Brown and White Vol. 130 no. 12

              The Brown and White Vol. 130 No. 12
Friday, March 25, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
After several explosions in Brussels
on Tuesday, Lori Friedman, Lehigh’s
director of media relations, said in an
email there are no students studying
abroad in Belgium this semester.
There were two explosions at the
Brussels Airport at 8 a.m. local time
(3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
and around an hour later one on
a metro station, according to The
New York Times. The city went into
lockdown, with all public transporta-tion
stopped. The U.S. Embassy also
advised U.S. citizens in Brussels to
shelter in place.
Friedman said the Lehigh Study
Abroad Office sent a notification
to all students studying abroad to
inform them of available Lehigh
resources. The office was informed
of one student who was in Brussels
who reported being safe, Friedman
wrote.
By B&W STAFF
Students
abroad safe
after Brussels
bombings
Courtesy of Creative Commons/Brussels Airport
The Brussels Airport was
bombed Tuesday at 8 a.m. local
time. There are no Lehigh study
abroad programs in Belgium
this semester.
Professor questions impact of certain volunteer trips
By SYDNEY O’TAPI
Assistant News Editor
Judith Lasker, a professor of
sociology and anthropology, entered
the classroom of her Introduction to
Global Citizenship class and asked
how many students had gone on a
volunteer trip abroad. A few hands
flew up from across the room.
She then asked how many stu-dents
would like to volunteer over-seas.
A few more students raised
their hands.
Lasker said there are countless
programs during which — for one
week and a few thousand dollars
— students can spend time vol-unteering
in a developing country
and subsequently “change (their)
life.” But some of these programs
don’t offer an orientation, provide
little information on the culture
of the region being served and are
ultimately less effective than they
could be. She said they sometimes
unintentionally harm the local com- See ABROAD Page 4
munity.
This January, Cornell University
Press released Lasker’s book,
“Hoping to Help.” The book explores
the “promises and pitfalls” of global
health volunteerism and the indus-try
of these medical missions, which
can be a help or a detriment to
the community they serve. Lasker
said there have been large invest-ments
made to send volunteers to
several areas of the world, and
she questions the benefits of those
donations.
Lasker critiqued some programs’
inabilities to understand the true
needs of the hosts and the lack
of sustainability of the programs
instituted by the volunteers. In her
opinion, both of these items rein-force
a superiority complex among
the volunteers, neglecting the cul-ture
and undermining the local peo-ple’s
credibility and knowledge.
On the contrary, she said some
programs can be helpful to com-munities
if they are designed and
executed effectively.
Jodeen Gemmel, a study abroad
adviser and program manager,
said Lehigh sponsors two programs
that offer students an opportunity
to serve abroad — SummerServe
Antigua and Engineers Without
Borders. Both of these are short-term
programs, which Lasker clas-sifies
as programs fewer than six
months long.
Lehigh recognizes some stu-dent-
run organizations such as
Global Medical Training, but stu-dents
travel completely on their
own in this program. Global Medical
Training is a short-term service
trip for undergraduate students
focusing primarily on health care
and medical training in developing
countries. The program is offered at
universities across the country.
In many of the testimonials on
the website, students said the trip
“changed their (lives)” and provided
an “unforgettable experience.”
Cynthia Pando, ’16, participated
in a Global Medical Training trip to
Nicaragua because she was inter-ested
in attending medical school.
But she said medical schools do not
believe these trips are a display of
intelligence or ability.
“Now, medical schools don’t like
seeing that,” Pando said, based on
Housing lottery changes
By CARINA BONASERA
B&W Staff
Lehigh is implementing changes
to the housing lottery system to
improve the fairness and smooth-ness
of the housing selection pro-cess
for all students.
Traditionally, on-campus hous-ing
at Lehigh consisted of either
co-ed or single-gender build-ings
for first-year students, and
Greek houses or apartment-style
buildings for upperclassmen. In
recent years, however, the model
for on-campus living, as well as
the process to select housing, has
evolved to better fit the needs of
individual students.
“The whole reason that change is
happening now is because there’s
new leadership in the Office of
Residence Life,” Head Gryphon
Logan Hodges, ’16, said. “It’s a
very exciting time.”
With two new leaders in the
Office of Residence Life — Ashley
Lemmons and Courtney Stephens
— there has been an influx of
fresh ideas about how to improve
on-campus residences for students.
Although the method for sorting
students into on-campus housing
will be similar to the way it was
in the past, some changes have
been made to the system. Just as
Marni Wolchok/B&W Staff
The Trembley Park Apartment Complex houses are located above the
UC. Lehigh is changing the way the housing lottery works.
in past years, housing selection
involves two distinct processes: a
slightly more randomized process
for first-year students and the lot-tery-
based system for sophomores,
juniors, seniors and fifth year stu-dents,
should they choose to con-tinue
to live on campus.
First-year students go through a
different process from that of the
other class years because they are
new to the school and required to
live on campus. The process for
these students takes into account
each student’s housing preference
and attempts to fulfill as many
requests as possible, while fac-toring
in things like roommate
requests and special living circum-stances.
The process for sophomores,
juniors, seniors and fifth years is
different. Even though sophomore
students are still required to live
on campus, they fall into the lot-tery
system because they have
more of a choice in selecting their
housing. They could live in a Greek
house as part of a Greek orga-nization,
or they could enter the
housing lottery and live in another
on-campus residence hall.
Students sign up for the hous-ing
lottery online and receive a
randomly assigned number. The
order that students are allowed to
select their preference for housing
is determined by the number they
receive.
Unlike past years, when stu-dents
had to choose their room-mates
before registering for the
lottery, students are now able to
sign up for housing as an individ-ual.
In this case, the student may
end up with a single. Alternatively,
Courtesy of the Lehigh University website
Judith Lasker poses with her
book, “Hoping to Help.” Lasker
is a professor of sociology and
anthropology at Lehigh.
A new system comes on
the heels of changes to
residential set-up and
redesign of Live Lehigh
community placements
See HOUSING Page 4