Brown and White Vol. 114 No. 8

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 114 no 8 friday september 29 2006 ah the lehigh news first four frats face occupancy trouble by madelyn king assistant news editor although all the houses think they can reach the mark four fraternities face losing housing privileges at the end of this semester if they don't reach 90 percent occupancy based on their house occupancy for fall 2006 alpha chi rho delta sigma phi delta upsilon and kappa sigma fraternities are still below occupancy for the third semester in a row all four fraternities are participating in fall rush be ginning oct 2 and bids can be handed out beginning oct 6 all recruiting must be finished by nov 3 and all new members have to be initiated by the end of the semester according to tim wilkinson assistant dean of stu dents there will be no exceptions if a chapter does not make occupancy they will not retain their residential status but will remain on campus as non-residential fraternities we're in a situation where there are four houses under occupancy but they all have consistent well thought-out recruitment plans wilkinson said we have no chapter that doesn't have a very good shot at maintaining their residential status in the fall of 2005 the strengthening greek life task force started a 90 percent occupancy rule for all sorority and fraternities living in residential houses the task force policy states any chapters not meet ing the 90 percent occupancy standard for three consec utive semesters will be given a grace period during the b&wphoto by bj shepard third semester in which the chapters can recruit more live-in members before the next semester begins said tim wilkinson assistant dean of students for fraternity and sorority affairs we've been under the occupancy policy for three semesters now plus a year-long grace period before that so its basically been five semesters wilkinson said members of the four remaining fraternities said they are optimistic about their fall recruitment plans and think they will gain enough new members to meet the occupancy requirements right now we are just one man short of the 90 per cent occupancy standard but have four boarders that will be offered bids once the upperclassmen recruitment u.s marines in iraq communicated with students via two-way video and discussed the situation in iraq students connect with soldiers by matthew jacob news writer marines stationed at the al asad air base in iraq participated with students faculty local veterans and rotc members in the first-ever uni versity-to-battlefield videoconference tuesday in whitaker laboratory the videoconference was moder ated by christine hannon 09 vice president of lehigh's world affairs club hannon asked the soldiers questions previously submitted by students and faculty and sent to the freedom calls foundation the foundation then obtained ap proval for the questions from the u.s department of defense follow-up questions were permitted but they could not be related to policy strategy or position harvard university recently pro vided family members of troops in iraq with similar videoconferencing oppor tunities but lehigh is the first university to connect students with troops in the battlefield the soldiers many of whom are the same age as students said their experi ence in iraq has been nothing like they thought it would be they said training is different than the job and bonding with the iraqi com munity has developed at a slow pace but iraqi citizens are becoming friend lier and more helpful they said and the american and iraqi troops share a strong bond the soldiers could not disclose their duties because of potential se curity issues the all-male panel of soldiers huddled together in a group in front of the video screen in a camp building said their constant joking and laughing which the students and faculty might not understand reflects a high level of cama raderie developed through bonding and shared experiences the little things are the things that we'll remember one soldier said un derstand that it means something to us violence has become an accepted part of life one soldier said violence is like waking up in the morning and hopping in the shower one soldier said it's a part of life we're trying to correct one soldier who could be named alumni invent wi-fire to help wireless range by devon giddon news writer three lehigh alumni recently launched a new high performance wireless internet adapter that will extend lehigh's wireless network up to 1,000 feet allowing students to connect from off campus the device called wi-fire was created by curtis macdonald 05 along with blake klein top 05 and tom diclemente 74 and went on sale two weeks ago the product increases the range for wireless connectivity other adapters reach approximate ly 300 feet while wi-fire can reach distances of up to 1,000 feet wi-fire also triples signal strength which in creases range performance and speed it works with any wi-fi network and any ac cess point so users can connect from a greater number of locations macdonald said although individual connec tions will depend on the distance from the access point wi-fire is guaranteed to increase signal strength and quality according to macdonald wi-fire is substan tially more powerful than any other antenna that would come with a laptop or any adapter sold it was also designed with mobile users in mind because it has low battery consumption at lehigh using wi-fire will make it as if students are living in a dormitory giving us ers access to their h-drive library and school resources as well as connecting to on-campus networks basically it tricks your computer into think ing you are on campus macdonald said from the university's perspective a student is a student no matter where you connect from see frats page 3 see soldiers page 4 see wi-fire page 3 cell phone men's soccer team check for recap of etiquette h ml 0 p'aycrucia 9ame football game on decline a 9a nst american on saturday page 5 i jflfcffl page 12 bw.lehigh.edu