LehighNow Volume 01, Issue 14

              LEHIGHNOW
May 23, 2001
Volume 1, Issue 14
Women's crew
wins Dad Vail
Championship
IN BRIEF
AROUNDTHEGLOBE
Bridging Africa's
digital divide
A year ago. students in
the remote village of
Meru, Kenya, had never
seen a computer or
touched a keyboard.
Today, thanks to the
efforts of Lehigh and the
Canaan Foundation of
East Hampton, Conn.,
the students are constructing databases and
programming computer
languages.
For the second year in a
row, Lehigh students are
traveling to Meru to
deliver and install
computers in public
schools. Eight students
departed May 19 with
125 computers and
several dozen printers.
"In our classes, we learn
a lot about economic
planning and reform,"
says Joshua Hermias '03,
who made the trip last
year." But we never get
the opportunity to go to a
country and help build it.
This trip really gives you
the sense that you're
influencing the future."
In one year, says Bill
Hunter, director of
international education,
the computers have made
a huge impact. Student
enrollment is up in the
schools with computers.
Meru, a town that 12
months ago had never
heard of e-mail, could
become "one of the most
wired towns in all of
Africa," Hunter says.
Courtesy of Lehigh Crew Team
Members of Lehigh's women's crew team celebrate their victory at
the Dad Vail National Championship Regatta in Philadelphia.
Capping an undefeated
season, Lehigh's women
crew team recently won
this year's Dad Vail
National Championship
Regatta in Philadelphia.
Lehigh's women's novice
eight captured the
championship by a huge
margin of 8 seconds. The
varsity women placed
second in the women's pair
and the women's lightweight four, losing the
latter by just .3 second.
"This is our best showing
ever," said Paul Savell, head
coach." No other club in the
country is racing at this level."
" There was never a doubt
in our minds once the start
went off that we were going
to win the race," said Brady
Garrity '04. "We had never
before felt so smooth and so
strong on the water."
The Dad Vail is the
largest collegiate regatta in
the United States, drawing
hundreds of colleges and
thousands of students to
Philadelphia each May.
Carmen Mirochna,
women's novice team coach,
praised the dedication of her
rowers - none of whom had
rowed before this season.
The team began practice at
5 a.m., six days a week, in
the spring.
The eight rowers and one
coxswain have become the
school's most successful
novice crew team ever. They
won Lehigh's first Patriot
League championship
handily, then captured the
overall title for the first time
since the rowing championships started in 1988.
Crew is a club sport at Lehigh,
which makes it difficult for the
squad to compete in upper-tier
competition. Because major
crew schools attend mostly
NCAA tournaments, club teams
are left standing on the dock.
"We're not eligible to go to
the NC AAs, so winning the
Dad Vail finally gets us some
respect," said Garrity.
-Carolyn Crew
ME senior
wins top
national prize
Mohamed El-Naggar, a
senior majoring in mechanical engineering, has won one
of the highest distinctions
granted to engineering
students - a graduate
fellowship from Tau Beta Pi,
the national engineering
honor society.
El-Naggar, treasurer of
Lehigh's student chapter of
Tau Beta Pi, was one of 35
engineering seniors in the
U.S. to win an award for
2001-02. The fellowships are
given for scholarship,
leadership, service, and
promise of future contributions to engineering.
" Mohamed is not only very
bright and capable, but just
a wonderfully well-rounded
and pleasant individual,"
said Chuck Smith, chair of
mechanical engineering and
mechanics (MEM). "His
outstanding academic
capabilities and social poise
will serve him well in whatever
he chooses to pursue."
Award winners receive
stipends for graduate study.
El-Naggar will forgo the
stipend as he has received a
fellowship to pursue a Ph.D.
at the California Institute of
Technology. He will study
microscale engineering, which
integrates miniature sensors,
actuators and other mechanical and electronic components onto a silicon chip.
"This is a new field with
endless applications," says El-
Naggar, "everything from
micro-rockets to micro-satellites
to medical technology."
El-Naggar last year shared
the MEM department's Wei
Prize for academic achievement and leadership. His
3.98 GPA earned him the
Lehigh Alumni Association
Prize for ranking at the top
of his class in the P.C. Rossin
College of Engineering and
Applied Science.
In Lehigh's Integrated
Product, Process and Project
(IP3) Program, El-Naggar
worked on a team that won
the MEM department's
annual undergraduate
design award. He also took
part in the cooperative
education program.
Tau Beta Pi, which was
founded in 1885 at Lehigh,
has initiated more than
440,000 members and is the
world's largest engineering
society.