Brown and White Vol. 127 no. 25

              The Brown and White
Vol. 127 No. 25
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
‘All the Lehigh News First’
It is a common belief that inter­national students at Lehigh tend to make friends exclusively within their respective nationalities. However, a survey of 113 students debunks that idea and shows that foreign students are more likely to have American friends than not.
Approximately 18 percent of the student population in the 2013-2014 school year came from foreign countries, according to the Lehigh Office of International Students and Scholars website. That means there were 1,262 international students in a total student body of approximately 7,000.
Only 3 percent of survey partic­ipants said they had no American students in their friend group, as opposed to 27 percent of participants who said they had no international students in their friend group.
Of the small percentage that said they had no American friends, all were international students. Those who answered that they had no inter­national student friends were all American. While two-thirds of survey participants said their friend group consisted of only American students, only a quarter of survey participants said their friend group consisted of a mix of international and American students.
Participants who identified them­selves as international students more commonly answered that they had American friends, but American par­ticipants did not answer as frequent­ly that they were friends with inter­national students.
This could be influenced by the population size of foreign students, which, in comparison to the American student majority, is a much smaller and less probable group to encounter.
According to Stacy Burger, the assistant director of International Services, international students forming connections with American students is something the office heavily considers when organizing
By GABY MORERA
Assistant News Editor
“Gay sorority president, isn’t that a contradiction?” reads a white­board held in the hands of Madison McGahan, ’15, an openly lesbian student and president of Zeta Tau Alpha.
This photo of McGahan served as her coming out announcement to the Lehigh community.
It was posted on March 24, on the Facebook page I, Too, Am Lehigh, “aimed at generating discussions around the microaggressions margin­alized individuals encounter,” accord­ing to the page. McGahan’s photo garnered over 485 likes, making it the second most liked post on the
International students debunk friend group theories
page.
Earlier that day, she had received a phone call from Eryne Boyle, ’15, and Haleigh Smith, ‘14, the two students running the page, telling her to meet them at Campus Square at 5 p.m.
McGahan assumed they wanted her help regarding recent insults being made on Yik Yak towards Greek life, calling certain chapters gay. But she never imagined that she was personally going to get involved.
When McGahan arrived, she was given a whiteboard. She was told to write down something that had been said to her about being gay. A photo of her holding the whiteboard would be put on the Facebook page.
“I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be,” McGahan said. “I was really nervous because I didn’t want my sorority to get mad at me if there was backlash.”
But McGahan decided that if she didn’t do it, she would regret it. She wrote down something that was said to her at a fraternity party regarding her two seemingly conflicting iden­tities.
Later that night, the photo was posted to the Facebook page. McGahan heard from friends from both high school and college support­ing her in her coming out.
“No one said anything bad to me and it was just all positive support; that was the push to get me out into the community and talking about more LGBT issues,” she said.
This experience from last year is very different from where McGahan was when she first came to Lehigh. She was not out, and she was not ready to talk about these issues.
“I went in with the stance that I’m not really sure of my identity, I don’t really want to talk about it and I didn’t want to be judged,” she said.
She joined Zeta Tau Alpha and was appointed president at the beginning of her sophomore year. At this point, she knew she was gay, but no one else did. She told a small group of friends at the end of her sophomore year and most of the chapter knew by the first semester of her junior year.
“I wanted to get more involved because I saw there was such a huge
By SAMANTHA TOMASZEWSKI
Community Engagement Manager
See LGBT Page 2
See FRIENDS Page 3
BRIDGING THE GAP
Created using PiktoChart/Jacqueline Tenreiro
LGBT, Greek communities intersect on matters of acceptance