Brown and White Vol. 116 No. 47

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 friday april 24 2009 all the lehigh news first vol 116 no 47 lehigh jumps to no 14 party school in playboy by dani todd lehigh was named the no 14 party school in the united states according to playboy magazine's 2009 list of top party schools lehigh was the top private school named on the list which had the univer sity of miami taking the top spot the magazine based the ranking of the top schools on five categories bikini judging attractiveness campus judging involvement in campus activities sports judging school spirit brains judging academics and finally sex judging the promiscuity of students the rest of the top 25 were ranked based on nominations submitted to the magazine according to the playboy web site the high ratio of males to females hurt lehigh in the rankings while the presence of greek life was a plus the web site incorrectly reported that 70 percent of the lehigh community is involved in greek life the actual percentage is a little more than 30 percent according to the office of fraternity and sorority affairs web site james facey 11 said it was ironic that this ranking was released shortly after lehigh's ranking dropped significantly in business week's annual best undergradu ate business school poll alice gast is not going to be too hap py about this facey said jordan paeth 11 said he does not agree with the ranking if we are no 14,1 feel bad for the rest of the country paeth said a whole new world b&wphoto by danielle cobar students perform at the international bazaar sunday on the u.c front lawn besides entertainment the event offered food from around the world off-campus rooms emptied in break-in by elaine hardenstine between midnight and 4 a.m wednesday an intruder entered a house on the 600 block of laufer street stealing thousands of dollars worth of property according to resi dents of the house the tenants did not realize any thing happened until the next morn ing when they walked downstairs to the empty living room said andrew katz 09 we were all sleeping when it hap pened katz said the victims of the burglary es timate between 3,000 and 4,000 worth of goods including a television two computers and food from the freezer were taken from the house brandon sherman 10 admits he and his housemates were sometimes careless about securing their house nothing was destroyed there was no forced entry he said we were just emptied out sherman said his house is look ing into installing a security system maybe with a keypad to enter the front door they will also be installing new council continues promoting racial respect by aly callahan the council for equity and community launched its web site monday to show social justice and diversity issues are being addressed at lehigh since the on campus incidents that occurred after the presidential election in november shortly after the election of barack obama two racist incidents were reported by students and brought up in a town hall meet ing coordinated by the cec another town hall meeting was called by the cec in december to monitor progress on the issues but there have been none since then one idea discussed in these town hall meetings was a mandatory class for incom ing freshmen to promote knowledge about diversity vice provost of student affairs john smea ton said they are still working with students and other groups to look into the possibility of creating such a class one of the things that bothered me about that meeting in hindsight is that it focused too much on the class rather than focusing on the specific issues that had been reported and making an outline of steps for lehigh to take karl brisseaux 11 said student affairs initially responded to the incidents discussed at the town hall meeting by personally following up with each individual who had been targeted smeaton said a series of discussions about harassment were held as well open to all students which 15 to 25 students attended smeaton said student affairs also worked to change commuters face parking challenges by dianna hank luis villegas 12 commutes to school parking on mountaintop campus where he has a permit but while the 40 commuter permit prevents him from getting parking tickets on the mountaintop campus it doesn't shorten the 30 to 40 minutes he spends each day on the bus getting from his parking space to class that's about 30 to 40 minutes of my day wasted due to parking not to mention the extra gas i have to use doing all of this villegas said because of this i've been late to class many times villegas is not alone commuter students unlike on-campus lehigh students are bringing their cars to campus not by choice but because they must restricted parking requires these students to either park in the zoellner arts center parking garage and pay an entry fee of 1.00 or to park on mountaintop campus commuter students are encouraged to purchase commuter parking passes which allow them to park on mountaintop campus where there is a lot of park ing available and then take the bus which runs every 10 minutes down to asa packer campus said brynn buskirk marketing specialist for university business services buskirk said students can purchase a semester pass to use the zoellner arts center garage which costs 130 per semester or 250 for an academic year students also have the option of parking at any brown meter after 4 p.m as long as they pay the meter buskirk said parking tickets are initially 25 but double to 50 each after the second ticket these tickets can accumu late quickly a recent online survey targeting commuter students revealed that parking issues were the biggest concern to commuters the main concerns were uncertainty re garding where to park and permits being too expensive commuter student caitlin prozonic 11 said com muting students should be able to obtain special park ing permits commuters should get some sort of special pass that lets them park either in the zoellner garage for cheaper or in the alumni memorial deck she said i know that very few people use that deck and it is usu ally empty she also suggested that students who commute should get special permits that would allow them to park anywhere on campus where spots were available i would not mind paying a little extra to get a per mit if i could have parking guaranteed for me every day prozonic said i would just want to know that see cec page 3 see break-in page 2 see commuters page 2 summer sun women's lacrosse moving out and and lehigh team heads to playoffs helping out page 7 v page 16 thebrownandwhite.com