Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 6

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 6
Tuesday, September 26, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Surveys spark conversation about LGBTQ inclusivity
Students speak out
By KAYLA SIPPIN
Assistant News Editor
Each year, at the beginning of
the fall semester, Student Senate
sends out a survey asking students
to identify the most pressing issues
at Lehigh.
When surveyed about the biggest
problems on campus this year, 65.4
percent of students said parking, 50.2
percent said dining options and 32.5
percent said campus unity. High-risk
behavior, diversity and inclusion,
and housing and transportation were
also identified as important issues.
Reagan Sullivan, ’20, a Senate
member who helped create the sur-vey,
said not much of its content
has changed from last year, but
questions were reworded to get to
the point more quickly and further
engage students.
The goal of the survey was to
See PRIDE Page 3
By FANNY CHEN
B&W Staff
This year, Lehigh University was
ranked No. 14 on Princeton Review’s
Top LGBTQ-Unfriendly Campuses.
Lehigh has consistently been on
this list for the past few years. Last
year, it was ranked No. 9. However,
Lehigh was also ranked No. 26 on
College Choice’s 50 Best Colleges
for LGBTQ Students and praised
for its high investment in LGBTQ
resources.
The placement of Lehigh on both
lists reveals a discrepancy between
campus climate and investment in
LGBTQ resources.
Chelsea Fullerton, the director of
the Pride Center, said although there
is an abundance of funding available
for LGBTQ resources, it does not
necessarily translate into a perfectly
inclusive campus culture. Based on
her conversations with students at
the Pride Center, the resources have
been very helpful for LGBTQ stu-dents,
but discrimination and harass-ment
still exist at Lehigh.
Emma Strong, ’18, works at the
Pride Center and is the president of
Spectrum. She said she’s grateful to
have the Pride Center because it’s
helped her figure out what she wants
to do after graduation.
“It’s helped me feel comfortable in
my own identity as bisexual,” Strong
said. “I personally haven’t experi-enced
blatant homophobia towards
myself. However, it is apparent
on campus that it’s not as LGBT-friendly
as other schools.”
While Fullerton agrees a dis-crepancy
exists, she also said the
Princeton Review’s method of rank-ing
is unreliable.
The Princeton Review only sends a
survey to a small sample of students
at each school, and the pride ranking
is based on one question from the
survey.
“It’s unfortunate because peo-ple
take those rankings very seri-ously
when deciding what campus
they want to go to,” Fullerton said.
“Unfortunately, I think they provide
a really limited, if not entirely use-less,
perspective on what life is actu-ally
like on campus.”
Scott Burden, the assistant direc-tor
of the Pride Center, said it is con-fusing
that Lehigh has been placed
on a list with schools that put no
investment toward fostering inclu-sive
environments for LGBTQ stu-dents.
“At the school before us on the list,
if you are caught in a relationship
with someone in the same gender as
you, you can be disciplined through
their conduct process,” Burden said.
“In fact, you can be kicked out for
being gay at many of the universities
that appear alongside us on that list.”
Both Burden and Fullerton said a
more accurate indicator of the Lehigh
student experience can be found
through the annual campus climate
survey.
For the past two years, the results
of the campus climate survey have
revealed that LGBTQ students have
more negative experiences at Lehigh
than heterosexual or cisgender stu-dents.
Burden said it is his understanding
that though hostility is not extremely
apparent on campus, there are still
instances where LGBTQ students
feel uncomfortable. There are situ-ations
where LGBTQ students may
not feel entirely safe when walk-ing
on campus with their partners
and where non-LGBTQ students
unknowingly use offensive language.
“I don’t think it’s that apparent
how hostile it is necessarily, but
(there is) an overall lack of awareness
of issues,” said Laura DeFelice, ’19, a
member of Spectrum and staff mem-ber
at the Pride Center. “People take
things lightly because it doesn’t affect
them personally. The lack of aware-ness
and education on certain things
find out what issues are bothering
students most and recognize which
areas Senate, the administration and
campus community need to improve
upon this school year.
In addition to multiple choice
options, students could write in
their own answers to elaborate on
the issues that are most important
to them, which was most telling to
Senate.
“We’re so focused on our lives at
Lehigh, we forget to stop and think
about the big picture,” Senate vice
president Lindsay Wilson, ’18, said.
“So this survey was a really good way
for us to think about not just what
our issues in our own lives are, but
what the general student body feels.”
Members of Senate reviewed the
See SURVEY Page 3
Senate announces survey results
Rallying for relief
Lehigh fundraises for Irma victims
By LINDSAY SHAGRIN
B&W Staff
Hurricane Irma hit Florida ear-lier
this month, leaving a path of
destruction and distress in its wake.
The hurricane, which was originally
predicted as a Category 5, caused
flooding and injuries in Jacksonville,
as well as the collapse of multiple
construction cranes onto buildings in
Miami.
In the days following the storm,
Lehigh students and alumni contrib-uted
to fundraisers and assisted in
relief efforts for those impacted by the
natural disaster.
Dallas Basha, ’17, recently found-ed
nTrust, which he described as a
“sharing network” where users can
rent their belongings to other people
for a period of time.
“nTrust is a community-based plat-form
powered by people and not the See IRMA Page 4
product, and without the community,
it would not exist,” Basha said. “So
we decided to postpone our oper-ations
for the time being and put
all of our focus on helping the Irma
victims.”
Basha said the company’s goal is
to raise $20,000, although he would
be happy if the company receives half
that. So far, the fundraiser has raised
about $1,000.
In order for nTrust to raise as
much money as possible, members
of the nTrust team tapped into their
networks. For Basha, this included
Lehigh’s Greek community.
Basha said this was an opportu-nity
for chapters “to show that (they
are) not just doing the philanthropy
scheduled event that (they) usually
do.” He said it is an opportunity for