Brown and White Vol. 128 no. 22

              The Brown and White
Vol. 128 No. 22
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
‘All the Lehigh News First’
The university is in the midst of carrying out a plan to replace students’ ID cards, which are used to swipe into residential buildings, dining halls and academic buildings, with new cards. These cards will no longer need to be swiped to gain access into academic and residential buildings.
Instead, the new cards will be based on a magnetic system that allows them to be tapped against a locked door for activation, as opposed to being swiped. As a result, new lock systems will be installed in buildings on campus.
The idea behind the new cards is that they will be less prone to breaking.
The magnetic strips on the current ID cards often fade or weaken over time because of the frequent need to swipe the cards. The hope is that the new cards will not be as likely to develop this problem.
Will Hay, an employee in the ID Card and GoldPlus Office, is in charge of printing these new cards.
“We’re printing cards for the Lehigh community,” Hay said. “It’s what we do.”
Eating disorders, masquerading through college campuses under the guise of a quick diet or fitness kick, often remain unrecognized or overlooked until the consequences are no longer ignorable.
Lehigh senior Taylor Wise said she didn’t believe she had a prob­lem because she felt as though she was in command of her actions.
“I always thought I had the control, but then I realized it had control of me,” she said.
Another Lehigh senior student athlete, who asked to remain anonymous, said he did not even see the issue himself at first.
“I actually didn’t realize it was a problem until my mom brought it up,” he said.
These alarming sentiments reflect an increasingly common mentality among both male and
cent of college women attempt to control their weight by dieting. Dieting, although commonly per­ceived as a stride toward a health­ier lifestyle, can have adverse effects.
“That part has become real­ly normal in American culture,” said Rita Jones, the director of the Women’s Center at Lehigh. “Everything is focused on weight issues or weight loss because of obesity.”
The most common clinical types of eating disorders are bulimia, anorexia and binge eating dis­order. Less common disorders include body dysmorphic disorder, orthorexia, bigorexia, night eating disorder and feeding disorders not elsewhere specified.
Psychology professor Tim Lomauro said despite these cate­gories, eating disorders often oper­ate on more of a continuum than a distinctive diagnosis.
Disordered eating, often char­acterized by an obsession with food, diet or body image, is also extremely prevalent on college campuses. However, since clinical criteria are not met these victims are often not fully addressed.
“If I just go in with a standard approach, I’m going to miss almost everyone I’m targeting,” Jones said. “It can’t be a one size fits all
female Lehigh students facing pressure everyday to perform flawlessly in school, social and, for some, varsity athletics settings.
According to the Lehigh Office of Health Advancement & Prevention Strategies, data from the Spring 2014 National College Health Assessment revealed that 8.4 per­cent of Lehigh undergraduates report having an eating disorder or problem, compared to 6.1 per­cent of undergraduates nationally.
When broken down further, 1.7 percent of Lehigh undergraduates reported that an eating disorder negatively impacted their aca­demic performance compared to the 1.3 percent of undergraduates nationally. Additionally, 1.4 per­cent of Lehigh students said that they were diagnosed or treated for anorexia and another 1.4 percent for bulimia. Both of these num­bers were higher than the national average, which sits at 1.2 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
According to the 2013 National Eating Disorders Association report, Eating Disorders on the College Campus, the most com­mon time for an eating disorder to onset is between the ages of 18 and 21.
The correlation is more than coincidence.
According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, 91 per­Eating
disorders still national problem in colleges
By MADELEINE SMITH
Special to the B&W
See DISORDERS Page 4
The ID Card Office is one of the first buildings to have implemented the new magnetic card system. Since the office is in charge of printing the new cards, it has been one of the first to sample the new system.
“We’re going to start with this year’s first-year class,” Hay said.
The incoming first-year class will receive the new ID cards first upon entering the university. From there, upperclassmen will have theirs switched out as necessary.
The new system is composed of a magnetic reader on the outside of a building which registers the presence of the corresponding mag­netic strip in a student or faculty member’s ID card. The door then unlocks, and remains unlocked for a few seconds.
The new cards will look very sim­ilar to the current ones — the only major difference is that they have a magnetic chip underneath the sur­face of the plastic. On the back, the new cards have the same traditional magnetic strip used to access the dining halls or check out a library book.
Faculty and staff are also among the first groups receiving the new ID cards, along with students with after-hour access to academic build­ings. Academic buildings will be equipped with the new system before residence halls.
Hay and the ID Card Office have sent out emails to students with after-hours access to let them know they can pick up their new cards.
Jeff Seymour, the manager of Access Control, is overseeing the implementation of the new system and is managing all of the details that go into planning this project.
The card, referred to as the “smart card” by Seymour, is expected to bol­ster campus security and allow stu­dents and faculty with after-hours
Nan He/B&W Staff
Huiwen Mao, ’16, swipes outside Packer Lab on Monday. The university is slowly implementing the use of new IDs that will work by tapping rather than swiping.
By TORI VISBISKY
B&W Staff
New ID card plan expected to improve security
See ID CARDS Page 4
Anna Simoneau/Made with Canva