Brown and White Vol. 130 no. 23

              The Brown and White Vol. 130 No. 23
Friday, May 6, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
LU office to move to new South Side building
By DANIELLE BETTERMANN
Associate News Editor
Lehigh’s Advancement Services,
along with offices at St. Luke’s
Health Network, will move 120
employees into a six-story, $20 mil-lion
building developed by Dennis
Benner on Third and South New
streets.
This move is connected to a
contested parking garage propos-al,
which locals have spoken out
against. Despite some insistence
from residents against it, the
Bethlehem City Council voted 5-2
Tuesday to support the $17.5 mil-lion
of bonds that will be taken by
Bethlehem Parking Authority to
fund the garage, located on New
Street and Graham Place.
Councilman Adam Waldron and
councilwoman Olga Negron-Dipini
voted against the garage.
Mayor Bob Donchez said Lehigh
and St. Luke’s were approached
with the plan of the shared build-ing
in early 2015. The only thing
holding them back was the
insufficient parking
in the area, result-ing
in the parking
garage.
At city council
meetings, the park-ing
garage topic
has packed
t h e
hall with citizens who speak out
against the project, as well as repre-sentatives
involved in the develop-ment
who work to explain reason-ing
behind it.
Adrienne Washington, the assis-tant
vice president of community
and regional affairs for Lehigh,
spoke at multiple council
meetings as a representa-tive
of the group moving
into the new building.
“Essentially, what I
keep hearing is that
there is not enough
people circu-l
a t i n g
around the South Side,” Washington
said. “It’s great to have these really
big events . . . but then, what is
that everyday traffic that we need
to have to support the businesses?”
Washington and Jane George,
the assistant vice president of gov-ernment
relations at St. Luke’s
University Hospital, said they are
committed to the revitalization of
the South Side.
Washington said with the aver-aged
40 visitors that Advancement
Services entertains daily with
lunches or coffee, South Bethlehem
would see an increase in business.
Members of Advancement Services
are located on Goodman Campus,
so a large group will move to an
area within walking distance of
these businesses.
But not everyone within
the Lehigh community shares
Washington’s positive outlook. At
Tuesday’s meeting, three Lehigh
faculty members and one student
shared their opinions on the garage.
Chester Toye, ’16, said Lehigh
is made up of the students them-
The Lower Centennials resi-dence
halls were evacuated Monday
after the Lehigh University Police
Department received an anonymous
threat of a “device” in one of the
buildings in complex.
Stuart Bedics, the assistant chief
of the Lehigh University Police
Department, said the threat was
received via email. An LU-ALERT
was issued to the campus communi-ty
at 11:49 a.m. about the “device,”
and another alert was sent to notify
the community that Palmer House,
which is one of the six residence halls
in Lower Centennials, was being
searched for suspicious materials.
Bedics said the threat did not specify
a room or floor in Palmer Hall.
The Lehigh police force worked with
the Bethlehem Police Department’s
K-9 unit to search the building. Bedics
said there was about a 45-minute
wait before the dog arrived, and the
search took about 15 minutes.
“For public safety, we can’t ignore
a threat like that and put students
lives at risk, so we had to evacu-ate
the building and do a thorough
search . . . and the search was for
suspicious packages,” Bedics said.
Individuals were allowed to re-en-ter
the area around 1 p.m.
By EM OKREPKIE
News Editor
Lehigh police
respond to
‘device’ threat
Prescription pill use matches national levels
See PARKING Page 3
Courtesy of Dennis Benner
The northeast corner of the future South Side building is shown
above. The building will be home to Lehigh Advancement Services.
Photo illustration by Anna Simoneau/B&W Staff
The abuse of prescription drugs used to treat attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder becomes a prevalent issue during exam
periods on college campuses. Some students believe these drugs will
enhance their performance on exams.
By ALI KAMINETSKY
B&W Staff
As students begin to study for
final exams, the misuse of prescrip-tion
drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall
and Vyvanse — stimulants that are
frequently prescribed to treat those
diagnosed with attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder — becomes
more prevalent.
According to the National College
Health Assessment, a self-reported
survey sent to a random sample of
students every spring, 11.6 percent
of undergraduate students at Lehigh
reported using prescription stimu-lants
not prescribed to them.
“This is definitely an issue because,
if you think about that — 11 percent
— that means that one in ten stu-dents
at least are engaging in this
behavior,” said George DuPaul, a
Lehigh professor of school psycholo-gy
with a research interest on ADHD
and stimulant medication. “These
are not benign drugs, they have
side effects that could be harmful,
and it is also illegal. It is problem-atic
that students are choosing to
use these drugs as a way to deal
with the stress of finals rather than
more adaptive strategies that don’t
involve the use of drugs.”
Lehigh students who abuse pre-scriptions
stimulants are more likely
to be male, upper-class students,
white or Hispanic, and be B or C
grade-level students, according the
data from the National College
Health Assessment. In addition,
those who use these medications
without a prescription are more like-ly
to be in the College of Business
and Economics and be in a fraternity
or sorority on campus.
Lehigh’s data is closely matched
to what the national landscape is for
abuse of prescription stimulants.
Pete Costa, the director of Health
Advancement and Prevention
Strategies, said while prescription
drug use may be a problem on this
campus, it is not something just iso-lated
to Lehigh.
“(Abusing stimulant drugs) is part
of the college culture, specifically
with institutions of higher rigor that
are more academically challenging,
located mostly in the Northeast,”
Costa said. “It is common among
institutions that fit that mold. Not
just Lehigh.”
Cheryl Ashcroft, the assistant
dean of Academic Support Services,
said the use of stimulant medication
is a cultural issue on these college
campuses.
See PILLS Page 4
The benefits of the building’s construction have
been debated at several town hall meetings