Brown and White Vol. 107 no. 40

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 107 no 40 tuesday april 11 2000 all the lehigh news first appeals committee upholds ucod ruling by alex olbrecht editor in chief zeta psi fraternity officially dissolved for four years after six convictions during last two years the university discipline appeals committee voted unanimously april 4 to uphold the university committee on discipline ucod ruling to dissolve zeta psi fraternity for eight semesters this is a sad day for zeta psi and for lehigh vice provost for students affairs john smeaton said no one likes to see a group removed from campus but as educators we have an obligation to help our students learn that that citizen ship in any community brings with it basic responsibilities individuals or groups unable or unwilling to abide by community standards must expect to be held accountable for their actions zetes was not pleased with the ruling coming from four faculty members and two students zeta psi faculty advisor and professor of economics vincent munley said i don't believe that dissolution was the best outcome from the perspective of either the chapter or the university the current members of zeta psi are overall a group of young men of whom i think quite highly they may have stumbled a bit in the area of social policy but they also make make many positive contributions to student life at lehigh in a variety of ways i'm totally confident that they will go on to do things as alumni that will make us all proud the fraternity was cited for the posses sion of a keg jan 25 four members were evicted as a result of the incident the house was on disciplinary probation at the time and not permitted to have alcohol on the premises zetes appealed the ruling on the stan dards that university disciplinary proce dures were violated in a way that proba bly affected the outcome of the case and the sanction was unduly harsh the third reason to appeal a verdict is if new evidence becomes known within seven calendar days of a conviction according to dean of students sharon basso the fraternity had been convicted of five other violations during the previous two years and twice those sanctions may 1999 and november 1999 included a rec ommendation that if any further violation were to occur dissolution would be the recommended choice for action zeta psi was not dissolved for one isolated violation of the social policy for having a keg of beer in their house basso said in any university judicial process sanctions are determined utiliz ing a number of variables including the past judicial record of the group and the specific details of an incident while administration cannot comment on the specifics of previous incidents for confidentiality reasons munley also did not want to comment on them it is my opinion however that with one exception the other incidents involv ing zeta psi were each relatively minor and of the variety that occur fairly commonly on campus munley said i'm not con vinced that simply reading a list that sum marizes the adjudicatory results of past infractions paints a particularly accurate picture of any group of students the previous incidents were resolved in several different ways basso said including interfraternity judicial council hearings ucod hearings and adminis trative hearings with judicial case officers from the dean of students office i do believe this outcome should send a clear message to other student groups munley said in particular it is in their best interest to monitor very carefully any cumu lative judicial record that they may have while basso felt the judicial process b&w photo by jordan guitman the appeals committee upheld the ucod's decision to dissolve zeta psi fra ternity for four years the brothers will relinquish the house in may one world forum broaches variety of issues by chris litman news writer the first one world forum compassion into action was held over the weekend in maginnes hall organized by the progressive student alliance psa and amnesty international the two day conference featured speakers and activities concerning issues ranging from the death penalty animals rights and sweatshop labor to fighting domestic vio lence and police brutality presenters were invited from around the lehigh valley and beyond the conference began early saturday morning lehigh chaplain and professor of religion studies lloyd steffen gave a talk on the history of the death penalty and mike susek a senior at moravian college spoke on animal rights advocacy the vice president of psa stephanie nelson 01 stressed the importance of the conference i think that a conference or an event like this is important because firstly stuff like this never happens at lehigh she said there are a lot of people around the lehigh valley at different schools who are devoted to issues like these it's very important for people who are kind of spread out to come together and educate each other on the things they are working on people then inspire each other to continue working inspiration and motivation are the main goals for doing something like this nelson said over the course of the two days atten dees had the option of attending numer ous one-hour sessions on progressive issues at the end of the first day atten dees participated in a drumming work shop led by two women tahya and meg deak the once somber halls of maginnes were filled with the sonorous echoes of middle eastern rhythms many of the speakers discussed the seriousness of the issues facing the world today joanne klemmer a resident of reading pa gave a talk on her journey to iraq with a slide show of the pictures she took while visiting she discussed how the economic sanctions against the nation have completely decimated the infra structure causing more harm to innocent people than to saddam hussein americans as a whole are not aware of the effects the sanctions are having on iraq klemmer said i felt this need to go there and see what it was like and come back and tell people what i saw the children of iraq are suffering immeasurably she said there's some thing wrong when the children over there can't receive adequate health treat ment and thousands of them are dying every month sef sherman 02 said the one world conference was about making people aware of the problems in the world some of which are caused directly by the united states a lot of the lehigh community does not know about some of the economic issues policy issues of the united states that are going on he said just learning about these things makes you aware of see appeal page 4 see one world page 5 hawks lose third smokestack lightning learn the facts to ft jff i straight to monmouth | rocks battle of the tackle obesity see imv i ll in women's lacrosse bands competition page 7 it^kp continue to send out sly sports 13-16 news 1-5 science 7-9 electrical signals for up bssk men ' s acrosse 14 world news briefs 2 science briefs 7 to 37 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