Brown and White Vol. 116 No. 21

              the brown and white vol 116 no 21 lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 tuesday november 18 2008 all the lehigh news first fusing cultures b&wphoto by henry weinberger performers at the international week fusion event perform a traditional chinese dance for the crowd at lamberton hall on friday other cultural expositions ended the week's many activities see story page 7 officials lehigh equipped to weather financial storm by david craig a university's endowment can be considered its lifeline among other things it supports scholarships fac ulty chairs professorships student loans fellowships research support building maintenance library sup port and academic departmental support but after gast reported on nov 3 in a faculty meeting that the endow ment dropped from 1.09 billion in june to 888 million in october it appears that lifeline has at least par tially frayed lehigh isn't alone in its financial woes other top schools such as har vard brown and cornell are also feeling the financial strain according to reports by the associated press all have had to enforce spending freezes to halt expansion and build ing plans dartmouth college is plan ning to cut spending after it suffered a 220 million loss to its endowment because of the poor performance of its wall street investments according to the article dma silver pokedoff director of university marketing and communi cations said lehigh's endowment like those at other schools is feeling the effects of the recent economic downturn but is still financially strong lehigh is well-positioned to navi gate these challenges pokedoff said further diversification of our portfo lio has allowed us to better weather this most recent downturn and we are performing above our benchmarks pokedoff said despite the current economic situation lehigh's long term approach will remain the same at lehigh we are prudent stew ards and manage the endowment as a perpetual fund pokedoff said we are committed to striking a balance between sustaining the educational mission of the university and preserv ing the endowment principal in real terms for future generations part of the endowment also serves to support financial aid for students events scheduled all week before lehigh-lafayette by anna diefenbach and lara kovant spirit week 2008 kicked off monday five days before the football team takes the field for the 144 th lehigh-lafayette showdown the lehigh-lafayette rivalry is the most played football rivalry in the nation occurring 143 times since 1884 we're expanding a lot of the activities to have an entire week of lehigh-themed events that we hope will bring the entire campus to gether said steve shuldman 10 chair of the association of student alumni hawk's nest team 11 is hosting a campus-wide decora tion contest reviving an old tradition greek houses have been participating in this competi tion which is now open to all houses residen tial houses have the chance to decorate their buildings to display their lehigh pride and they will be judged on creativity originality and school spirit the winner of the decorating contest will re ceive a 500 prize the festivities were planned to begin mon day afternoon with spirit my ride where students would get their car decorated by the lehigh cheerleaders the event sponsored by asa will also be held wednesday on library drive from 3 to 6 p.m on tuesday temporary tattoos will be avail able outside rathbone and the lower university center tuesday at 4 p.m at the flagpole on the university lawn the person with the most l-hawk tattoos and the most lehigh knowledge will win a prize the event is sponsored by asa at 5 p.m on tuesday bed races will take place on library drive the event is sponsored by team 10 the interfraternity council and wegmans cuts prices to help customers cope by erin podolak known among students and area residents for its high end food and prepared meals wegmans surprised shop pers by announcing on nov 6 that they will be lowering prices on dozens of items the wegmans family who own the grocery chain decided to lower prices because of the recent economic downturn said bill mcelwee service area manager for the allentown wegmans the family takes their employees into consideration when making decisions for the store mcelwee said they want the employees to be able to shop there so they looked at what the employees needed which was lower prices wegmans timed their price cuts to coincide with the holiday season when shoppers will be buying more food than usual things like the roasting chickens that people will use for family meals or chocolate chips for baking are things our customers would be buying now anyway mcelwee said we are hoping that for the average customer the sav ings would be akin to 40 a month the price cuts are good news to katherine rumbaugh 09 who shops at the store i buy organic vegetables and vegetarian food there both of which are usually very expensive rumbaugh said as a college student saving money on food is great the price reduction isn't enough for some students like caitlin higgins 09 who said her parents don't give her money for food she said she'll only go out of her way to shop at wegmans for specific items like their prepared food other local supermarkets have no plans of lowering their prices to compete with wegmans we're still seeing students in our store said rick find ley store manager of superfresh so far there has been very little change in business from last year to this year ahart's supermarket does not plan on reducing prices because they consistently try to have the lowest prices said store owner george ahart a lot of our success is due to everyday low pricing ahart said we are constantly out there working with ven dors to get better prices for our customers ahart said his supermarket caters to a greater variety of customers than wegmans we have people in our store from all different back grounds and we do our best to meet all of their needs ahart said our sale prices go to every customer - you do not need a card or membership to get the best deal we do not keep track of our customers personal information like other stores ahart was not swayed by the decision to reduce prices at wegmans because he said it isn't a total store reduction wegmans lowering their prices was surprising but see economy page 2 see lehigh-laf page 5 see wegmans page 3 cultures fuse for l^s«/-^?^^b women's basketball check online for variety show oe^'vs defeats upenn breaking news page 7 li sri > page 16 www.thebrownandwhite.com cultures fuse for 3 m«^h women's basketball check online for variety show c if^ni defeats upenn breaking news page 7 ftl rr jlmk page 16 www.thebrownandwhite.com