Bethlehem, a
victory for economic redevelopment, and a model for cities and
universities across Pennsylvania.
"Campus Square will benefit
residents and business owners
on the South Side. It is a major
step toward a much more vibrant
South Side busing
a downtown attractive to both
Lehigh students and local residents."
Cunningham said the Campus
Square project complements efforts
by the city and university, with support from the state Department of
Community and Economic Development, to design and create a business
district surrounding the Lehigh campus, evaluate traffic flow, install attractive period street lighting, create
an incentive grant fund to help restore
South Side building facades, and install new sidewalks to increase pedestrian traffic.
Campus Square will include:
• Single rooms, clustered in
apartment-style residences, for
250 students;
• A 16,500-square-foot university
bookstore;
• 6,500 sq. feet of retail space;
• A parking garage and surrounding surface parking for 400
cars (the area currently provides
parking for 200 cars);
• A pedestrian plaza at the current New Street turnaround.
Housing will be located on
. Street on the east and
west sides of Campus Square
and will be three stories high, in
keeping with the height of neighboring off-campus buildings.
Housing will also be located in the
third, fourth and fifth floors above
the bookstore, and in the second,
third, fourth and fifth floors above
the retail shops and eateries.
Farrington said Campus
Square will be interwoven with
Lehigh's vision for "e-Mountain."
He said the university is studying the feasibility of putting a
university-corporate research
park on the Mountaintop Campus to attract entrepreneurial
companies, create jobs, and provide learning opportunities for
students and faculty.
'Lehigh is going to offer the finest
programs of education and research
to attract and keep the best minds,"
Farrington said. "Bethlehem and the
Lehigh Valley also must offer the very
best living and working environment possible."
An artisfs rendering of Campus Square shows the view of the proposed
development from Morton Street looking north. Student housing, retail
shops, an expanded bookstore and restaurants will be part of the plan.
Photo by Rob Upton
Warren V. "Pete" Musser'49
Founder's Day
tips for success
Lehigh installed a new provost
and a new interim dean, and conferred an honorary degree on a
successful alumnus at the 122nd
Founder's Day exercises on
Thursday, Oct. 12.
The event, held in Packer Memorial Church, marked the official installation of Ron Yoshida
as provost and vice president for
academic affairs. Yoshida presided over the installation of Ray
Bell, the University Service Professor of Education and Social
Relations, as his successor as
interim dean of the College of
Education.
Venture capitalist Warren V.
"Pete" Musser addressed the
crowd of 400 on "The Art of En-
trepreneurship," chronicling his
ascent in the business world.
After graduating from Lehigh
in 1949, Musser said he was advised to get a job with the biggest company he could find in order to weather the next Great
Depression. He joined Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania briefly,
then went to work for a stockbroker, but with limited success.
A co-worker suggested he and
Musser sCart their own brokerage firm, but Musser hesitated.
"I told him, 'I've been here
three years and I'm still on the
draw (receiving a base salary instead of commissions as better
brokers do).'
"He said, Then you have nothing to lose.'"
The young stockbrokers borrowed $25,000 from a client and
founded Philadelphia Securities
Co. Today, Musser presides over
one of the most successful venture capital firms in the country,
with approximately $8 billion in
market capitalization and more
than 40 partner companies.
"It goes to show you," he said,
"that you don't have to start with
a whole lot. We didn't have the
backing or the experience, but we
did have enthusiasm and absolute determination.
"That's what Asa had," he
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