Brown and White Vol. 120 no. 12

              Vol. 120 No. 12
Friday, March 4, 2011
‘All the Lehigh News First’
THE BROWN AND WHITE
Lehigh University’s Student Newspaper Founded in 1894
SPORTS
Wrestling heads to EIWA champs
Page 12
ONLINE
Check online for breaking news
thebrownandwhite.com
Recent alum
‘Docks em’ dead
Page 5
LIFESTYLE
By ELIZABETH PUZIO
The CANstruction competition, an engineering design competition where teams of Lehigh and local middle school students design and build a structure com­pletely out of aluminum cans, took place at Broughal Middle School last Friday.
Awards were given in the categories of structural ingenuity, juror’s favorite, best use of labels and best meal.
The Rossin Jr. Fellows engineering hon­or and service society at Lehigh organized the event with the local middle school.
Katherine Glass-Hardenbergh, ’11, was involved in planning the event.
“We’ve been meeting with Broughal students once a week since the semester started to come up with ideas and plan our structures,” she said.
This year, different teams built a giant Campbell’s soup can, the cartoon charac­ter SpongeBob and one of the Pizza Planet aliens from “Toy Story.” Grocery stores from the area donated the cans used in the competition. The structures will be left on display for about two weeks. Then the cans will be donated to a local food bank.
This year, the cans are being donated to New Bethany Ministries.
According to Canstruction.org, the or­ganization’s mission is, “to engage, amaze and inspire the community to work togeth­er raising canned food to feed hundreds of thousands of hungry people.”
“CANstruction is a national organiza­tion,” Glass-Hardenbergh said. “Our event is just one of the many that are held throughout the country each year.”
“It starts with one can. To feed the hungry. To lift the spirit. To change the world,” Canstruction.org said.
The website also said that since 1992, CANstruction has contributed more than 15 million pounds of food to community food banks, demonstrating that the fight against hunger can be won.
“CANstruction is using one can as a catalyst for change,” the website said. “One can to represent the building blocks of massive sculptures. One can to prove that every act of kindness makes a difference,”
“This event is important for the middle school students because it gives them a sense of teamwork and also allows them to see a project through from beginning to end,” Jonathan Kuntschik, ’12, said.
Groups of Lehigh students helped teams of middle school students to brain­storm ideas for the design of the structure and then worked with the students to pro­vide them with design plans and directions for building the structure.
On the day of the competition, middle school students, with help from the Lehigh students, spent about four hours building the structures.
“It really brings the community to­gether, since the Lehigh students and the Broughal middle school students can work together,” said Melissa Dye, ’12.
This is the third year the CANstruction competition has taken place at Broughal Middle School.
“[The competition] gives Lehigh stu­dents a chance to work with middle school students to show them how cool engineer­ing can be,” Glass-Hardenbergh said. “It is
Lehigh, Broughal students collaborate in competition
By STEPH ALBANO
Lehigh students participated in a Twitter discus­sion that revolved around the hashtag “#LehighDi­versity,” on Feb. 24.
This topic garnered a few comments such as “#lehighdiversity is trending.....really...hmmmm never heard of it,” by DeAnna Collins, a Moravian College student whose Twitter handle is @Bobbis­world. A variety of students, professors, alumni and even Lehigh’s famous Twitter-ghost @AsaPackers­Ghost participated in this conversation, which begs the question, is Lehigh really diverse?
That previous Tuesday, Washington, D.C.-based newspaper McClatchy published an article titled “Can universities keep the minorities they woo?” which specifically cited Lehigh as a school where a large percentage of its minority students end up transferring out. The story told the tale of Nezy Smith, a minority student who was recruited to Lehigh despite warnings that the school was not particularly welcoming of minorities. After three semesters at Lehigh, she left the school and, after taking some time off, transferred to Temple Univer­sity in Philadelphia.
Smith was one of the reported 25 to 40 percent of minority students who leave Lehigh, according to the McClatchy article. So, why can’t Lehigh keep the minorities that it works so hard to recruit?
“I can see from a new student or freshman standpoint how it can be difficult to get involved in something multicultural-related,” said Trina Pal, ’11. “I had this problem as a freshman and actually only got involved after I started working in the OSLD [Office of Student Leadership and Development] and also after I became a Gryphon.”
Jame’l Hodges, director of the Office of Multi­cultural Affairs, disagreed. He said he believes there are a lot of programs for underrepresented students,
See DIVERSITY Page 3
Board announces raise of tuition for 2011-12 year
By ANNAMARIA ANSELMO
Lehigh tuition is set to increase from $39,480 to $40,660 for the 2011-12 academic year, after the Board of Trustees approved the ad­dition, according to the University Communications announcement published Tuesday on Lehigh’s website.
The $1,180 increment will bring the total undergraduate cost to nearly $51,800. This includes the average room and board and the undergraduate technology fees.
Because of the ongoing economic conditions, the announcement said the board is confining the increase to three percent, the same percent­age increase as last year.
This three-percent increase is one of the smallest raises in tuition in “four decades” and is around the lowest tuition increases at colleges and universities in the country, the announcement said.
The university is dedicated to contributing aid and assistance for students in need.
The announcement said Lehigh is reserving $64 million for under­graduate financial aid funds, the highest amount ever.
For more information about ap­plying for financial aid, visit http://www.lehigh.edu/~infao/index.htm.
B&W photo by LEAH KULP
Sophomore guard CJ McCollum eyes a Navy defender during the men’s basketball team’s Patriot League quarterfinal game in which No. 4 Lehigh defeated the No. 5 Midshipmen, 87-75, at Stabler Arena on Wednesday. Lehigh will face the Bucknell University Bison at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday in the semifinal game of the league tournament in Lewisburg, Pa.
See CANS Page 3
Hoop dreams
Twitter sparks discussion about diversity on Lehigh’s campus