Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 14

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 14
Friday, October 27, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Students discuss Lehigh transportation
Professors debate Trump, political policies
By JORDAN WOLMAN
B&W Staff
The Lehigh Debate Society hosted
a debate between economics profes-sor
Frank Gunter and political sci-ence
professor Anthony DiMiaggio on
Oct. 24 in Sinclair Auditorium.
Students packed the auditorium
to listen to the professors spar over
President Donald Trump’s adminis-tration
and critical issues that face
America.
The debate focused on analysis of
political policies and evaluations of
Trump’s first year in office.
In a rebuke to the notion that
Trump is a threat to democracy,
Gunter reminded the audience that
the candidate who had few political
consultants, no family ties to politics
and spent the least amount of money
on his campaign won the election.
“This election was a victory for
democracy,” Gunter said.
Reecha Patel, ’20, the co-president
of the Lehigh Debate Society, said
there is value in having these types of
conversations about our society and
our country.
“All of the board members agreed
that we need to do more events on
campus,” Patel said. “Our goal as a
society is to have discussions about
these important topics and current
events, so the debate today reflects
that well.”
Detail-oriented debate carried on
for much of the event. The debate
society proposed questions from a
variety of fields, including healthcare,
the travel ban and the possibility of
Russian influence on the 2016 elec-tion.
“Does the United States want to be
known as a country that welcomes
immigrants from different countries
as it historically has been known?
Or do we want to be known as a
country that engages in xenophobia
and blanket stereotypes?” DiMaggio
asked during the immigration por-tion
of the debate.
Gunter stressed the “convoluted”
nature of America’s tax code that
hampers small businesses, while
DiMaggio lamented how unfair
and unusually costly the American
healthcare system is compared to the
rest of the developed world.
While both agreed income inequali-ty
is of concern, Gunter said through-out
America’s original revolution for
“life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-ness,”
economic equality was never a
guarantee.
DiMaggio countered that Trump’s
tax plan will only accentuate “the
record inequality in the United
States,” citing that “by 2020, 80 per-cent
of these tax cuts will be going to
the top 1 percent of Americans.”
Ellen Schaaf, ’18, an economics
major, said it is important to have
the opportunity to hear two contrast-ing
sides speak their minds in a civil
manner about the future of the U.S.
“I wanted to see what ideas the
debaters had for moving forward,”
Schaaf said. “For a while, we had a
campus that was very polarized, and
it was hard to find the middle ground.
This was a great way to get both ends
of the spectrum.”
Some students said they attended
the debate for the opportunity to hear
two unfiltered opposing sides.
“Personally, I gained a lot because
I have been avoiding politics during
the last year, so there was a lot I
didn’t know,” Parker Ross, ’20, said.
“I liked seeing two different view-points
because the debaters were
pretty opposed.”
The debate was a 5×10 event. First-years
are required to attend at least
five of these designated events during
their first 10 weeks at Lehigh.
“I wanted to see what both sides
brought to the argument because this
is the most divisive president we’ve
ever had,” Carter Duddy, ’21, said.
Ian Smith/B&W Staff
Frank Gunter, a professor of economics, left, and Anthony DiMaggio, a professor of political
science, engage in a public debate on President Donald Trump’s first year in office Oct. 24
at Sinclair Auditorium. The debate was held by Lehigh’s Debate Society.
By JESSICA HICKS
Deputy News Editor
Of the students who took the
2017 Student Life Survey, 65.4
percent believe the cost of parking
is one of the biggest problems at
Lehigh and 24.3 percent believe
campus transportation is the big-gest
issue for the 2017-18 academ-ic
year.
The Brown and White inter-viewed
five students about their
experiences with on-campus
parking and busing. Some were
bothered by inconveniences and
lack of transparency, while oth-ers
expressed concern with overall
safety.
“My biggest problem with
parking is the lack of informa-tion
that students are given about
the appeals process and how that
works,” Dixie Miller, ’19, said.
Miller was on the crew team
during her first two years at
Lehigh and was given a parking
ticket during winter training.
“I had gone up to the grocery
store to get something, and when
I came back, it had started snow-ing,”
Miller said. “They hadn’t
plowed anything yet. I couldn’t get
my car up the hill to the lot I was
assigned to, so I moved my car to a
lower lot on campus.”
According to Lehigh’s complete
parking regulations, snow emer-gency
regulations are put into
effect when the snow accumulation
in the Allentown-Bethlehem area
officially reaches one inch.
Unless otherwise noted, park-ing
is prohibited on lower campus
during a snow emergency between
midnight and 7:30 a.m.
Miller said she also received a
parking ticket earlier this year
when her car wouldn’t start and
she was waiting for someone to
jump it. Instead of going through See TRANSPORT Page 4
the appeals process, Miller said she
went directly to Transportation
Services and her ticket was waived.
“It was interesting that
(Transportation Services) had
David Kroll/B&W Staff
The Packer Express bus arrives to pick students up Sept. 28 at the Packer Avenue bus stop. According to Student Senate’s Student Life
Survey, 24.3 percent of student responses indicated that campus transportation is one of the main issues at Lehigh.