Brown and White Vol. 134 no. 5

              The Brown and White Vol. 134 No. 5
Friday, February 16, 2018 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Not just ‘rebel music’
Lehigh wins first at Hackathon
After 36 hours of mixing busi-ness
with technology, two groups of
Lehigh students both won first place
at the Wharton Undergraduate
Fintech Hacks 2018, at University
of Pennsylvania from Feb. 2-4.
Lehigh’s FinTech Group, a new
student-run organization, co-host-ed
the hackathon — which was
sponsored by TD Bank, Virtusa
and Tradeweb — along with the
Wharton Undergraduate Fintech
Group.
Out of 600 individuals who reg-istered,
150 students — 45 from
Lehigh — were chosen to compete.
Lehigh and Penn students compet-ed
against teams from Columbia,
Cornell , Harvard and New York
universities.
Dean Zimberg, ’20, the found-
Courtesy of Dean Zimberg
Two groups of Lehigh students won first place at the Wharton Undergraduate FinTech Hacks 2018 hackathon at the
University of Pennsylvania. Lehigh’s FinTech Group co-hosted the hackathon, which was held from Feb. 2 until Feb. 4.
See HACKATHON Page 3
By EM THAMPOE
Assistant News Editor
When Floyd Beachum taught high
school history, he used hip-hop as a
teaching method.
His students listened to old-school
hip-hop and used an analytical lens
to find messages embedded in the
music.
“When you legitimize hip-hop
and integrate it into the academic
setting, what it says is that it’s
not rebel music, it’s not necessar-ily
outlawed music, it’s not just
‘stuff’ I listen to at home with my
friends,” Beachum said. “(Hip-hop)
now serves a purpose and is present
in the classroom for broader critique
and analysis, to connect it to bigger,
scholarly ideas.”
Today, Beachum is the Bennett
associate professor of urban school
leadership at Lehigh. He teaches
educators about the importance of
using music in the classroom to con-nect
with students.
On Jan. 22, the State
Administration of Press, Publication,
Radio, Film and Television of the
People’s Republic of China, also
known as SAPPRFT, decided hip-hop
culture and media personalities
with tattoos could no longer appear
on television.
With this ban came new media
guidelines from the SAPPRFT’s
publicity department. According to
its website, actors “whose morality
is not noble,” who are “tasteless,
vulgar and obscene” and “whose
ideological level is low” cannot be
used in media appearances.
Beachum said the SAPPRFT’s
actions are similar to the reactions
of the general public when hip-hop
first emerged as a genre. See HIP-HOP Page 3
By MARIA ROONEY
B&W Staff
“People were questioning the
morality, the hairstyles, speech,
tattoos and all these sorts of con-troversial
things,” Beachum said.
“The ban in China, to me, sounded
like a crackdown on morality-relat-ed
things.”
Kashi Johnson, an associate pro-fessor
of theatre, said the ban is on
black culture and its interpretation
rather than hip-hop itself.
Johnson, who is frequently called
‘Queen Kash’ by her students, said
she feels strongly about hip-hop’s
AAD
department
prepares for
move
Lehigh professors react to China’s hip-hop ban
By JORDAN WOLMAN
Assistant News Editor
Lehigh’s art, architecture and
design department will move to
Mountaintop campus in July,
before classes begin this fall.
Anna Chupa, a professor and
chair of the art, architecture and
design department, said there are
about 67 majors and 60 minors
in the department, with 12 to 20
students graduating each spring.
Chupa said for the last two
years, the department had
planned to move to Mountaintop
while Chandler-Ullman, the
department’s current home, was
renovated. She said it was pro-vost
Patrick Farrell’s decision to
make the move permanent.
“We are going to have more
space, so that’s a plus,” she said.
“The landscape that’s wide open
to us up there, the opportunities
for architecture and design stu-dents
for design-build activities
— to step right outside and be
able to work is something we are
excited about.”
Chupa said the department will
have access to new “smart” class-rooms
and two Mac computer labs
once it moves to Mountaintop.
Sophia Eschenbach-Smith, ’20,
said she is concerned with trans-portation
when her classes are no
longer on Packer campus.
“I don’t really think they con-sulted
a ton of students and there’s
definitely a lot that needs to be
talked about,” she said. “All my
classes would be at Mountaintop,
See AAD Page 2