LehighWeek Volume 09, Issue 24

              LEHIGHWEEK
with South Mountaineer
Volume 9, Issue 24
Lehigh University Campus Weekly
April 3,1996
INSIDE
News
Events
People
Jobs
Calendar
1-5
6-9
11
8
12
THIS    WEEK
Nigerian playwright Wole
Soyinka to give
Cohen
lecture
April 10
3
Marilyn Quayle
to speak on
role of
women
April 10
3
University Council
seeks input
from
campus
4
Grad students to
run Alaska
marathon
5
Afro-pop vocalist
SalifKeita
to perform
April 13
9
Profile of
Jim
Hobbs
11
Princeton softball
Invitational
results
16
South
Mountaineer
Powell charms Lehigh audience
Straumanis inaugurated as first Ann and Herbert Siegel Dean
Sam While
Gen. Colin Powell (above)
addresses 3,000 people in
Grace Hall. The convocation
was a private event to the
Lehigh community.
Dean Joan Straumanis (left)
speaks of the importance of
balance in education.
Herbert and Ann Siegel '50
(below), donors of the Siegel
deanship, enjoy an ancedote in
Powell's talk.
Young Hong
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Gen. Colin Powell described his recent
book tour as "2.9 seconds of quality
bonding" with each of the thousands of
fans who wanted his autograph. Lehigh
students and faculty fared far better than
that March 28, as Powell shared nearly an
hour of stories about his life and career
with a packed Grace Hall audience at the
College of Arts and Sciences Convocation.
The convocation was called to honor
Ann and Herbert Siegel '50 for their
generous gifts to the university and to
formally install Joan Straumanis as the
first Siegel dean. The Siegels received
university medals for endowing the
deanship in the College of Arts and
Sciences, the first deanship in the university to be supported by an endowment.
Powell's autobiography, My American
Journey, tells of his rise from an "ordinary
kid from the Bronx" to chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. With constant media
attention focused on his possible presidential candidacy, "It would be easy to lose
balance and perspective," Powell said.
He told of a recent luncheon he attended as guest of honor. The waitress had
collected tickets from everyone before she
would serve them lunch, but no one had
given Powell a ticket, so the waitress
would not serve him until someone
intervened. "Such things will keep you
humble and remind you there is still a
work ethic in this country," he said,
laughing.
Powell said his Jamaican heritage had
sometimes caused him to be the victim of
racial prejudice, and that although much
improvement had been made, "We must
remember there is still a long way to go;
we are not there yet."
After receiving his university medal,
Siegel said he wanted to keep his comments brief because of something that his
wife had told him before the program
began. "In your over 40 years in show
business you must have learned something," she told him. "When you have a
speaker like Colin Powell, you should get
off the stage."
Straumanis, the first woman to become
an academic dean at Lehigh, said some
may choose to see her as a token. "Then I
promise to be a fighting token," she said,
noting throughout her talk that women,
minorities and foreign students would be
important and growing constituencies in
the college.
Straumanis also spoke ofthe importance of the liberal arts in creating a
balanced education. "The problems ofthe
See Convocation on page 2
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