Brown and White Vol. 129 no. 24

              The Brown and White Vol. 129 No. 24
Friday, December 4, 2015 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Simon said. “Why is this proposal
on the table, and how does it lead to
actually solving some of the issues
that CORE was asked to address?”
While the 148-page report focused
on strengthening the bonds between
members of the Lehigh community as
a whole, it also addressed the divide
between Greek and non-Greek mem-bers
of the campus community.
According to the CORE report,
between 38 percent and 45 percent
of male students are involved in a
Greek organization at Lehigh, and
nearly half of female students are
involved in a Greek organization.
Such a high percentage of a sub-pop-ulation
has the ability to “significant-ly
influence a community,” according
to the report.
In an online survey available to
colleges and universities that receive
federal funding are required to alert
students about certain crimes that
occur on campus and “on public
property within and immediately
adjacent to campus,” pertaining
to murder, negligent manslaugh-ter,
sex offenses (forcible and non),
robbery, aggravated assault, bur-glary,
motor vehicle theft and arson.
Lehigh complies with these laws by
sending email alerts and making
the crime statistics available online.
In comparing the amount of email
alerts students receive about crimes
affecting students living off-cam-pus
with the extremely low rates
of crime listed in the non-campus
section of the online crime reports,
Lehigh tends to compile statistics
for the blocks immediately touching
campus, but not the wider South
Side area. By not including all stu-dents
living off-campus in their
crime reports, Lehigh is portraying
only a small portion of the crimes in
an area where a large percentage of
students live.
The Commission on Residential
Environment report, which was pre-sented
to the Lehigh community
in July, addressed social issues on
Lehigh’s campus and proposed solu-tions
to those issues. The goal of the
report was to address and find solu-tions
to issues on campus and start
conversations about creating a more
inclusive environment. To fix the
perceived problems, both large- and
small-scale recommendations were
proposed in the report.
“The conversations I’m interested
in having with students are more
along the lines of, in a simplistic way,
‘Why do you think that suggestion
was made?’” Lehigh President John
Thirty-three percent of Lehigh’s
undergraduate population lives
off-campus as of Fall 2015, accord-ing
to Lehigh Residential Services.
The university, however, does not
have the crime statistics for the
majority of its students living in the
off-campus region readily available.
Housing is only guaranteed to
first- and second-year students, and
the Bethlehem police force, rather
than the Lehigh police, has juris-diction
over all crimes occurring on
the South Side, including those per-taining
to Lehigh students who live
in the South Bethlehem community.
While the Lehigh police receive
the data and reports regarding
crimes affecting the roughly 1,661
students who reside off campus
from the City of Bethlehem, they do
not maintain an aggregated list of
these crimes or have them accessi-ble
to the general public.
In compliance with federal law, all
all undergraduate students, 101 of
106 respondents — or 95 percent of
students who took the survey — said
there was a divide between Greek
and non-Greek students at Lehigh.
Seventy students who took the sur-vey
were in a Greek house or planned
to join one, and 36 students were not
affiliated with a Greek organization
and had no plans to join one.
Students are often divided along
Greek or non-Greek lines, according
to Interfraternity Council President
Matthew Bay, ’18.
“There are some positives and there
are some negatives to it, but there’s
definitely a difference in the two
groups of students because (Greek
students) are organized under an
umbrella, and the rest of the campus
usually isn’t,” Bay said.
The Panhellenic Council,
Interfraternity Council and
Multicultural Greek Council repre-sent
students who are involved in
Greek life. These three organizations
work together to represent the inter-ests
of the Greek community as a
whole, Bay said. There is no group,
however, to represent the voices of
those who are not affiliated with
Greek life, and the lack of this sort
of organization can create a silent
majority.
Simon and Vice President for
Academic Affairs Pat V. Farrell have
spoken with the leaders of Greek
groups about the CORE report and
the social divisions that exist on
campus. Because there is no central
Safety in South Bethlehem
Despite the semi-frequent emails
students receive from Lehigh Police
Chief Edward Shupp alerting them
about crimes affecting students
off campus, Lehigh’s crime statis-tics
for a “Non Campus Building
or Property,” state that there was
only one robbery reported in 2014
and none reported in 2013 or 2012.
There were no reported burglaries
from 2012 to 2014.
According to reports from the city
of Bethlehem taken over the course
of 2010 to 2015, there were 114
reported cases of theft, 70 reported
cases of burglaries and 18 reported
cases of robberies on East Fifth
Street alone – an area highly pop-ulated
with students. While these
reports contain the data for all res-idents
living on East Fifth, and not
just Lehigh students, and cover a
slightly longer time period, it gives
a more comprehensive depiction of
potential risks students may face
when living off-campus.
Crimes committed in off-cam-pus
houses are reported to the
Bethlehem police even if the house
is occupied by a student because the
Bethlehem police have jurisdiction
over the South Side, according to
Shupp.
Shupp said he receives reports
of incidents pertaining to Lehigh
students from the Bethlehem police,
but he doesn’t have the exact num-bers
of how many students are
affected by robberies, burglaries
and theft.
“That’s not something that’s an
easy thing for me to do,” Shupp said.
“I don’t have the numbers without
pulling reports.”
Wade Heubert, an adjunct pro-fessor
of political science at Lehigh
and a police officer for the city of
Bethlehem, said that parts of South
Bethlehem are safe, but students
need to realize they are cohabiting
in a neighborhood that is, for the
most part, economically depressed.
He said while there are some very
Interpretation varies for Clery Act reporting
By EMMA FRIED
Associate News Editor
By EMILY OKREPKIE
Associate News Editor
CORE report addresses social divide
See CORE Page 2
See SAFETY Page 4
Illustrated by Kelly McCoy