Brown and White Vol. 115 No. 33

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 115 no 33 tuesday february 19 2008 all the lehigh news first new sorority gains approval to open chapter by dana anderson ■ lambda theta alpha to help diversify greek life officials say lambda theta alpha be came lehigh's first multicul tural sorority after unanimous approval from lehigh's system wide assessment committee wednesday lta is a primarily latina sorority and a member of the national association of latino fraternal organizations tim wilkinson director of fraternity and sorority affairs said lehigh is looking to bring more multicultural fraterni ties and sororities to campus to provide students with more options we really want to make sure that all students have an outlet he said and knowing that our current organizations aren't for everybody we want ed to make sure that we were representing all of our students accurately lambda theta alpha is not a residential chapter and will not have designated housing until the chapter grows large enough to require a house wilkinson said cecilia ramirez area orien tation supervisor of the south jersey region for lta said the sorority has a grade point aver age requirement of 2.5 for its sisters and focuses on commu nity service and leadership i cannot emphasize enough how important aca demics are to this sorority ramirez said members of lta do not have to be latina the found ing mothers were of various ethnicities on paper the purpose is to create a support group for la tinas in higher education and to unite the latina community ramirez said but overall the focus is the empowerment of all women lta's goals and atmosphere will broaden the greek com munity wilkinson said we are beginning conver sations with other fraternities and sororities — african ameri can frats and sororities latino frats and sororities he said because we'd like to have more of a multicultural feel to our greek community the chapter's goals will focus on service-based edu performing for awareness courtesy of by shelly harris cast members take a bow after a performance of the vagina monologues sunday the show raises awareness about sexual violence this is the eighth year it has been performed at lehigh all proceeds are donated to turning point of the lehigh valley community reaches out to local artist in need by gabriela saade lehigh and the surround ing community have united to assist bethlehem resident and internationally renowned art ist gregory warmack better known as mr imagination who lost all of his personal be longings in a fire collected artwork personal art pieces and his dog pharaoh were lost in the fire several events have been organized by the community and lehigh students to raise funds for warmack silagh white administra tive director of arts lehigh started a facebook group to keep people informed about warmack's relief efforts and how to donate the group is rapidly growing and currently has 125 members warmack is about as au thentic as people get white said he lives he breathes he national survey gives campus a for safety by stephanie ida ■ a college safety survey published in reader's digest gives lehigh an a for the reported safety features on campus lehigh was ranked 35 and received a grade of a for campus safety in a recent publication of reader's digest reader's digest invited 291 american colleges to participate in the survey 135 agreed the survey was part of a special feature is your college student safe at school which also included ranks of college crime rates in the campus safety survey each school was judged in 19 different categories many of the statistics for the survey were received from the u.s department of education although lehigh was ranked high in some categories compared to other universities dorm safety results were much lower lehigh reported that residence halls do not have surveillance cameras or attendants johns hopkins university which has a similar amount of students to lehigh has surveillance cameras in all dorms and 99 percent of students lived in resi dence halls with attendants according to the survey however lehigh did report that residence halls have full-time security the term full-time-security was not clearly denned leaving it up to the reader to determine what constituted this status i always see local people walking around anyone can just walk into the buildings stephanie naylor 10 said even with the dorms you do need a card but there are other ways to get in - and there you go tom dubreuil residence life coordinator said le high has not considered putting surveillance cameras in or around dorms at this time i feel that our measures are sufficient but a great deal depends on students dubreuil said students need to not let people they do not know into their building whether they be other students or pizza dcliv cry people while lehigh is a pretty safe environment it takes students partnering with us and being vigilant to make it even safer muhlenberg college in allentown reported that 25 percent of students live in dormitories with surveillance cameras other safety precautions on campus were also looked at in the survey the blue light system a safety telephone for anyone who feels in danger on campus was also mentioned in the survey the device is connected directly to the lehigh uni versity police department lehigh reported 100 percent of the campus was protected by the blue light phone in the survey i have never felt unsafe walking at night to my dorm from the library kate joseph 11 said we are close to a community that doesn't seem pretty safe but i've never heard of confrontations on campus safety is not just a matter of systematic precautions see artist page 4 see sorority page 5 see grade page 2 cut out h^m^k^j wrestling squad check online for the caffeine s^j^kf lf a defeats broncs breaking news page 7 page 16 thebrownandwhite.com