Brown and White Vol. 132 no. 10

              The Brown and White Vol. 132 No. 10
Tuesday, March 7, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
New withdraw policy proposed Median salary
for Lehigh grads
higher for men
than women
Erik Thomas/B&W Staff
Lehigh students can drop classes throughout the semester with the add/drop form. Currently, any class dropped after 11 weeks is entered on a
transcript as “WP” or “WF.”
Faculty push for removal of withdraw pass/fail period
By SAM BENCHEGHIB
B&W Staff
Members of the Lehigh faculty are
pushing for the Registrar’s Office to
adopt a stricter add-drop policy.
When students start classes at the
beginning of a semester, they are
given 10 days to drop a course with-out
a withdrawn mark — as noted
by a W added to their transcript.
After that, an additional nine-week
period allows students to drop with
a W on their transcript. The W does
not affect a student’s GPA.
Any class dropped after 11 weeks
is then graded on a pass-fail system.
WP is a withdrawal with a passing
performance and does not affect the
student’s GPA, while a WF is a with-drawal
with a failing performance
and counts as a zero toward a stu-dent’s
GPA.
With a newly proposed policy
introduced by several faculty mem-bers,
students will have to remain
in the class and receive a grade after
the eleventh week of classes. Under
this policy, the WP/WF period would
be removed completely.
Student Senate member John
Bodkin, ’17, will speak at an upcom-ing
faculty meeting for the first offi-cial
reading of the policy. He wrote
in an email the new policy would
remove students’ ability to drop
classes after their eleventh week.
“It was explained to me by a
faculty member of the Education
Policy Committee,” Bodkin said in
an email. “This change will put our
withdrawal policy more in line with
those of our peer institutions.”
By SAM TOPP
Associate News Editor
There is a $24,400 difference in
median salary between male and
female Lehigh graduates aged 34.
Data taken by The New York
Times’ “The Upshot” outlines various
economic information, including stu-dents’
average socioeconomic status,
their performance after graduation
and jumps in their status before and
after college.
“The Upshot” shows a total median
salary of $81,200 for graduates aged
34. The men’s median is $90,900,
while the median of their female
counterparts is $66,500. The average
woman earns 79 cents for every dol-lar
a man makes in Pennsylvania.
“People don’t know exactly why,”
Women’s Center director Rita Jones
said. “Is it childbearing issues? Is it
women changing roles? Or is it some
of the sexism that influences policy
and promotion that people are not
even conscious of?”
The lack of promotions and larger
salaries for women may be influ-enced
by the “mommy tax,” Jones
said. She said what often happens is
women begin moving into more typi-cally
male-dominated fields, such as
engineering. The average salary usu-ally
declines within those fields as
hiring equals out between genders.
This is contrasted by the “daddy
Restricted building access hinders student study hours
Kate Morrell/B&W Staff
Lehigh students study on Sunday in Linderman Library. Places like Linderman and Fairchild-
Martindale Library are often overcrowded during 4 o’clocks.
By AUSTIN KATZ
Assistant News Editor
In the midst of 4 o’clocks, especially
during peak hours, nearly all desks in
the libraries are filled.
On the weekends, only Maginnes
Hall, Neville Hall, Packard Lab
and Rauch Business Center remain
unlocked and allow room reserva-tions
for students to study. During
the week, other academic buildings,
such as Drown Hall and STEPS, are
open until 10 or 11 p.m., depending
on the department.
Linderman Library and Fairchild-
Martindale Library are open from
7:45 a.m. to 2 a.m. from Monday to
Thursday. On Friday and Saturday,
the libraries close at 10 p.m., and on
Saturday and Sunday, they open at
9 a.m. This schedule leaves students
with less study options during the
weeks without 4 o’clocks or finals.
During 4 o’ clocks, however, FML
is open for 24 hours all week and
certain academic buildings, such as
Packard Lab, are open for extended
hours until 2 a.m.
Brooke Glassman, ’19, said she
often studies in Linderman, but it
gets too crowded during 4 o’clocks and
finals week, so those weeks she has to
find a place to study at the University
Center or other spots on campus.
However, she thinks the libraries
have been emptier this semester than
last semester because of sorority and
fraternity new member education.
Edward Shupp, the chief of the
Lehigh University Police Department,
said having all buildings open every
day, all day is a big security risk
because it allows non-Lehigh stu-dents
and personnel to access the
buildings.
He said there are plenty of spaces
for students to study during the year
and the additional hours that aca-demic
buildings are open for during
4 o’clocks and finals weeks should be
enough for students.
The IDEAL Office — made up of
the student ID and access control
offices — creates the hours of opera-tion
for academic buildings.
“The IDEAL Office determines aca-demic
building hours based upon a
report that the office receives from
designated building monitors from
See BUILDINGS Page 4
See ADD DROP Page 4 See SALARY Page 3