Brown and White Vol. 115 No. 27

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 115 no 27 tuesday january 29 2008 all the lehigh news first greek life awarded for positive changes by allie rolnik â–  initiative recognized for its commitment to improve greek life lehigh was given a national award that honors institutions committed to long term change within the greek systems the 2007 outstanding change ini tiative award comes a few years after lehigh administration said poor perfor mance had become typical in most chap ters on campus an application submitted to the as sociation of fraternity advisors cited a misuse of alcohol declining membership scarcity of upperclassmen and lack of alumni leadership as major problems in greek life in 2002 a task force of 14 faculty members students staff and alumni was formed to strengthen and improve greek life the committee designed a 10-point plan to improve greek conditions recommendations included changes to on-campus residential living chapter house occupancy landlord/lessee clarity chapter house renovations and mainte nance sorority housing equity annual chapter accreditation and fraternity re cruitment changes five years later lehigh officials said the greek system has improved winning this award has a lot of vali dation for strength in greek life said tim wilkinson director of fraternity and sorority affairs it is a signal to the rest of campus that we are making the greek system the best it can be tom dubreuil associate dean of stu dents said determination for change led to improved conditions we've stuck to what we've said we were going to do improve greek life and make us proud of it dubreuil said to make such a massive change and have it be successful requires a big commitment there have been bumps along the road but you need perseverance positive feedback such as more new members joining and parental approval is expected to come dubreuil said any time you get recognized it is very positive dubreuil said we can only benefit everyone can be very proud of this i hope the students are dubreuil said dubreuil urged members of fraterni ties and sororities to continue performing well stay ahead of the curve dubreuil said now it is refinement instead of massive overhaul which is a good place to be we cannot get too comfortable and slip back to the way things were in the past although wilkinson is proud of the workshop provides insight on racism by rachel dorrell â–  activist author speaks at workshop about why racism still exists today political activist ewuare x osayande led two separate workshops to help faculty staff and students learn how to ef fectively understand and resist racism last week the workshops which took place in lamberton hall on jan 24.,were part of lehigh's week long celebration of dr martin luther king jr osayande explained that racism is still rampant in society today we have power not just to adapt but to overcome osay ande said osayande said racism must be understood before other forms of oppression can be appreciated lehigh prides itself in its diversity what's that mean osayande asked how sin cere are we in our efforts of diversity according to the lehigh web site the student population is 78 percent white 5 percent asian and 3 percent each black and 3 percent hispanic osayande said the appear ance of blacks on campus did not happen by chance it is the result of a political struggle any time that i've been to a school and talked with the administration the retention of african american students comes up osayande said and they have a ton of excuses as to why they're having doing that once a university accepts minorities what is the climate like osayande asked what's their experience how's it different from the aver age white student why is it difficult to get the university to acknowledge the difference osayande said these differences are in dorm life in the classroom and in the administration osayande said i'm not picking on lehigh i've done minimal research on lehigh osayande said but with the research that i did do patterns become clear the patterns are an institutional reality osayande said he was not there to give the faculty tips rather he was here to raise awareness about the reality of racism osayande said there must be a certain understanding between everyone partaking in the workshop i'm going to make certain assumptions we all agree that race is not a biologically deter mined reality and that there is only one race the human race osayande said my presence is to help us address a question that has riddled higher education in this radio station to expand broadcast range audience by allison rolish â–  lehigh's radio station plans to bring in more listeners by increasing transmitter wattage lehigh's radio station 91.3 wlvr plans to increase its lis tener base in 2008 by expanding the station transmitter from 13 to 200 watts the increase in wattage will allow listeners from as far away as the philadelphia area to pick up the station the station will reach 261,935 listeners up from 146,126 listen ers according to joe manganelli 10 wlvr's general manager and one of its disc jockeys the increase will account for about a 30-mile radius mangan elli said but the estimates are conservative chris semple programming director and dj at the station said he is optimistic about the new transmitter at least twice as many peo ple will want to join the wlvr community whether it be as listeners djs or general support ers semple said next year the station plans to bring in more new listeners with live coverage of lehigh football games the station hopes it will allow for more involvement between the radio station and lehigh b&wphoto by christopher chew it's a chance for wlvr to show it can do more than just play music semple said the coverage will add to espn's current coverage of games manganelli said who is the leader of the new project the increase in listeners will benefit a station that has seen much success for the past three years wlvr has been awarded best college community radio station by the lehigh valley music awards aj fritzinger a station dj was also honored as best college community radio personality for the past six years fritzinger who has a loyal disc jockey joe manganelli runs his show on lehigh's wlvr 91.3 radio station the station plans to increase its station transmitter to reach listeners as far away as philadelphia see award page 4 see racism page 5 see radio page 4 technology taking men's basketball check online for over the classroom \^ jr beats rival lafayette breaking news page 7 w page 16 thebrownandwhite.com