Brown and White Vol. 134 no. 3

              The Brown and White Vol. 134 No. 3
Friday, February 9, 2018 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Faculty push
to rescind
Trump’s
degree
By JESSICA HICKS
News Editor
In a Feb. 5 meeting, faculty from
Lehigh’s College of Arts and Sciences
announced they would present and
discuss a motion to rescind President
Donald Trump’s honorary degree at
a university faculty meeting on Feb.
12.
According to the FAQ website, the
motion is “a call by the faculty to the
Lehigh board of trustees to rescind
President Trump’s honorary degree
based on a long history of numer-ous
documented statements that are
antithetical to (Lehigh’s) core val-ues
and beneath the standard for
Lehigh’s honorary degree holders.”
University faculty members will
vote on whether they would like to
present the motion to the board of
trustees on Feb 12. The vote will be
administered electronically “to max-imize
the opportunity for faculty to
exercise their voice.”
Michael Raposa, a professor of
religion studies and the faculty
member who presented the motion
at the CAS faculty meeting, said
President John Simon and Donald
Outing, the vice president for equity
and community, were made aware of
the motion.
Ziad Munson, an associate profes-sor
of sociology, said unlike several
petitions circulated among Lehigh
community members, this motion
will be formally voted on by all
Lehigh faculty.
In October 2017, the board of
trustees decided to take “no action”
in response to a petition to rescind
Trump’s 1988 honorary degree. As
of Feb. 7, the petition has collected
31,001 signatures.
“We can’t control what the trust-ees
do, but we can control what we
do,” Raposa said in the meeting.
Raposa said he, along with other
faculty members, were stunned time
and time again by Trump’s rhetoric.
It was the president’s most recent
remarks about Haiti and African
nations that sparked further conver-sation
among CAS faculty.
The motion includes a “non-ex-haustive”
list of statements made by
President Trump, which CAS faculty
believe “provide strong evidence of
an ongoing disregard for the values
that are the foundation of this uni-versity.”
While the motion calls upon the
board of trustees to revoke Trump’s
honorary degree, some faculty mem-bers
are more concerned with the
implications of the motion rather
Kate Morrell/B&W Staff
All Lehigh University classes were cancelled on Wednesday, due to the winter storm. In an email to the campus community,
Facilities Services warned students about icy conditions.
Chief Schiffer connects with students
By CATE PETERSON
Managing Editor
After Lehigh Police Chief Edward
Shupp announced his retirement
in September, a search committee
formed to replace him. In December,
former Bethlehem Police Chief
Jason Schiffer was announced as
Shupp’s successor.
Schiffer officially took over as
LUPD chief on Jan. 3. He previ-ously
worked as a lawyer at Cohen,
Feeley, Altemose & Rambo in
Bethlehem.
Ricardo Hall, the vice provost for
student affairs, said the committee
was looking for someone who had
experience on a college campus or
in communities surrounding college
campuses. He said they were look-ing
for someone who would under-stand
that issues on a college cam-pus
aren’t necessarily the same as
in other communities.
“We were looking for someone,
they didn’t have to necessarily need
to work in this environment, but at
least needed to be able to demon-strate
to the community and to the
other folks that interviewed the
candidates, that they understood
this environment and would be able
to flourish here,” Hall said.
Although Schiffer has a rich his-tory
in law enforcement, he didn’t
begin there. His first job was in the
engineering and computer network-ing
department at B.Braun Medical,
a disposable medical device manu-facturing
company.
Then, in August 1990, Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait and it
appeared the U.S. was heading to
war. Schiffer was moved to join the
military.
“My best friend and I enlisted in
the Marine Corps,” Schiffer said.
“That experience really changed
my life. Both of us ended up get-ting
injured and discharged after
serving less than a year. I came
back out, and I started working at
Kendall Coughlin/B&W Staff
New Lehigh University Police Chief Jason D. Schiffer leads an icebreaker with the
audience for ‘Convos with a Cop’ on Jan. 31 at Lamberton Hall. Schiffer assumed
his new position on Jan. 3.
B.Braun again and I felt, I don’t
know if it was a calling or a sense
that I wanted to do something more
impactful than just working in the
business I was working in.”
After some searching, Schiffer
saw law enforcement as something
that could give him a sense of ful-fillment.
Schiffer started working for the
Bethlehem Police Department in
See SCHIFFER Page 3 See TRUMP Page 3
‘SNO SCHOOL