LehighNow Volume 01, Issue 16

              LEHIGHNOW
July 18, 2001
Volume 1, Issue 16
Summer takes on
international cast
IN BRIEF
HONORS/AWARDS
Ben Franklin
wins top
award
The Ben Franklin Technology Center's high-tech
business incubator at
Lehigh was recently
named the top such
facility in America.
The National Business
Incubator Association
(NBIA) gave the center its
highest award, the
Randall M. Whaley
Incubator of the Year
Award.
North America's 800
business incubation
programs (there were 12
in 1980) help new
companies with expertise,
networks and tools
needed for success, in the
process diversifying
economies, creating jobs
and building wealth.
Ben Franklin's 10,500-
square-foot business
incubator now hosts seven
clients. Since its founding
in 1983, it has graduated
29 companies, which have
created more than 2,400
jobs, grossed $330
million-plus in revenue
each year, introduced 70-
plus new products, and
received more than 50
patents.
The award is named in
memory of Whaley, who
was president of the
University City Science
Center from 1970-89 and
founding chairman of
NBIA. Friends of the
University City Science
Center sponsor the award.
Summer has taken a global
turn, with the start of the
Iacocca Institute's fifth
Global Village for Future
Leaders of Business and
Industry and Lehigh's first
Governor's School For
Global Entrepreneurship.
On June 24, the Global
Village welcomed 71 new
interns from 39 countries,
and welcomed back an
alumnus from its first
program in 1997.
Thomas Matthew
Roman is now president
and CEO of New-Flash Inc.
of Morris Plains, N.J., a
company whose staff of 14
creates inspirational
presentations for individual and corporate
clients. Roman conceived
the idea for New-Flash
while pursuing an MBA at
Lehigh and launched the
company in 1999 with two
colleagues.
Roman credits the Global
Village with much of his
success.
"The Global Village was
truly one of the best
experiences of my life. It
gave me the confidence to be
a leader and start my own
company and the skills to
lead it. The experiences I
had that summer will
always stick with me."
The Village, which runs
through Aug. 8, was
developed in response to a
challenge by Lee Iacocca
'48 to develop global leaders
for the 21s1 century. Classes
cover topics like "Doing
business in Asia," "Networking across the globe,"
and "Speaking as a leader."
The Governor's School
has drawn 40 top high
school students from
Pennsylvania and 10 from
other countries as distant
as Hong Kong and Kuwait.
The students are preparing
for leadership roles by
interacting with, and
helping solve problems for,
entrepreneurs from around
the world.
The program, which runs
July 1-Aug. 4, is the newest
Governor's School in the state,
and the only one focusing on
global entrepreneurship.
A third international event
was scheduled for Monday,
July 16, when 21 city mayors
and administrators from
Japan met in the Governor's
Suite of Iacocca Hall with
President Gregory Farrington
and officials from Allentown
and Bethlehem.
The team is visiting leading
American cities to study city
administration in America.
$1.5 million
for COE profs
The College of Education has
been awarded a $1.5-million
grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help
schoolchildren with autism,
deafness, blindness and other
low-incidence disabilities.
The college will train 10
school-psychology specialists
in each of the five years of the
program to integrate these
children into general education
settings. The first trainees will
begin studies this fall.
Ed Shapiro, Iacocca
Professor of education and
human services, is co-principal
investigator along with
Christine Cole, associate
professor of school psychology.
Those in the training
program will develop skills
in assessment, intervention
and consultation. They will
enroll in courses at Lehigh
and will acquire hands-on
experience in schools in the
community.
Last year Shapiro and Cole
finished training 30 school
psychologists to work with
students with low-incidence
disabilities. About 80 percent
of these people now work at
jobs using the skills they learned
at Lehigh, says Shapiro.
"School psychologists,
during their pre-service
training, must have extended, first-hand experience
with current best practice
procedures for use in
classroom and community-
based settings. That's what
sets our program apart from
the others," says Shapiro.
-Rich Harry
High school students in
Lehigh's Engineering
Career Awareness Program
build a roller coaster from
K'Nex construction sets. In
a week-Ions,program last
week, teams of students
designed and built the
models, made presentations
and created business and
design portfolios. Students
came from Pennsylvania
and other states for the
program, which is
sponsored by the P.C.
Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science,
the Ventures Program, the
Integrated Product, Process
and Project program, and
the Iacocca Institute.