LehighNow Volume 03, Issue 02

              LEHIGHNOW
September 18,2002
Volume 3, Issue 2
Lehigh ranks high on national list
IN BRIEF
ON CAMPUS
University
joins
Day of Caring
About 60 Lehigh faculty
and staff donated their
time and efforts to
helping the Bethlehem
community at this year's
"Day of Caring" on
Thursday, Sept. 12.
The "Day of Caring" is
co-organized by United
Way and The Volunteer
Center of the Lehigh
Valley and is intended to
create and enhance
community involvement.
The volunteers took on
projects such as
painting, cleaning,
checking food stocks,
waxing and stripping
floors, helping prepare
newsletters, and playing
grocery bingo with
members of the elderly
community.
Volunteers were placed
at organizations
including New Bethany
Ministries, Restoration
House, Rooney Senior
Center, and South
Bethlehem Neighborhood
Center.
"We operate on
minimum staff and
budget," stated Ellen
Jacoby, associate
director of New Bethany
Ministries. "With one
maintenance man, 'Day
of Caring' is the only way
we can get stuff done
around here. You are a
blessing, you truly are."
Lehigh ranked 40"1 among
249 national universities in
the U.S. News & World
Report's 2003 America's
Best Colleges rankings
released Friday (tied with
Boston College and Yeshiva
University). Princeton was
again ranked lsl, with
Harvard and Yale again
sharing the second spot.
Among the best undergraduate engineering
programs whose highest
degree is a Ph.D., Lehigh
ranked 37th up from 40th a
year ago. In addition,
Lehigh's alumni satisfac
tion ranking moved up from
17th to 13lh.
"Lehigh is pleased to
continue to be highly
positioned among the
nation's very best universities
in national media rankings,
but it's important to
recognize that Lehigh's
quality is best evaluated
through student success,"
said Brad Drexler, vice
president for university
relations. "Regular dialogue
with our students, graduates, high school guidance
counselors, employers and
others consistently confirms
for us that Lehigh is widely
known as one of America's
most selective and highly
regarded private research
universities."
Two of the nation's most
respected college guides,
Barron's and Peterson's, this
year placed Lehigh University in their most competitive
admissions categories for the
second year in a row. These
categories are based on the
percentage of applicants a
school accepts and the test
scores and high school class
rank of entering freshmen.
Grad student sociology project
benefits South Side community
A research project for a
class of Lehigh graduate
students in sociology
created a community
resource that is helping
hundreds of area schoolchildren and their parents.
The six graduate
students — Erin
Courthamel, Ellen
Dunton, Katie Karoussos,
Adriana Santamaria,
Krista Mcllhaney and
Bart Liguori — researched
the use of afterschool
programs for elementary
school students for a final
class project for the Urban
Communities course
taught by sociology
professor Judith Lasker.
They surveyed parents,
school officials and
community service
agencies, and then
produced an appealing
brochure in Spanish and
English that described
available programs, both
for afterschool and
summertime activities.
The group decided on the
project after reviewing
several options, believing
that this would be "a
worthwhile project that
would have practical
application to our urban
environment," Liguouri says.
The group was aided in
their decision by Erlinda
Agron, project director of the
Community Action Development Corporation of
Bethlehem, who helped
identify a need to publicize
the afterschool programs
aimed at young students.
"There are very few green
areas on Bethlehem's South
Side," Agron says. "There
are very few playgrounds or
places for children to go. This
need only intensifies as the
children get older, so there
was a great need for a
project like this that compiles
all the information, offers it
in English and Spanish, and
then is distributed throughout the community."
The group distributed
1,500 copies of the two
brochures, printed with
financial assistance from the
department of sociology and
anthropology, to all students
in nearby Donegan and
Fountain Hill schools, as well
as through several social
service agencies in South Side
Bethlehem.
But the area's elementary
school students aren't the
only ones who have benefited
from this project. Ligouri,
now a doctoral student at
Cornell, credits his professors
at Lehigh with putting his life
on the right path.
"The sociology program
at Lehigh has really helped
me in that regard," he says.
"I'm not sure why I was
drawn to this type of work,
but I do know I want to
contribute something positive
to society, no matter what I
do in the future. I do want to
know you can help people,
and impact their lives in a
positive way."