Brown and White Vol. 120 no. 19

              Vol. 120 No. 19
Friday, April 8, 2011
‘All the Lehigh News First’
THE BROWN AND WHITE
Lehigh University’s Student Newspaper Founded in 1894
SPORTS
Baseball eyes
rivalry win
Page 16
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Page 7
LIFESTYLE
By DALISABETH GALVEZ
The last efforts to donate blood this semester took place Monday and Tuesday in Ulrich Student Center with the help of the Class of 2013 and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated.
The sponsors made strong efforts to help the Community Service Office and Miller-Keystone Blood Center spread the word for students to give blood donations for the increasing need to come in the summertime.
Dan Coviello, ’13, works in the Community Service Office and has co­ordinated five previous blood drives.
“There is a strong need for blood around this time, and it gives students the opportunity to do a random act of kindness and give to someone they have never met,” he said.
Coviello also said the two sponsors helped to spread the word throughout campus, and they represent diverse student groups, which aids in getting more people to donate. The Commu­nity Service Office is able to hold these blood drive events through the Miller-Keystone Center. The Miller-Keystone Center works with 17 local hospitals, helping people who need blood re­ceive donations from people in their communities.
Student efforts to donate blood have been increasing with each blood drive. The number of donations in­creased from 150 to 200 in the last year. The hope is to get 800 students to donate in the 2011-2012 year.
Students play a big role in the do­nation of blood, and here at Lehigh, students are doing all that they can to
CommUNITY Week planned to unite campus
By JESSICA SZAFONI
The LU Equality initiative hosted an open meeting Monday in the STEPS building to address the aftermath of the formal email sent to all stu­dents promoting diversity, acceptance and inclu­sion on the Lehigh campus.
Randi Ackerman, ’11, and Noelle Smart, ’12, spearheaded the efforts toward unifying the cam­pus and making Lehigh a better campus through a Letter to the Editor published in The Brown & White and the campus-wide email.
The letter, sent March 29, provided a pledge for university organizations to sign, committing to universal respect, consciousness of individual ac­tions, the elimination of discrimination, empathy, support and openness. The closing obliged signees to “encourage others to join us in following these ideals to create a better community.”
After recognizing faults in the campus atmo­sphere and the potential for improvement through student efforts, Ackerman and Smart took matters into their own hands by seeking feedback and di­rection to move forward.
“The events that were intended to make people understand were only attended by students who re­ally cared about the issues,” Ackerman said of her reasoning for sending the letter. “I felt that there needed to be a way to reach every student.”
They opened the meeting with an introduc­tion from founder of the LeHIgh Initiative, Nicole Schwartz, ’13. The initiative encourages students to simply acknowledge each other with a friendly “Hi.” An unwelcoming feeling around campus mo­tivated her to take action.
“Because we’re the problem, we can easily fix it,” she said. “What I ask of you is to just say hi to each other, just make this campus warm.”
The LU Equality initiative is striving for a simi­lar objective.
“Noelle and I really wanted to use the letter to
See EQUALITY Page 5
Email sparks talk of equality
among students
Last blood drive of year boosts donor numbers
By LYNETTE SEMINARA
Organizations from across campus met to finalize plans for Lehigh’s upcoming CommUNITY Week last Wednesday.
The first CommUNITY Week at Lehigh will be held next Monday through Sunday.
Groups that were represented included Faces of Le­high, the LeHIgh Initiative, Fives for Lives, the Lehigh LipDub, the Women’s Center and more. Those groups are actively coming together and contributing to make the first ever CommUNITY Week a success. The meeting was headed by Mario Paredes, ’11, who began the cam­puswide initiative, encompassing an entire week for the first time this year.
Fives for Lives, a prominent charity function on cam­pus, has joined forces with Lehigh Unity Week to “em­bark on a mission to show the Lehigh community what can be done when we stand together for our selected causes,” Paredes said.
“A lot of logistics were sorted out, and the schedule of events was finalized, which was definitely needed with the amount of programs that are actually occurring,” Trina Pal, ’11, said.
The idea for CommUNITY Week started last year with the Nigger Wetback Chink: The Race Play show, which was sponsored by Lambda Sigma Upsilon fraternity.
“The purpose of this week is a celebration of diversity, but [it] also encourages students to get out of their comfort zone,” Paredes said .
Since the show was such a success, Paredes had the idea to make a whole week out of it to really drive home the initiative of promoting unity across campus and throughout all of the Lehigh Valley.
In September, Paredes began soliciting help from cam­pus organizations that might be interested in contributing to the ideal unified campus and having a chance to win money for their organization to use. The representatives had an initial meeting in September and have been work­ing hard to make next week a success.
With another successful race show this past Novem­ber, support for the project has only grown and escalated to the point it is currently at. More support is always wel­See
COMMUNITY Page 5
B&W photo by CATHY LI
The Echoes perform during their spring concert, “Please Don’t Stop the Music,” this past Saturday. The a cappella group performed several popular songs like La Roux’s “Bulletproof” and The Script’s “Breakeven.”
See DONATE Page 5
Resounding echoes