Brown and White Vol. 131 no. 5

              The Brown and White Vol. 131 No. 5
Friday, September 23, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Sharing the Lehigh Valley with refugees
Changes in Lehigh leadership, explained Grants give
opportunities
to students
and faculty
Katie Morris/B&W Staff
Stickers welcoming refugees were posted on poles during the summer of 2016 in Tübingen, Germany. A group of Lehigh students visited the
country and learned about its refugees as part of a Mountaintop project.
By CATHERINE MANTHORP
Assistant News Editor
In the wake of recent concerns
about the resettlement of refugees
throughout the world, Lehigh has
been increasing its involvement with
the issue by attempting to better
understand and aid refugees who
have resettled in the university’s own
backyard — the Lehigh Valley.
Sarah Stanlick, the director of the
Center for Community Engagement,
said Lehigh has been involved with
aiding refugees in the area for the
past six years. She said the first
wave began over 20 years ago with
the arrival of Syrian refugees and
immigrants.
Stanlick said a common miscon-ception
is that the majority of ref-ugees
in the area are from Syria,
when in fact they are from a variety
of different places including Eritrea,
Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan and Burma.
According to Stanlick’s research, the
U.S. will admit 85,000 refugees from
around the world in the 2016 fiscal
year.
“In our commitment to be good
global citizens, there was local
action that we could also be taking,”
Stanlick said. “One of the big shifts of
the university is that we’re trying to
do more things with our community
partners, rather than for our commu-nity
partners.”
Mountaintop project aims to
learn about resettling migrants
This past summer, Lehigh under-graduate
and graduate students
worked with refugee communities in
the Lehigh Valley and in Tübingen,
Germany, through a Mountaintop
Project called “Transitions for
Refugees through Empowerment and
Education.”
The project took place over 10
weeks and was broken up by a two-week
trip to Tübingen in mid-June
where Lehigh students conducted a
field study and had the chance to
see how Germany was working with
refugees.
Rebecca Ely, ’17, was involved with
the project and said students had the
chance to watch part of University of
The Lehigh community learns about concerns
related to the resettlement of refugees globally
By KLAUDIA JAZWINSKA &
BECCA WILKIN
News Editor & Deputy News Editor
Since the installment of Lehigh’s
14th president John D. Simon on
July 1, 2015, the university has
seen a turnover in many adminis-trative
offices, as well as the cre-ation
of several new positions.
Below are summaries of many of
the major changes that have taken
place within Lehigh’s administra-tive
offices over the past two years.
Dean of Students Office/Student
Affairs
Allison Gulati, who had served as
the associate dean of students and
director of strategic initiatives, left
in August after 13 years at Lehigh.
In July, Katherine Lavinder tran-sitioned
from the role of associate
dean of academic life and student
transitions to the position of interim
dean of students.
Sharon Basso, the former associ-ate
vice provost of Student Affairs
and dean of students, left Lehigh in
May after 27 years.
Formerly the director of
Counseling and Psychological
Services, Ian Birky assumed the
role of interim vice provost for
Student Affairs in May following
the retirement of John Smeaton
after his 32 years at Lehigh.
In July 2015, Kate Colyer
assumed the inaugural position of
assistant director of the Community
Service Office and Katie Robinson
was appointed the new director of
the Center for Academic Success.
Barbara Ryan Hausman assumed
the role of director of Learning
Disability Support Services in June
2015.
Formerly a staff psychologist
in the Office of Counseling and
Psychological Services, Laurie Gray
Evans was named the full-time
director of student support and case
management services at the start of
the 2015-16 academic year.
Admissions & Financial Aid
In August, J. Leon Washington
left Lehigh after serving nine years
as vice provost of admissions and
financial aid.
Bruce Bunnick, the former direc-tor
of admissions, assumed the role
of interim vice provost of admis-sions
and financial aid.
Office of Residence Life
In July 2015, Amanda (Gilmore)
Slichter, Sarah Thompson and Lou
Gardiner were hired as assistant
directors of Residence Life.
Ashley Lemmons assumed the
role of assistant dean and director
of Residence Life in August 2015.
Courtney Stephens was named
the associate director of Residence
Life at the start of the 2015-16
See REFUGEES Page 4
By KENDALL COUGHLIN
B&W Staff
Students have four opportunities
to apply for grants in the month
of October. The Strohl undergrad-uate
research and senior thesis
grants, the Gipson grant, the College
of Arts and Sciences undergradu-ate
research grants and the Mellon
Digital Humanities Initiative for
engaging undergraduates with the
local community grant applications
are due before the end of October.
The Strohl undergraduate
research and senior thesis grant
See DEPT. Page 3 See GRANTS Page 2