Brown and White Vol. 118 no. 11

              Swine flu epidemic to possibly re-surface
By CHRISTINE MCLAREN
Lehigh has no confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in 2010, but this does not mean the threat is gone, Dr. Susan Kitei, director of the Health and Wellness Center, said.
“Historians and public health officials who have studied influ­enza pandemics believe that we may see a third wave of illness this spring,” she said.
In most states across the coun­try, cases of the swine flu are con­sidered to be at a low, “sporadic” level. Flu activity is at levels seen mostly in September and Octo­ber during regular flu seasons, according to an update from the Pennsylvania State Department of Health. The update stated, “During the last six flu seasons, flu activity peaked in mid-February. This year, we may be reporting the lowest flu activity during the traditional ‘peak weeks.’”
There has been a slight in­crease in influenza-like illness (ILI), according to the American College Health Association.
ACHA research shows that “for the week ending Feb. 19, 59 percent of 178 colleges and uni­versities reported new ILI cases, compared to 52 percent reporting new cases for the previous week. This represents the first increase in disease activity since the end of
Picture imperfect
B&W photo by STEPHANIE LIN
Human rights speaker Estizer Smith presented her somber but revealing civil rights photo documentary “Back to Lowndes County,” Tuesday in Neville Hall. See Story on page 6.
Vol. 118 No. 11
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
‘All the Lehigh News First’
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Film focuses on farm foods
Page 7
LIFESTYLE
See SWINE Page 3
By JACKIE LYONS
The heavy snowstorms experienced by Pennsylvania inhabitants this winter were caused by the occurrence of an “El Niño” year, and not necessarily by global warming and climate change, according to several Lehigh professors.
“It has been an El Niño winter, and that is likely a big contributor to the recent snowstorms,” Paul Ferry, ’10, member of the Green Action club, said. “El Niño is a cli­mate scenario that has occurred every three to seven years for centuries, possibly even millennia, so it is nothing new. It produces irregular weather patterns as a result of a shift in normal oceanic circulation.”
Global ocean circulation redistributes amounts of heat and energy, which causes changes in the weather, said Ed­ward Evenson, a professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department who specializes in glacial geology.
“There is no doubt that El Niño causes weather chang­es,” he said.
Ferry said inhabitants of this region should expect large amounts of snow during the winter months.
“Scientists predicted an El Niño year, and it delivered,” he said. “But come on, we live in Pennsylvania. It snows here. In fact, historical records suggest that it used to snow a lot more than it does now.”
Dork Sahagian, a professor in the Earth and Environ­mental Sciences Department, said, “It’s more likely that the current weather patterns that we’ve been seeing here in the northeast and the southwest are [more] related to El Niño than they are any kind of global warming.”
Sahagian specializes in plate tectonics and environmen­tal change.
The professors agreed global warming and climate change likely had no effect on the snowstorms this winter.
“You can’t pin a single event on long-term global cli­mate change,” Sahagian said. “It snows in Pennsylvania. It has always snowed in Pennsylvania. There’s nothing exceptional about it, and it doesn’t prove one thing or another.”
Snow is not a reflection of temperature but rather a reflection of precipitation relative to temperature, Sahagian said.
Robert Booth, a professor in the Earth and Environ­mental Sciences Department who specializes in ecology, paleoecology and paleoclimatology, said no individual snowstorm, or any other severe weather event, could be attributed to global climate change, but “there is evidence that such extreme weather events will likely become more frequent as global temperatures rise.”
Although the professors did not attribute the snow­storms to global changes, they agreed global warming and climate change are occurring.
Profs agree: El Niño to blame for storms
See STORMS Page 4
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DU loses 15 men in shake-up
By ELAINE HARDENSTINE
In a bold effort to increase campus involvement and resolve long-standing occupancy issues, Delta Upsilon International fraternity stripped 15 Lehigh chapter members of their “active membership,” offer­ing them a consolation of “alumni status.”
Sixteen men, of the formerly 33-member frater­nity, received invitations to remain active members of DU, “based on the belief that you can and will contin­ue to be an actively contributing member of Lehigh’s chapter and will help the chapter through this difficult time,” Nick Welton, ’10, and former president of DU, read from a letter from DU International.
The invitations came after a month of interviews with every brother and analysis of the chapter by an appointed “reorganization committee,” two alumni and two international representatives who gained “custodianship of the charter for operation ... until the chapter is ready to have it returned,” Welton said.
DU was placed on “reorganization status” late in January by DU’s international board of directors, in coordination with DU’s alumni corporation and Le­high’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, which placed higher standards on every campus fraternity in 2005 as part of a Greek life strategic plan.
“DU has risen to the challenge in various ways, but hasn’t found its stride,” Welton said.
That stride would include higher occupancy rates and greater campus and chapter involvement on the part of the brothers. The feeling was Lehigh’s chapter needed to better diversify its brotherhood.
“[DU International] wants to help the Lehigh chapter become a well-rounded, award-winning chap­ter,” Welton said. This equates to bringing in more involved men who will be highly invested in DU.
“It’s my hope that the DU fraternity will foster ex­ceptional young men on campus,” Welton said, “and supplement their world-class education with a net­work of outstanding individuals who continually seek to help these men realize their visions and solidify in their person the powerful ideals our fraternity seeks to uphold.”
While GPA was considered when determining who would remain an active brother, Welton, who was uninformed of any of the objective standards be­hind individual status changes, said he did know that grades were a “minute factor.”
Brothers who were offered alumni status have several choices, Welton said. They can accept their new titles, appeal to the reorganization committee or resign from fraternity membership completely. Every
See DU Page 2